104 SPORTLVG ADVENTURES 



around me, and at the first glance I noticed that a huge, flat 

 boulder, some ten or fifteen feet in height, rose abruptly 

 upward from the ground where the scent had vanished, and I 

 deduced from this that the cougar had travelled as far as 

 Ihis point and closed its trail by bounding on the crag and 

 seeking safety in the woods above. Presuming that it would 

 be impossible for it to leap up there with a lamb in its mouth, 

 we commenced searching around to see if we could find the 

 remains buried anywhere, but after half an hour's diligent 

 work we relinquished our effort, and decided that it must have 

 performed that feat, else the lamb would have been carefully 

 stowed away under leaves, branches, or dirt, somewhere in the 

 vicinity of the rock. 



We next commenced a search for footsteps among the terraces 

 formingthe upper portion of the chasm, and there found the slots 

 of a cougar, but as they differed in size within a short distance 

 of each other, we concluded that there were two of the same 

 family in the neighbourhood, probably two males, or they would 

 have kept together, and that one of them used the canyon for its 

 favourite line of retreat, while the other preferred the forest. 

 We therefore decided to lie in wait for the former near its 

 vaulting-place, and to attract it there by placing some fresh 

 meat on the route it usually took on its foraging expeditions. 

 Having formed our plans, we returned to the house and 

 prepared two large pieces of venison for a bait, taking good 

 care to wash them thoroughly, so as to take away the smell of 

 the hands. We carried them to the trysting-place after 

 supper, by running a piece of twine through them, and placed 

 one several feet away from the top of the precipice, and the 

 other near the base of the boulder. We then sat down for a 

 quiet and hushed chat, and kept it up until eig'ht o'clock, when 

 we separated, my companion going towards the summit of 

 the chasm, while I kept at the base and to the leeward of the 

 assumed leaping-place. 



We waited there patiently until after ten o'clock, but no 

 cougar appeared, and the only noises that disturbed the brood- 

 ing 1 stillness of the night were the occasional hoot of the 



O <^> 



ghostly owl, the plaintive call of the whip-poor-will, the 



