254 BIG GAME FIELDS 



ence with wild life. There sloped before us a 

 pretty grassy glade where three deer, two does 

 and a fawn, were leisurely feeding along. The 

 grass, growing to the height of some 12 or 15 

 inches and having been touched by the recent 

 frosts, had taken on a red brown color. Not 

 twenty feet behind the nearest doe, and scarcely 

 discernible, so perfectly did its color harmonize 

 with the frost-nipped grass, was the long, lithe, 

 tawny form of a cougar in the very act of stalk- 

 ing its prey with all the stealth and cunning 

 known to its genus. So light, silent and cautious 

 was his every move that he might be said to drift 

 light as a wisp of smoke toward his prey before 

 making the death-dealing spring. Now crouch- 

 ing with fierce aspect, fore paws extended, head 

 laid between them, while his lithe tail oscillated 

 at its extreme tip with a gentle waving motion, 

 his pale gooseberry eyes glared malevolently upon 

 his unsuspecting victim. The cougar sprang,- 

 but it was not the well-directed, accurate spring 

 that cleaves the air like the strike of a monster 

 snake, hurling him to the shoulders of his prey. 

 It was a leap of pain, for the .30-40 had struck 

 home, piercing the very heart itself, and he fell 

 to the ground a shapeless heap. So fate had 



