118 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



holding it as far away from his person as possible, told the 

 owner that his wishes should be complied with, and he 

 started away in lighter costume than that worn by the 

 famous Georgia colonel, and that consisted of only a spur 

 and a paper collar. After breakfast my host and myself 

 armed ourselves, and, calling the' dogs together, started on 

 the trail of the cougar. The morning being fine, and the 

 dew still on the ground, the two harriers that formed a- 

 portion of the small pack had little difficulty in following 

 up the trail as far as a glade in the copse, but they lost 

 it there. When we emerged on this we saw fifty or sixty 

 Indians engaged in collecting brushwood and decaying 

 felled trees, and making a large pile of them. On ap- 

 proaching them, V asked them what they were about, 



but no one answered. Thinking that they were preparing 

 for a grand feast, and that they had perhaps called on his 

 farm-yard for some tender chickens or turkeys, he moved 

 toward the spot where their provisions were placed, and, 

 after scanning them closely, saw among them a portion of 

 the shote he had lost the night before. 



Forgetting for the moment all idea of what he had been 

 hunting during the morning, he began to rail at the Indians 

 as thieves, and to assert that it was they who had stolen 

 the pigs and sheep he had lately lost, while he was blaming 

 it all on cougars. The man who had given him the trousers 

 for safe-keeping, on seeing him pull out the remnants of the 

 pig, whose body was drained of every drop of blood, ap- 

 proached him and said, " Mehali um find ;" and pointing in 

 the direction in which the squaw had found it, he led us to 

 the edge of the copse to prove that he was right. When 

 we reached the spot in the woods where the dogs had lost 

 the trail, he pointed to a small pile of leaves and boughs, 



and, on scattering them, V found by the blood on the 



ground that the cougar had feasted on it there,. and covered 

 the remainder so as to keep it for another occasion. " If I 

 had any strychnine in the house," said he, " I'd poison some 

 fresh meat and put it in that place for the thieving brute ; 

 but as I have not, there is nothing left to be done except to 



