THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 257 
HUNTING DEER AND COUGAR IN THE BLUE 
MOUNTAINS 
By JupDGE J. W. KNOWLEs, La Grande, Oregon. 
THINK it was in the latter part of February, 1909, I know that it 
| was one of the years that through a bobble in the game laws deer 
were left unprotected in Eastern Oregon that word came to La Grande 
that cougars were killing a great many deer along the brakes of Beaver 
Creek on account of the depth of snow in the mountains, A party con- 
sisting of Dr. G. L. Biggers, a physician and surgeon of La Grande; H. R. 
Hanna, court reporter of the Tenth Judicial District; Charles Crandall, 
a farmer and teamster of La Grande, and the writer, left La Grande for 
Beaver Creek on a combined deer and cougar hunt. The cougar is by 
far the greatest enemy of deer. Assisted by the deep snow they either 
run their victims down or lay in wait and spring on top of them from 
some tree as the deer pass underneath. So destructive are the cougar to 
deer that I believe a bounty of at least fifty dollars should be paid for 
their destruction instead of twenty-five dollars as at present. To the 
critical it may not seem very sportsmanlike for hunters to endeavor to 
protect deer from the cougar and then kill them themselves or to hunt 
deer at a time when through an inadvertance on the part of the legis- 
lature they were left unprotected, but other hunters were taking ad- 
vantage of the conditions and hunting deer. 
No doubt State Biologist Wm. L. Finley has done more for the pro- 
tection of game in this state than any other one man and his appeal to 
sportsmen to spare the China hens when the law made it lawful to kill 
two hens in a bag of five was very commendable; but I believe his 
appeal fell upon deaf ears. The way to protect game birds and animals 
is to protect them by law, applying to all alike and rigidly enforcing 
the law, as I believe is being done at the present time vy State Game 
Warden Shoemaker and his deputies. It is unfair to the sportsmen who 
obey the law to permit others who violate it to go unpunished, 
But I am digressing from my story. We arrived near the month 
of Beaver Creek in the middle of the afternoon and took possession of a 
deserted sheep herder’s cabin for our base of operations, After we had 
transferred our bedding and provisions from the wagon to the cabin, we 
decided to reconnoiter the surrounding country, Hanna and Dr. Biggers 
going in one direction and Charles Crandall and myself in another. Cran- 
dall and I had not gone very far when we saw quite a good many deer 
tracks, evidently made the day or night before, and following along 
these tracks were invariably tracks of cougar. The snow was quite deep 
and it was pretty hard walking for Crandall and I as we were both built 
upon the stout order. Finally we noticed ahead of us where some animal 
had crossed plowing up the snow. Coming up to the tracks we observed 
that they were fresh deer tracks and a large deer at that. We started 
to follow the tracks and had not gone far when Crandall said, ‘‘There it 
stands over there.’’ And sure enough there was the deer standing 
broadside to us. It was down hill somewhat from us and it looked like 
it was off quite a ways. In fact, I stepped the distance afterwards and 
it was four hundred and thirteen steps. Neither of us waited for orders 
to be given to fire, but we both dropped to our knees and without any 
ceremony opened fire on the enemy. Shooting at that distance is 
largely a matter of speculation, as experienced hunters will testify. 
Even when the gun is sighted for a long distance, as one is liable to mis- 
