54 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
she sees the little one in a position of danger. 
‘Out only at night, they are of all beasts the most 
watchful, and most difficult to shoot; and, though 
their fearful call, in very close vicinity, has fre- 
quently stampeded our horses, and startled some 
of us from sleep, I have only been near enough to 
shoot, and kill, one single specimen in all my wan- 
derings.” 
It does not appear, even here, however, that the 
writer had any better evidence than his “startled 
affright”’ in support of his assertion that the 
“fiendish cry” came from a cougar. In view of 
this uncertainty, some men go to the extreme of 
denying that any puma does or ever did utter such 
noises as have been described, saying that the 
story is a composition of fox-howl, screech-owl- 
hoot, imagination, and plain lying. This seems to 
me going too far. There is no reason why this 
animal should not caterwaul at times as well as its 
humbler relative of the back fence; and if we may 
be deceived for a moment, — as we sometimes are, 
— by Tom’s or Julia’s doleful wail, into thinking we 
hear a child in mortal pain, so we need not scoff 
unduly at those who hear in the naturally far 
louder caterwauling of the bigger cat-of-the-moun- 
tain, the agony of a man or woman under torture. 
Pumas do not shriek loudly in confinement, but 
they mew, whimper, and growl, like a house-cat, 
“only more so.” 
As winter approaches, the mountain lions de- 
