Outstalking a Cougar 



along the edge of the cliff in the direction from which 

 he had first come when I saw him while at lunch. As 

 there was no foliage and the edge of the mesa was 

 practically without cover, and the cougar was not in 

 sight, I concluded he must have gone down over the 

 edge of the cliff to hide in among the rocks on its rough 

 face. Keeping well back from the edge, I followed 

 his tracks, now and then discernible between the bare 

 spots, for perhaps two hundred yards, and then lost 

 them. I crawled on my stomach to the edge of the 

 cliff and looked over. There was no game in sight. 

 Crawling carefully back, I followed the edge of the 

 mesa perhaps another hundred yards, and this time was 

 rewarded by a sight of the lion lying at full length on a 

 little ledge of rock some twenty-five or thirty yards 

 below me, and perhaps fifty yards to the left. Cautiously 

 taking the back track, I estimated the right spot to 

 again peer over the cliff and get a shot. As I had 

 nothing but my forty-five to kill him with, I did not 

 wish to take any chances. The next time I peered 

 over the cliff the cat was not over forty yards from my 

 position. 



Even while carefully aiming my six-shooter at the 

 back of his head, I could not but note the sly curiosity 

 with which he was watching the entrance to the cave 

 where both he and I had first gone in. Although I 

 could not see it, it must have been in plain sight from 

 where he was lying flattened out on the ledge like a 

 squirrel on the limb of a tree. I even noted the tip of 

 his tawny tail as it snakily waved, slowly back and 

 forth. 



I fired. 



With the click of the hammer the cougar sprang out 

 into the air, struck some jagged boulders forty or fifty 

 feet below, tumbled and rolled a few yards farther down, 



7 



