Cougar 
erally agree in stigmatizing the cougar as an arrant coward. 
The truth seems to be that, like all the other wild beasts of 
this country, his race has learned through bitter experience that 
the only possible chance of life is to keep out of man’s way. 
Whenever an American wolf, bear or cougar has disobeyed this 
rule, he has almost invariably been killed or badly wounded at 
once. No wonder that the survivors have learned caution. 
If India, for example, had been inhabited by tribes of wild 
men, born hunters like almost every tribe of our American 
Indian, and finally settled by frontiersmen and backwoodsmen, 
who never entered the woods without an ax or a gun, it is 
highly probable that reliable accounts of human beings having 
been attacked by either leopards or tigers would be almost 
unknown. 
I am unable to learn that in any part of the world there 
is a race of man-eating wild beasts that has survived genera- 
tions of experience with native tribes of wild men capable of 
driving an arrow through a panther body at half the range of 
a gunshot, and of hitting any spot they wished. 
Man-eating tigers have for so long been regarded by the 
natives of most parts of India as invincible, or else protected 
by the native religions, that they have had things pretty much 
their own way. One determined hunter for every fifty frightened 
unarmed men would scarcely serve to intimidate any animal. Many 
tribes of North American Indians looked upon the bear with ven- 
eration; but for all that, any bear so courageous as to let him- 
self be seen by them got an arrow between his ribs right 
away, and in time the whole tribe of American bears learned 
that the chances were against them, just as the wolves and 
cougars arrived at a similar conclusion. Those that turned man- 
eaters might for a few seasons hunt their human prey success- 
fully, and if gifted with unusual cunning get away unscratched 
for a while, but the vengeance of the tribe would be certain 
to overtake them before very long, and only the more cowardly 
ones of their species would survive to perpetuate the race. 
When the white man came the wild beasts of the wilder- 
ness found that they had a yet more dangerous enemy to face. 
The guns of the early settlers were not very handy or reliable 
weapons, but when they did go off they were capable of scat- 
tering half a handful of slugs in the most painful manner; and 
289 
