A MOUNTAIN LION HUNT BY NIGHT 



Robert Meade Smith, M.D. 



T 



'HERE IS a 



great dif- 

 ference 

 of opinion as 

 to whether 

 the animal 

 known in the 

 West as a 

 mountain 

 lion, will at- 

 tack man, 

 even when 

 cornered. I 

 heard one 

 man say that he had killed, without 



every night, a lion would jump this 

 fence, kill a goat and then, with tin- 

 goat in his mouth, again clear the 

 stockade. The power of the cou 

 is enormous. 1 onc^ tracked • 

 through the snow nearly a mile from 

 where he had killed a goat, to a de- 

 serted tunnel, where he had partly 

 devoured and then abandoned the 

 carcass; yet he had carried it all that 

 distance with only an occasional mark 

 to show where a leg had dragged or 

 a little fleece been left on the under- 

 brush. Perhaps, he carried it on his 

 back, as I saw a Chesapeake Bay 



much of a fight, a lioness and three dog carry a wild goose I had killed 



cubs, with a club, when brought to bay while shooting in Arkansas, and as a 



by a small dog; but as this man had a fox is said to carry his prey. 



silver mine which*he valued at$250,- Mountain lions are rarely seen in 



000, and which his '"friendship" for daytime, for then they lie hidden in 



me (I had known him a week) in- the rocks; but, like the rest of the cat 



duced him to offer to me for $10,000, 

 my modesty inclines me to think 

 that perhaps he was not strictly reli- 

 able. Nevertheless, the general 



tribe, they do most of their hunting 

 at night. That they do not hunt 

 solely in the dark is shown by the 

 incident mentioned above; for every 



opinion in Arizona and New Mexico, night the herd was rounded up and 



where I have spent considerable time driven into the corral, a mile or two 



in hunting, is that the mountain lion, from where I had found unmistak- 



in these parts at any rate, is a cow- able evidence that one had been 



ardly brute that may be treed by the killed and carried off. Either 



smallest barking cur, and that will must have been left out over night. 



not make much of a fight even when which is not probable, or it was killed 



"peace with honor" is impossible, in the daytime. It was certain, how - 



I know that in the Northwestern ever, that their pernicious activity 



states and territories a different opin- was mainly exercised by night, so we 



ion prevails, and have heard many decided to try and turn the hunters 



stories of lions attacking people, even into the hunted that evening with the 



in broad daylight. Of my own ex- aid of five hounds. 



penence, I know that a mountain 

 lion may have a beautiful drop on a 

 man and not take advantage of it. 



A few years ago, I was hunting in 

 Southwestern New Mexico, making 

 head-quarters at a little mining camp 

 called Kingston, and was asked by a 

 ranchman, living about three miles 

 from town, to come out and help him 

 kill a mountain lion which was kill- 

 ing his Angora goats. Every even- 

 ing the goats were driven into a cor- 

 ral, with a solid stockade around it 

 at least six feet high; yet, nearly 



I rode out to the ranch at about 

 8 o'clock in the evening, in the 

 early part of July, and found I)a\is 

 waiting for me, struggling t<> resti 



his dogs. I had barely time to tie up 

 my horse before the dogs, which lie 

 had let loose when I arrn 

 ascent and w ere off in lull cry. Talk 

 about riding to hounds! 1 hough we 

 missed tin' view ol the on e, a en 

 country ride is tame compared I 

 run up a steep mountain gulch g.OOO 

 feet in the air. in midnight darkne 

 stumbling, si tig and fallii 



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