508 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



touch of terrible punishment from the feet of the Cat in its 

 dying struggles. 



On another occasion, a gentleman by the name of Har- 

 rison, and myself, with a pair of Fox-hound puppies belong- 

 ing to him, started and put up, after a two-hours' run, a 

 large male Cat. A four-inch snow lay on the ground; the 

 day was still and clear, and quite warm — a fine day for the 

 sport. We came across the tracks of the animal where it 

 had been rustling around on the previous night. Putting 

 the puppies on the trail, we soon jumped him from some 

 large rocks where he had been lying, sunning himself. In 

 the run that followed, he tried his doubling tactics four or 

 five times; but we being well mounted, and there being no 

 fences to bother us, kept close to the i)uj)i)ies, and would 

 put them to "rights" when the Cat would attempt its 

 dodges. We also had with us a Greyhound. When, after 

 about two hours' chasing, this Greyhound got sight of the 

 quarry, we witnessed some tall running for about two hun- 

 dred yards. Then the old "Tom" ran up a shell-bark 

 hickory-tree, and ensconced himself in a body-crotch about 

 forty feet above the ground. From this perch, Harrison 

 tumbled him out, dead, with a load of buckshot from an 

 old Harper's Ferry musket which he carried. This Wildcat 

 was the largest of the species I ever saw, and would have 

 cleaned out, in a fair fight, all three of our dogs. 



