236 ON THE FKONTIER. 



During our stay in Wet-mountain Valley we neither 

 got bear nor puma. The bears had housed up for the 

 season shortly before our arrival ; and although they re- 

 appeared before we left, being then quite unfit to be eaten, 

 their pelts totally worthless, while from hunger they were 

 very dangerous, though we daily saw signs of their being 

 about, we did not make them objects of pursuit. Still, 

 had we seen one, we should certainly have risked a shot. 

 Pumas we were anxious to get ; we wanted their skins, 

 and we wanted their claws ; but pumas we could not get. 

 We often heard them roar. Any time we could see their 

 footprints : on some rare occasions we saw them ! But 

 they proved too fly for us ; and they saved their skins, and 

 they saved their claws. We tried to track them up ; we 

 watched the bodies of dead deer ; we set guns for them. 

 All to no purpose. Their haunts were in such thick im- 

 penetrable jungle we could not follow them, and our set 

 guns were sprung by the lesser beasts of prey. Neither 

 were they sufficiently numerous or hungry to afford a 

 prospect of success in watching for them near a dead 

 decoy deer. 



The pumas made some few night attempts to steal the 

 meat hanging up round camp, and once successfully. The 

 first time one of them made a raid upon us, the dogs 

 attacked him furiously, and got well mauled ; they were 

 very lucky not to have been torn to pieces, having no 

 chance whatever against such a terrible opponent. It was 

 a lesson to Nip and Tug which they did not forget, for 

 though on every occasion thereafter when a puma 

 approached camp, they charged out upon him ; those know- 



