Outstalking a Cougar 



IT was in the early winter of 1899, over in the Brown's 

 Park country in north-eastern Utah. Upon second 

 thought, it may have been in southern Wyoming or 

 north-western Colorado, as the three States come in 

 contact somewhere in Brown's Park. Now, Brown's Park 

 at the time of which I write was no headquarters for 

 perambulating nursemaids, frog-ponds, or flower-gardens. 

 There was one continual grand battle-royal between 

 the sheep-herders, cattlemen, outlaws, Mormons, and 

 Uncompargre (simplified spelling) and Uintah Ute 

 Indians. The Indians, in fact, were the quietest and 

 most harmless human beings in the lot, and merely 

 kept on the outskirts of things and picked up whatever 

 was left from the various stampedes and brawls. They 

 usurped the place of the proverbial honest (called 

 " white " in the West) men when the " thieves fell out." 

 The proximity of the three States made it a very 

 short journey for ne'er-do-wells to commit some depre- 

 dation against a neighbour's sheep, cattle, or horses, then 

 eat their lunch on one side of the line and wash their 

 dishes on the other. The sheriffs and deputies of the 

 three different counties of the three different States 

 interested were most circumspect in their recognition 

 of the ethics of the sport called man-hunting, and 

 seemed to take particular pains not to encroach upon 

 each other's preserves. 



A set of papers that would do to jail a man within 

 Route County, Colorado, was a mere scrap of paper in 

 Uintah County, Utah, and Uintah County papers were 



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