58 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



went off at a great rate, and the sleeping dogs heard them 

 and scampered away to the sound. The trail led them 

 across a spur, into a valley, and out of it up the precipi- 

 tous side of another mountain. When we got to the edge 

 of the valley we could hear them barking treed nearly 

 at the summit of the mountain opposite. It was over an 

 hour's stiff climbing before we made our way around to 

 them, although we managed to get the horses up to within 

 a quarter of a mile of the spot. On approaching we found 

 the cougar in a leaning pinyon on a ledge at the foot of 

 a cliff. Jimmie was in the lower branches of the pinyon, 

 and Turk up above him, within a few feet of the cougar. 

 Evidently he had been trying to tackle her and had been 

 knocked out of the tree at least once, for he was bleed- 

 ing a good deal and there was much blood on the snow 

 beneath. Yet he had come back into the tree, and was 

 barking violently not more than three feet beyond her 

 stroke. She kept up a low savage growling, and as soon 

 as I appeared, fixed her yellow eyes on me, glaring and 

 snarling as I worked around into a place from which 

 I could kill her outright. Meanwhile Goff took up his 

 position on the other side, hoping to get a photograph 

 when I shot. My bullet went right through her heart. 

 She bit her paw, stretched up her head and bit a branch, 

 and then died where she was, while Turk leaped forward 

 at the crack of the rifle and seized her in the branches. 

 I had some difficulty in bundling him and Jimmie out of 

 the tree as I climbed up to throw down the cougar. 



Next morning we started early, intending to go to 

 Juniper Mountain, where we had heard that cougars 



