THE COWARDLY COUGAR 



music of the hounds increased until the cliffs 

 reverberated with it. We crept round the 

 Roman nose of a steep bluff, filtered down 

 through an abatis of gnarled cedars, and 

 Eureka! there was our lion. 



She was a majestic creature, a big female; 

 she was poised gracefully about twenty feet 

 from the ground, and beneath her the dogs 

 were boiling. She favored us with a grave 

 and dignified stare, then resumed her obser- 

 vation of the pack below. The mountain side 

 was pitched at the angle of a church roof; 

 nevertheless, it was exceedingly brushy, and 

 so there was little opportunity for photog- 

 raphy. I took several stills of her while we 

 were waiting for Miller and Vaughan to appear 

 with the moving-picture camera, but limbs 

 obscured the view and the result was nothing 

 to be proud of. 



"She won't stand much longer," Ambrose 

 warned us. "Scatter out below, and be care- 

 ful she don't jump on you." 



I, for one, was perfectly willing to exercise 

 extreme care in this respect, and I ventured 

 the suggestion that Ambrose direct his warning 

 to her, not to us. 



When Miller arrived he was pretty badly 

 185 



