Presently he could distinctly hear the heavy breathing of the horse and the gentle creak of the saddle.  Within speaking distance he told the foreman that he had shot a whopper of a lion and it looked as though they would need another pack-horse.  Bailey said nothing until he had arrived at the angle of the switchback, when he lighted a match and gazed at the great gray cat of the rocks.

“You get twenty dollars bounty,” he told Pete.  “And you sure stampeded me into the worst piece of down timber I’ve rode for a long time.  Gosh! but you’re quick with that smoke-wagon of yours!  Lost my hat and liked to broke my leg ag’in’ a tree, but I run plumb onto your horse draggin’ a rope.  I tied him down there on the flat.  I figure you’ve saved a dozen calves by killin’ that kitty-cat.  Did you know it was a lion when you shot?”

“Nope, or I’d ‘a’ sure beat the hosses down the grade.  I jest cut loose at them two green eyes a-burnin’ in the brush and whump! down comes Mr. Kitty-cat almost plumb atop me.  Mebby I wasn’t scared!  I was wonderin’ why you set off in sech a hurry.  You sure burned the ground down the mountain.”

“Just stayin’ with my saddle,” laughed Bailey.  “Old Frisco here ain’t lost any lions recent.”

“Will he pack?”

“I dunno.  Wish it was daylight.”

“Wish we had another rope,” said Pete.  “My rope is on my hoss and yours is cinchin’ the deer on him.  And that there lion sure won’t lead. He’s dead.”

“‘Way high up in the Mokiones,’” chanted Bailey.

“‘A-trippin’ down the slope’!” laughed Pete.  “And we ain’t got no rope.  But say, Jim, can’t we kind of hang him acrost your saddle and steady him down to the flats?”

“I’ll see what I can do with the tie-strings.  I’ll hold Frisco.  You go ahead and heave him up.”

Pete approached the lion and tried to lift it, but it weaved and slipped from his arms.  “Limper ’n wet rawhide!” asserted Pete.

“Are you that scared?  Shucks, now, I’d ‘a’ thought—­”

“The doggone lion, I mean.  Every time I heave at him he jest folds up and lays ag’in’ me like he was powerful glad to see me.  You try him.”

The horse snorted and shied as the foreman slung the huge carcass across the saddle and tied the lion’s fore feet and hind feet with the saddle-strings.  They made slow progress to the flats below, where they had another lively session with Pete’s horse, who had smelled the lion.  Finally with their game roped securely they set out on foot for the ranch.

The hunting, and especially Pete’s kill, had drawn them close together.  They laughed and talked, making light of high-heeled boots that pinched and blistered as they plodded across the starlit mesa.

“Let’s put one over on the boys!” suggested Pete.  “We’ll drift in quiet, hang the buck in the slaughter-house, and then pack the kitty-cat into the bunk-house and leave him layin’ like he was asleep, by Bill Haskins’s bunk.  Ole Bill allus gits his feet on the floor afore he gits his eyes open.  Mebby he won’t step high and lively when he sees what he’s got his feet on!”