38 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



and measured the cougar, and then took lunch, making 

 as impartial a distribution of it as was possible among 

 ourselves and the different members of the pack; for, of 

 course, we were already growing to have a hearty fellow- 

 feeling for each individual dog. 



The next day we were again in luck. After about two 

 hours' ride we came upon an old trail. It led among 

 low hills, covered with pinyon and cedar, and broken by 

 gullies or washouts, in whose sharp sides of clay the water 

 had made holes and caves. Soon the hounds left it to 

 follow a bobcat, and we had a lively gallop through the 

 timber, dodging the sharp snags of the dead branches 

 as best we might. The cat got into a hole in a side 

 washout; Baldy went in after it, and the rest of us, men 

 and dogs, clustered about to look in. After a consider- 

 able time he put the cat out of the other end of the hole, 

 nearly a hundred yards off, close to the main washout. 

 The first we knew of it we saw it coming straight toward 

 us, its tail held erect like that of a whitetail deer. Be- 

 fore either we or the dogs quite grasped the situation it 

 bolted into another hole almost at our feet, and this time 

 Baldy could not find it, or else could not get at it. Then 

 we took up the cougar trail again. It criss-crossed in 

 every direction. We finally found an old " bait," a buck. 

 It was interesting to see the way in which the cougar had 

 prowled from point to point, and the efforts it had made 

 to approach the deer which it saw or smelled. Once 

 we came to where it had sat down on the edge of a 

 cliff, sitting on its haunches with its long tail straight 

 behind it and looking out across the valley. After it had 



