WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 57 



horses, except Jim, who took off to one side by himself. 

 Suddenly he began to show signs that he had come across 

 traces of game; and in another moment he gave tongue 

 and all the hounds started toward him. They quartered 

 around in the neighborhood of a little gulch for a short 

 while, and then streamed off up the mountain-side ; and 

 before they had run more than a couple of minutes we 

 heard them barking treed. By making a slight turn we 

 rode almost up to the tree, and saw that their quarry was 

 a young cougar. As we came up, it knocked Jimmie 

 right out of the tree. On seeing us it jumped down and 

 started to run, but it was not quite quick enough. Turk 

 seized it and in a minute the dogs had it stretched out. It 

 squawled, hissed, and made such a good fight that I put 

 an end to the struggle with the knife, fearing lest it might 

 maim one of the hounds. 



While GofT was skinning it I wandered down to the 

 kill near which it had been lying. This was a deer, al- 

 most completely devoured. It had been killed in the val- 

 ley and dragged up perhaps a hundred yards to some 

 cedars. I soon saw from the tracks around the carcass 

 that there was an older cougar with the younger one 

 doubtless its mother and walked back to GofT with the 

 information. Before I got there, however, some of the 

 pack had made the discovery for themselves. Jim, evi- 

 dently feeling that he had done his duty, had curled up 

 and gone to sleep, with most of the others ; but old Boxer 

 and the three bitches (Pete had left her pups and joined 

 us about the time we roused the big bobcat) , hunted about 

 until they struck the fresh trail of the old female. They 



