

WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 41 



home with the right, the knife driving straight to the 

 heart. The deep fang marks she left in the stock, biting 

 the corner of the shoulder clean off, gave an idea of the 

 power of her jaws. If it had been the very big male 

 cougar which I afterward killed, the stock would doubt- 

 less have been bitten completely in two. 



The dogs were pretty well damaged, and all retired 

 and lay down under the trees, where they licked their 

 wounds, and went to sleep ; growling savagely at one an- 

 oth'er when they waked, but greeting us with demonstra- 

 tive affection, and trotting eagerly out to share our lunch 

 as soon as we began to eat it. Unaided, they would ulti- 

 mately have killed the cougar, but the chance of one or 

 two of them being killed or crippled was too great for 

 us to allow this to be done; and in the mix-up of the 

 struggle it was not possible to end it with the rifle. The 

 writhing, yelling tangle offered too shifting a mark; one 

 would have been as apt to hit a dog as the cougar. Goff 

 told me that the pack had often killed cougars unassisted; 

 but in the performance of such feats the best dogs were 

 frequently killed, and this was not a risk to be taken 

 lightly. 



In some books the writers speak as if the male and 

 female cougar live together and jointly seek food for the 

 young. We never found a male cougar anywhere near 

 either a female with young or a pregnant female. Ac- 

 cording to my observation the male only remains with 

 the female for a short time, during the mating season, at 

 which period he travels great distances in search of his 

 temporary mates for the females far outnumber the 



