146 Hunting the Grisly 



itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements and 

 uniformity of color make it difficult to dis- 

 cover at best, and its extreme watchfulness 

 helps it; but it is the cougar's reluctance to 

 leave cover at any time, its habit of slinking 

 off through the brush, instead of running in 

 the open, when startled, and the way in which 

 it lies motionless in its lair even when a man 

 is within twenty yards, that render it so diffi- 

 cult to still-hunt. 



In fact it is next to impossible with any 

 hope of success regularly to hunt the cougar 

 without dogs or bait. Most cougars that are 

 killed by still-hunters are shot by accident 

 while the man is after other game. This has 

 been my own experience. Although not com- 

 mon, cougars are found near my ranch, where 

 the ground is peculiarly favorable for the 

 solitary rifleman; and for ten years I have, 

 off and on, devoted a day or two to their pur- 

 suit; but never successfully. One December 

 a large cougar took up his abode on a densely 

 wooded bottom two miles above the ranch 

 house. I did not discover his existence until 

 I went there one evening to kill a deer, and 

 found that he had driven all the deer off 

 the bottom, having killed several, as well as 

 a young heifer. Snow was falling at the time, 



