22 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



of dogs. There are many contradictions in its character. 

 Like the American wolf, it is certainly very much afraid 

 of man; yet it habitually follows the trail of the hunter or 

 solitary traveller, dogging his footsteps, itself always un- 

 seen. I have had this happen to me personally. When 

 hungry it will seize and carry off any dog; yet it will 

 sometimes go up a tree when pursued even by a single 

 small dog wholly unable to do it the least harm. It is 

 small wonder that the average frontier settler should 

 grow to regard almost with superstition the great furtive 

 cat which he never sees, but of whose presence he is ever 

 aware, and of whose prowess sinister proof is sometimes 

 afforded by the deaths not alone of his lesser stock, but 

 even of his milch cow or saddle horse. 



The cougar is as large, as powerful, and as formidably 

 armed as the Indian panther, and quite as well able to 

 attack man; yet the instances of its having done so are 

 exceedingly rare. The vast majority of the tales to this 

 effect are undoubtedly inventions. But it is foolish to 

 deny that such attacks on human beings ever occur. 

 There are a number of authentic instances, the latest that 

 has come to my knowledge being related in the following 

 letter, of May 15, 1893, written to Dr. Merriam by Pro- 

 fessor W. H. Brewer, of Yale: " In 1880 I visited the 

 base of Mount Shasta, and stopped a day to renew the 

 memories of 1862, when I had climbed and measured this 

 mountain. Panthers were numerous and were so destruc- 

 tive to sheep that poisoning by strychnine was common. 

 A man living near who had (as a young hunter) gone up 

 Mount Shasta with us in '62, now married (1880) and 



