A COUGAR HUNT 21 



eleven we struck a cougar trail of the night be 

 fore. It was a fine sight to see the hounds run 

 ning it through the woods in full cry, while 

 we loped after them. After one or two checks, 

 they finally roused the cougar, a big male, from 

 a grove of aspens at the head of a great gorge 

 which broke through the cliffs into the canyon. 

 Down the gorge went the cougar, and then 

 along the slope between the white cliffs and the 

 red; and after some delay in taking the wrong 

 trail, the hounds followed him. The gorge was 

 impassable for horses, and we rode along the 

 rim, looking down into the depths, from which 

 rose the chiming of the hounds. At last a 

 change in the sound showed that they had him 

 treed; and after a while we saw them far below 

 under a pine, across the gorge, and on the upper 

 edge of the vermilion cliff wall. Down we went 

 to them, scrambling and sliding; down a break 

 in the cliffs, round the head of the gorge just 

 before it broke off into a side-canyon, through 

 the thorny scrub which tore our hands and 

 faces, along the slope where, if a man started 

 rolling, he never would stop until life had left 

 his body. Before we reached him the cougar 

 leaped from the tree and tore off, with his big 

 tail stretched straight as a bar behind him; 

 but a cougar is a short-winded beast, and a 



