-47-
shot
at it and knocked it over. But the lion just rolled over on his feet and
started to leave those parts.
Finley and the other fellows took after him,
since it was obvious that he was wounded and not making very good time. They
managed to keep him in sight for about a mile and were sure they had him when
he ran into a box canyon. The lion, however, started up a faint trail up one
side of the canyon to a small cave they could see about a hundred feet from the
floor of the canyon. They followed him up this trail, but when they got to the
cave - there was no lion!
The cave was one of those dished out affairs
that are so common in the south-west. Eroded out of the face of a cliff and
cup-shaped. The only access to it was by that trail. But this cave was a bit
queer. It had a sand floor and was just big enough to park twenty cars in it.
On the cliff edge was a low stone wall. This in itself was not too unusual,
because such caves had sheltered Indians for thousands of years.
The thing that did make it unusual was that
in the rear of it was a perfectly round hole. It was obvious that the lion had
ducked into this.
They approached it rather cautiously and
tossed some stones in it to see if they could stir him up. But there was no
response. They could hear the stones rolling and bouncing down an incline and
the sound just got fainter and fainter until it died away altogether.
They then approached the hole and peered
down into it. It was perfectly round--also it was about four or five feet in
diameter. They couldn't see very far down it, but it appeared to descend rather
sharply and at a steady gradient. The fellows gathered some dry grass from the
canyon floor and made some torches. The incline of the bore was too steep for
them to climb down so they tossed the torches down it. They just slid