116 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



if such an accident occurred he was afraid that its natural 

 instinct would prevail, and that he would be pounced upon. 

 It began to get wearied after awhile of the gambolling, and 

 kept closer to him ; its tail also began to swing suspicious- 

 ly from side to side, and its loud purring was occasionally 

 transformed into a blood-curdling scream. Just as he was 

 about giving up all hopes of getting rid of it quietly, he 

 heard the rumble of approaching wheels, and taking cour- 

 age from this indication of help, he gave a loud and pro- 

 longed yell, in which there was more of fear than defiance. 

 The cougar was startled so much by this fierce and unex- 

 pected cry that it fled into the woods terror-stricken, and 

 disappeared like magic in the shrubbery. When the driver 

 of the wagon approached the man, he found him so weak 

 from excitement that he could hardly speak, but he recov- 

 ered himself after a little while and told his tale. He was 

 driven to town, and, after taking a long pull at something 

 stronger than tea, was himself again ; but he will not to his 

 dying day, probably, forget his agonizing half-hour with a 

 cougar. 



I heard of another instance in Minnesota, in which a 

 cougar leaped from a tree upon the driver of a wagon who 

 was carrying home some fresh meat from town. When 

 the animal made the leap it knocked the man back in the 

 wagon ; but before it could do any more harm than to 

 claw him severely, he tumbled out on the road at the tail- 

 board, while his horses bounded away at full speed, carry- 

 ing the assailant with them. They say the man was so 

 frightened that he stayed in the road all night, with his 

 nose stuck in the dust ; and on being rallied about his 

 courage the next day, he nonchalantly replied that he was 

 not going to take any chances, and he would rather lie in 

 the dust than in the stomach of a cougar. 



The first time I had the pleasure of killing one of these 

 fierce cats I was stopping at a rancher's cabin near the foot 

 of the Sierra Nevada Mountains for a few days. While 

 sleeping soundly one night after a hard day's hunting, I 

 was startled suddenly by the barking of dogs, the cackling 



