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were all as keen as mustard, were not on a trail, 

 and when the deer got up but fifty yards or so from 

 them." They were never permitted to follow elk, 

 deer, antelope, rabbit, or wolves unless the latter were 

 wounded. 



Bob-cats are abundant in parts of Colorado and in 

 many other Rocky Mountain States, as well as in the 

 Canadian provinces. Thousands of skins have been 

 brought into the ports at Hudson Bay and elsewhere, 

 and many are annually taken with traps. 



Besides taking to the trees when pursued the bob- 

 cats enter holes in the ground, and Roosevelt says 

 they lost over half the bob-cats they started by their 

 getting into caves, deep holes or washouts. 



Roosevelt describes the chase of a bob-cat which 

 took to a hole in the ground, as follows : 



" 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 bob-cat, 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 considerable 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 white-tail deer. Before cither we or the dogs 

 quite grasped the situation it bolted into another hole 



