150 Hunting the Grisly 



off, when they can only be stopped by many 

 large and fierce hounds. Hounds are often 

 killed in these fights ; and if hungry a cougar 

 will pounce on any dog for food; yet, as I 

 have elsewhere related, I know of one in- 

 stance in which a small pack of big, savage 

 hounds killed a cougar unassisted. General 

 Wade Hampton, who with horse and hound 

 has been the mightiest hunter America has 

 ever seen, informs me that he has killed with 

 his pack some sixteen cougars, during the 

 fifty years he has hunted in South Carolina 

 and Mississippi. I believe they were all killed 

 in the latter State. General Hampton's hunt- 

 ing has been chiefly for bear and deer, though 

 his pack also follows the lynx and the gray 

 fox; and, of course, if good fortune throws 

 either a wolf or a cougar in his way it is 

 followed as the game of all others. All the 

 cougars he killed were either treed or brought 

 to bay in a canebrake by the hounds; and 

 they often handled the pack very roughly in 

 the death struggle. He found them much 

 more dangerous antagonists than the black 

 bear when assailed with the hunting knife, a 

 weapon of which he was very fond. How- 

 ever, if his pack had held a few very large, 

 savage dogs, put in purely for fighting when 



