“W-w-w-what under the canopy was that?” stammered Ralph as soon as he had recovered himself somewhat from his surprise.

“Mountain lion, cougar, some calls ’em. Lucky she didn’t claw you, boy,” responded Mountain Jim. “If she hadn’t dived off so quick I’d have shot her. But hullo, what’s that?”

From the back of the cave came a plaintive sound of mewing, as if there were a litter of kittens concealed there.

“Young ones, by the Blue Bells of Scotland!” exclaimed Mountain Jim. “Say, we’re mighty lucky that the old lioness didn’t attack us.”

“Why didn’t she?” asked Ralph.

“Dunno. There’s no accountin’ for the freaks of wild things. At one time they’d attack a[193] battleship, at another time they’ll run like cotton-tails. But I reckon this old lioness is off looking for her mate.”

“And they will come back and attack us?”

“That ain’t worryin’ me. We’ve got good rifles, and cougars are mostly dumb cowards anyhow.”

“I hope these are,” said Ralph fervently, “although I’d like a shot at one, all right.”

They went to the back of the cave to look at the kittens. There were four of them, pretty little fluffy, fawn-colored creatures, whose eyes had apparently only just opened. They blinked as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared outside the cave.

But the two did not bend over the litter of lion cubs for long. The stench of decaying meat around the den was terrible. The carcasses of at least a dozen deer lay there, besides the bones of smaller creatures.

“The old man goes hunting and brings all that[194] truck back,” said Mountain Jim as they sought the front of the cave where the air was fresher.

“I’d like to get one of those cubs and tame it,” said Ralph.

“What for? He’d get so savage when you raised him that you couldn’t do much with him ’cept shoot him. Puts me in mind of a fellow that used to live back of Bear Mountain long time ago, and trained a grizzly so that he could ride him. Like to hear the yarn?”

There was a twinkle in Mountain Jim’s eye as he spoke that warned Ralph to prepare for a wonderful tale of some sort; but anything would serve to pass the time, so as Jim drew out his old brier and lighted up, the boy nodded.

“Well, this here fellow, Abe Brown his name was, Abe J. Brown, caught this grizzly young and trained him so as he was most as good as a saddle horse. Abe and his bear was known all over the country thereabouts, and was accounted no common wonder.”

[195]

“I should think not. Do you mean to say that this fellow actually rode his bear just like a horse?”

“The very same identical way—Wow, what a flash!—Well, as I was sayin, Abe, he’d ride this bear all about, huntin’, fishin’, and all. Well, sir, one day Abe goes up on the mountain after a deer. The mountain was a famous place for grizzlies in them days, and what does Abe do but ride plumbbango right into the middle of a convention of sixteen of them that was discussing bear business.

“Well, Abe and his bear got mixed up right away, and Abe’s bear got killed in the scrap, being sort of soft from having been raised a pet.”

“But what happened to Abe?” asked Ralph.

“He wasn’t no ways what you might call communicative about what happened in that canyon on the mountain, Abe wasn’t,” went on Mountain Jim, fixing Ralph ............