AV THE FAR WEST. 101 



its paw that the flesh seemed to have been cut with a 

 knife. 



The man was so amazed at the suddenness of the onslaught 

 that he did not move for a few moments, and were it not that the 

 dogs attacked the brute boldly, and thus diverted its attention, 

 lie would have received a second wound, in all probability, before 

 getting 1 out of its reach. When he did move away, it was iu 

 a hurry, and seizing his rifle, he rushed in among the dogs, 

 and placing its muzzle within two feet of the cougar's head, 

 fired, and fairly blew the top of the skull olf. When the 

 animal was dead he began kicking it, and having satisfied his 

 vengeance, he turned to his wound, and, with my aid, bound 

 it up. The injury, though painful, was not very serious, as no 

 vein or artery had been severed, so he was able to walk back 

 to camp, and even to help me in carrying the trophy at 

 intervals. This accident caused a suspension of our hunting 

 operations, and for fear it might prove to be more serious than 

 it looked, we left the valley that afternoon and marched 

 towards home. We reached a splendid camping-ground early 

 in the evening and there pitched our tent, as water, and grass 

 for our horses, were to be found in abundance. While discuss- 

 ing the incidents of our trip over the post-prandial pipe, we 

 asked the Indians, who were encamped close by us, why they 

 would not remain near the lake the first night, and one of 

 them, after much pressing, said it was because the valley was 

 haunted. When asked to tell how, he said that a squaw who 

 had been badly treated by her husband resolved on suicide, 

 and, one evening, when her tribe reached this valley and pitched 

 their wigwams near the lake, she suddenly rushed forth from 

 her tepee, and plunging into the crystalline water, sunk to the 

 bottom before any person could make an effort to save her. 

 Her spirit was supposed to haunt the vale ever since, for, accord- 

 ing to tradition, several warriors had seen her frequently bound 

 into the lake at sunset and disappear in a pyramid of foam. She 

 had also, it is said, been heard chanting a mournful song, whose 

 theme was the cruelty of her husband and her own sad fate. This 

 tale had made the tarn famous among several tribes, to whom it 

 was known asthe Lake of the Squaw's Leap, and so implicitly did 



