In the Pecos Country by Edward Sylvester Ellis (i read books txt) 📗
- Author: Edward Sylvester Ellis
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He made the jump, and awakening instantly, found he had leaped “out of bed,” and was falling downward through the limbs. It all flashed upon the lad with the suddenness of lightning.
He remembered the ravenous wolves, and, with a shuddering horror which cannot be pictured or imagined, felt that he was dropping directly into their fangs. It was the instinct of nature which caused him to throw out his feet and hands in the hope of checking his fall.
By a hair's breadth he succeeded. But it was nearly the lowermost limb which he grasped with his desperate clutch, and hung with his arms dangling within reach of the wolves below.
The famished brutes seemed to be expecting this choice tid-bit to drop into their maws, and their yelps and howls became wilder than ever, and they nearly broke each other's necks in their furious frolicing back and forth.
The moment young Munson succeeded in checking himself, he made a quick effort to draw up his feet and regain his place beyond the reach of the brutes. It was done in a twinkling, but not soon enough to escape one of the creatures, which made a leap and fastened upon his foot.
The lad was just twisting himself over the limb, when he felt one of his shoes seized in the jaws of a wolf. The sudden addition to his weight drew him down again, and almost jerked his hold from the limb, in which event he would have been snapped up and disposed of before he could have made a struggle in the way of resistance. But he held on, and with an unnatural spasm of strength, drew himself and the clogging weight part way up, kicking both feet with the fury of despair.
The wolf held fast to one shoe, while the heel of the other was jammed into his eyes. This, however, would not have dislodged him, had not his own comrades interfered, and defeated the brute by their own eager greediness. Seeing that the first one had fastened to the prize, a half-dozen of them began leaping upward with the purpose of securing a share in the same. In this way they got into each other's way, and all came tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Before they could repeat the performance the terrified lad was a dozen feet beyond their reach, and climbing still higher.
When Fred reached his former perch, he was in doubt whether he should halt or go still higher. His heart was throbbing violently, and he was white and panting from the frightful shock he had received.
“That was awful!” he gasped, as he reflected upon what had taken place. “I don't know what saved me from death! Yes, I do; it was God!” he added, looking up through the leaves to the clear, moonlit sky above him. “He has brought me through a good many dangers, and He will not forsake me.”
After such an experience, it was impossible that sleep should return to the eyes of the lad. He resumed his old perch, but only because it was the most comfortable. Had he believed that there was a possibility of slumber, he would have fought it off, but there was not.
“I'll wait here till morning,” he said to himself. “It must be close at hand; and then, maybe, they will go away.”
He looked longingly for some sign of the breaking of day, but the moonlight, for a long time, was unrelieved by the rose-flush of the morning.
CHAPTER XXII. LOST
Following the escape of their human victim, the wolves had maintained a frightful and most discordant howling, as if angered beyond expression at the style in which they had been baffled of their prey.
The lad sat listening to this, when suddenly it ceased. Silence from each beast came as completely and simultaneously as if they were members of an orchestra subject to the wand of such an enchanter as Theodore Thomas. What could it be?
For the space of two or three minutes the silence remained as profound as that of the tomb, and then there came a rush and patter, made by the wolves as they fled pell-mell.
At first sight this seemed a reason for congratulation in getting rid of such unwelcome company; but Fred saw in it more cause for alarm. Very evidently the creatures would not have left the spot in such a hurry unless they were frightened away by some wild animal more to be dreaded than themselves.
“I'm afraid I'll have to use my rifle,” he thought, as he moved softly downward until he reached a point from which he could see anything that passed beneath. “It's pretty rough to have to fire a fellow's last shot, when he's likely to starve to death for it; but a beast that can scare away a pack of wolves is likely to be one that will take a well-aimed bullet to stop—-”
This train of thought was abruptly checked by a sight which almost paralyzed him. He could dimly discern the ground beneath, and he was watching and listening when a large figure came to view, and halted directly beneath him, where the first wolf had sat upon his haunches and looked so longingly upward.
No noise could be heard and it seemed to move like a phantom; but, even in the gloom, the peculiar swinging motion of the body showed prodigious strength and activity. There could be no doubt, either, that the animal was a climber, and therefore more to be feared than a thousand wolves.
Fred had gained quite a knowledge of the animals of the country on his way across the plains, and in the indistinct view obtained he made up his mind that this was that most dangerous of wild beasts in the Southwest, the American cougar. If such were the case, the lad's only defense lay in the single charge of his rifle. The cougar could leap among the limbs as easily as a cat bounds from the floor into the chair.
Fred had left his rifle beyond his reach, and he was about to climb up to it, when the possibility occurred to him that, perhaps, the cougar was not aware that any one was in the tree, and, if unmolested might pass by. Accordingly, the fugitive remained as motionless as a statue, his eyes fixed upon the dreaded brute, ready to make for his gun the instant the cougar showed any sign of making for him.
The animal, known in some parts of the country as the panther, or “painter,” remained equally motionless. It looked precisely as if he suspected that something was in the wind and had slipped up to this point to listen for some evidence of what it was. Fred, who had heard fabulous stories of the “smelling” powers of all wild animals, feared that the cougar would scent him out, but he showed no evidence of his ability to do so.
After remaining stationary a minute or two, he moved forward a couple of steps, and then paused as before. The lad was fearful
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