River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-02-13

pincushions nova bristle with hun
dreds of the maddening needles of the
HcpaL or prickly-pear cactus, each al
most as painful as the sting of a bee. II
took me two solid hours TO pick them all
out. and he stood it like a hero.
His reward came that night, in the
lonely camp of two beaver-trappers on
the Trincheras, where he ate fresh
antelope meat until he looked as il he
had swallowed young balloon.
We tramped on down the upper valley
of the blue Rio Grande, vastly interested
in the quaint Mormon and Mexican set
Elements, and equally prejudiced against
the half-scOre of swapping curs-of every
degree of mOngreldom, and unanimous
only in ugliness and treachery-that
swarmed about every house.
One moonlight night that week, in q
deep ravine above Embudo, Shadow
who had dropped well behind-came
suddenly boiling up between my legs
and upset me. He had good reason to
seek help. A hundred feet behind us
came long, dark figure, crawling with
that inimitable, deadly grace that only a
cat has.
1t ras cattle hugest cat of the
Western Hemisphere, the mountain
lion, or cougar of the Rockies. Terri
BILE as it is when wounded, the cougar
does not voluntarily attack man, and
when / stood with my rifle at ready
but unable to see the sights-and shout
ed, the great brute made an incredible
leap up the side of the arroyo and dis.
appeared in the brush.
All the rest Of the walk Shadow chung
to my side; and when i spread my
blanket sleeping-bag in a Mexican
howell at Embudo, he was still shivering.
Quaint old Santa Fe, where we lin.
gered week, was the first town Shadow
had ever been in, and he was duly awed.
The market, however, delighted him.
The first time we passed it he seized a
suspended rabbit and brought it to me
with proud air that said: "Ah, hai
Here they have jacks that can catch,
anyhow" And he was greatly puzzled
and panied to learn that marketed
rabbits were not fair prey.
For a fortnight he followed me faith
fully, but with evident misgiyings,
through the mines of Golden and San
Pedro. We were now literally insep.
arabic. If l changed my chair in a
room while he slept on the floor, he
must get up and lick my hand before he
could continue his nap. He seemed to
be haunted by the fear that the only one
who had ever shown him kindness would
escape from him.
81 s,,-o "a
snow, with twenty miles to make be-
fore dark, we waded laboriously across
the wooded hills-our only guide the
trail of a single horse. Presently a
strong wind began to dry and drift the
snow, and soon had absolutely obliter-
ated the trail.
1t was fearful day we passed there,
lost in the mountains, fioundering
through the heavy snow, Tumbling into
drift-hidden GrrOyOs, faint with hunger,
expecting death-and kept up only by
trained muscles and stubborn will.
At last Shadow could go no further,
but fell, bowling dismally, under a
spreading pinOn whose piny branches
partially averted the bitter storm.
took him up on my shoulders as one car
ries a sheep-his long legs on either
side of my neck-and struggled desper-
ately on just as the sun sank behind
hill | saw human form in silhouette
against the fiery disc, and few minutes
later fell fainting across a hospitable
threshold in San Antonio.
Among the rough mountains and lava
beds of Western New Mexico we found
many hardships and many pleasures.
Our hosts were miners, cowboys, section
men, Mexicans and Indians; our food
uncertain; our beds generally the groIind
or the snow, sometimes the adobe paw
ing of an Aztec house, or floor of Amer
lean boards.
But our eyes were clear, our lungs
drank glorious draughts of mountain
air, our muscles rejoiced in their free
play, and our spirits fairly bubbled over.
Shadow kept me in daily roar by his
wild reaching after the unattainable
rabbit. The performance never lost its
humOr.
Once in awhile he caught a cotton
tail-the smaller rabbit-and always
came proudly to me TO share his vic
tory. Once, too. he overlook a prairie
dog before it could reach it's hole. But
when those chisel-teeth shut on his
nose, his appreciation of the joke faded.
He was game" however and Selling
his little butter-ball of Zoe again he
snapped it dozen feet in the air by a
quick jerk of his head, and as it came
down caught it with vicious crunch
that settled the matter.
lie came off less happily with couple
of coyotes that kindly allowed him to
catch up with them-and how he wished
he hadn't! Very effective teeth have
these cowardly little wolves of the
Plains. He was never afraid to try con-
illusions with any one dog, and took hi
defeats manfully; but when score
jumped on him, as they frequently did
in the Aztec towns, he would roll over
on his back with all four legs ludi-
crously alOft, and fairly yell for help
which you may be sure he always got.
fell into some very pretty scrapes by
discOuraging strange ours from lunch
ing on poor Shadow.
just over the line into Arizona, we
were following a deer one day when the
breaking of a treacherous ledge dropped
me twenty feet down a cliff. Shadow
was watching me below, and can not
tell how he escaped being crushed; but
when | recovered consciousness, to find
the large bone of my left forearm pro-
jecting through the flesh, the poor dog
was licking my face plaintively.
He watched me while / set the tract
ure by putting my canteen-strap around
my wrist and a tree, and pulling the
bone into place-there was no doctor
within hundred miles-and while i
made rude splint of chdppdrO branches;
and then walked sOberly beside me
through all that awful walk to Winslow.
Thereafter he was-Or seemed TO me
more affectionate than ever; not with
the natural affusiveness of his puppy
hood, but in a quiet, watchful, unobtru-
sive way that was fairly human.
We trudged on and on, nearly the
whole length of desolate Arizona; far
ing roughly, but finding it easier to keep
on than to give up to the pain. We
waded another heavy snow in the noble
San Francisco range, explored the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado-God's
masterpiece on this planet-and STROBE
on down the long slope toward The
Needles, where the road crosses the
Colorado from Arizona TO California.
We were now in the vast Colorado
Desert, where, even in winter, the
MONDAY heat is fearful, though the
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