WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 



43 



after a little while found where it was less than thirty-six 

 hours old. The dogs now ran it well, but were thrown 

 out again on a large bare hillside, until Boxer succeeded 

 in recovering the scent. They went up a high mountain 

 and we toiled after them. Again they lost the trail, and 

 while at fault jumped a big bobcat which they ran up 

 a tree. After shooting him we took lunch, and started 

 to circle for the trail. Most of the dogs kept with Goff, 

 but Jim got off to one side on his own account; and sud- 

 denly his baying told us that he had jumped the cougar. 

 The rest of the pack tore toward him and after a quarter 

 of a mile run they had the quarry treed. The ground 

 was too rough for riding, and we had to do some stiff 

 climbing to get to it on foot. 



Stewart's cougar was a young-of-the-year, and, ac- 

 cording to his custom, he took several photographs of it. 

 Then he tried to poke it so that it would get into a better 

 position for the camera; whereupon it jumped out of the 

 tree and ran headlong down hill, the yelling dogs but a 

 few feet behind. Our horses had been left a hundred 

 yards or so below, where they all stood, moping, with 

 their heads drooped and their eyes half shut, in regular 

 cow-pony style. The chase streamed by not a yard from 

 their noses, but evidently failed to arouse even an emotion 

 of interest in their minds, for they barely looked up, and 

 made not a movement of any kind when the cougar treed 

 again just below them. 



We killed several bobcats; and we also got another 

 cougar, this time in rather ignominious fashion. We 

 had been running a bobcat, having an excellent gallop, 



