158 Hunting the Grisly 



entirely disregarded in practice. I should 

 have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a 

 wood where there were cougars, or walking 

 through it after nightfall, than I should have 

 if the cougars were tomcats. 



Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional 

 instances attacks may occur. Cougars vary 

 wonderfully in size, and no less in temper. 

 Indeed I think that by nature they are as 

 ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are cow- 

 ardly; and that their habit of sometimes dog- 

 ging wayfarers for miles is due to a desire 

 for bloodshed which they lack the courage to 

 realize. In the old days, when all wild 

 beasts were less shy than at present, there was 

 more danger from the cougar^ and this was 

 especially true in the dark canebrakes of some 

 of the Southern States, where the man a cou- 

 gar was most likely to encounter was a nearly 

 naked and unarmed negro. General Hamp- 

 ton tells me that near his Mississippi planta- 

 tion, many years ago, a negro who was one 

 of a gang engaged in building a railroad 

 through low and wet ground was waylaid 

 and killed by a cougar late one night as he 

 was walking alone through the swamp. 



I knew two men in Missoula who were once 

 attacked by cougars in a very curious man- 



