With Gun & Rod in Canada 



of its two blazing eyes. No hunter needs to be told 

 what a wild animal's eyes look like in a dark place. If 

 my hair had been three feet long it would have stood 

 straight on end. I unlimbered the old forty-five, and 

 the report deafened and must have scared the cat. It 

 let out a nerve-racking snarl; there was a scrambling 

 and rolling of stones, a puff of dust, and then absolute 

 stillness. I could hear my heart beating. In fact, it 

 made a noise like a riveting hammer on a piece of boiler 

 plate. I waited with my six-shooter cocked for some- 

 thing to happen. Finally, after quite a struggle, I lit 

 a match. There was no cougar in sight. I found that 

 my head and shoulders were sticking out into an irregu- 

 larly-shaped rocky chamber, perhaps fifteen feet long 

 and six or seven feet wide, and high enough to stand 

 up in. I crawled in, and lighting various matches began 

 to explore. The crevice in the rock making this little 

 cavern, narrowed down at the far end, turned to the 

 left, and went almost straight up like a chimney. Peering 

 up this hole with my light extinguished, I could see a 

 faint gleam of daylight. As it seemed to be big enough 

 for the purpose, I proceeded to climb. I found it 

 difficult to worm my way up this hole with a cocked 

 six-shooter in my hand. When I had negotiated some 

 seven or eight feet of the chimney, it widened, took a 

 little more horizontal angle, and came to the light of 

 day under the edge of a big sandstone boulder some 

 thirty feet above where I had entered. I stuck my 

 head out and looked around, winded and scratched, 

 but keenly alive to eventualities. Then I crawled out, 

 stood up, and looked for tracks. There was a little 

 wind drift of powdered snow along the edge of the 

 mesa that I was now standing upon, and I soon found 

 what I was looking for. The cougar's tracks were there, 

 but there was no blood. He had evidently loped down 



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