WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 63 



started the previous day. Before we had gone a mile, 

 that is, only about half-way to where we had come across 

 the cougar track the preceding day, we crossed another, 

 and as we deemed a fresher, trail, which Goff pronounced 

 to belong to a cougar even larger than the one we had 

 just killed. The hounds were getting both weary and 

 footsore, but the scent put heart into them and away they 

 streamed. They followed it across a sage-brush flat, and 

 then worked along under the base of a line of cliffs cou- 

 gar being particularly apt thus to travel at the foot of 

 cliffs. The pack kept well together, and it was pleasant, 

 as we cantered over the snowy plain beside them, to lis- 

 ten to their baying, echoed back from the cliffs above. 

 Then they worked over the hill and we spurred ahead 

 and turned to the left, up the same gorge or valley in 

 which we had killed the cougar the day before. The 

 hounds followed the trail straight to the cliff-shoulder 

 where the day before the pack had been puzzled until 

 Boxer struck the fresh scent. Here they seemed to be 

 completely at fault, circling everywhere, and at one time 

 following their track of yesterday over to the pinyon-tree 

 up which the cougar had first gone. 



We made our way up the ravine to the head of the 

 plateau, and then, turning, came back along the ridge 

 until we reached the top of the shoulder where the dogs 

 had been; but when we got there they had disappeared. 

 It did not seem likely that the cougar had crossed the 

 ravine behind us although as a matter of fact this was 

 exactly what had happened and we did not know what 

 to make of the affair. 



