THE COWARDLY COUGAR 



passed Vaughan, he roped at her and made a 

 perfect catch of a juniper bush back of him. 



"Come on, boys; we got to step on her 

 tail!" Ambrose yelled. And away we dashed. 



I came to rest upon the rim of a moderately 

 high precipice in time to find that some of the 

 dogs had missed the trail. The lioness had 

 gone over at a favorable spot, but the younger 

 members of the pack had raced along the ledge 

 for some distance before discovering their 

 mistake. Old Pot-hound, however, had not 

 been so easily fooled; he had kept his nose to 

 the ground and had taken nothing for granted. 

 He, too, had gone over, and was now giving 

 tongue below us and back to our right. With 

 frantic wails, the young hounds answered him 

 and leaped blindly. They struck the slope 

 below and in a clatter of gravel fled out of 

 sight. 



There was no time to waste. Again we re- 

 peated our first mad descent until we fetched 

 up at the white limestone, which dropped 

 sheer for perhaps three hundred feet. Along 

 the top of this we crashed for half a mile until 

 we came up with our prey. There were no 

 trees here; she had come to bay on a huge 

 white bowlder. She was lashing her sides and 



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