206 THE COUGAR. 



morass, and allow me to become an inmate of his humble but hospitable 

 mansion, I was gratified to find that he cordially assented to all my pro- 

 posals. So I immediately unstrapped my drawing materials, laid up my 

 gun, and sat down to partake of the homely but wholesome fare intended 

 for the supper of the squatter, his wife, and his two sons. 



The quietness of the evening seemed in perfect accordance with the 

 gentle demeanour of the family. The wife and children, I more than 

 once thought, seemed to look upon me as a strange sort of person, going 

 about, as I told them I was, in search of birds and plants ; and were I 

 here to relate the many questions which they put to me in return for those 

 which I addressed to them, the catalogue would occupy several pages. 

 The husband, a native of Connecticut, had heard of the existence of such 

 men as myself, both in our own country and abroad, and seemed greatly 

 pleased to have me under his roof. Supper over, I asked my kind host 

 what had induced him to remove to this wild and soUtary spot. " The 

 people are growing too numerous now to thrive in New England," was 

 his answer. I thought of the state of some parts of Europe, and calcu- 

 lating the denseness of their population compared with that of New Eng- 

 land, exclaimed to myself, " How much more difficult must it be for men 

 to thrive in those populous countries !" The conversation then changed, 

 and the squatter, his sons and myself, spoke of hunting and fishing, until 

 at length tired, we laid ourselves down on pallets of bear skins, and re- 

 posed in peace on the floor of the only apartment of which the hut con- 

 sisted. 



i^i: Day dawned, and the squatter's call to his hogs, which, being almost 

 in a wild state, were suffered to seek the greater portion of their food in 

 the woods, awakened me. Being ready dressed, I was not long in join- 

 ing him. The hogs and their young came grunting at the well known 

 call of their owner, who threw them a few ears of corn, and counted them, 

 but told me that for some weeks their number had been greatly diminish- 

 ed by the ravages committed upon them by a large Panther, by which 

 name the Cougar is designated in America, and that the ravenous animal 

 did not content himself with the flesh of his pigs, but now and then car- 

 ried off one of his calves, notwithstanding the many attempts he had 

 made to shoot it. The Painter, as he sometimes called it, had on several 

 occasions robbed him of a dead deer ; and to these exploits the squatter 

 added several remarkable feats of audacity which it had performed, to 

 give me an idea of the formidable character of the beast. Delighted by 



