THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 273 
LITTLE TIGER 
By WARDEN GEORGE TONKIN, Pendleton, Oregon. 
not be tamed,’’ but last August when I found a young bobeat in 
the hills I at once resolved to take it home and try to establish an 
exception to the above rule. 
In attempting to cross a canyon I was descending a steep, brushy 
hillside when something, apparently a rabbit, scooted from under my 
feet. It stopped just ahead of 
me and then I saw that it was a 
eat. Carefully raising my gun I 
hoped to shoot the little beast so 
that there would be enough of it 
left to enable me to claim a 
bounty. But it only stopped for 
a moment and was then out of 
sight in the thicket. After 
shooting into the brush at a dis- 
tance of only about twelve feet 
and just ahead of where it dis- 
appeared I hurried forward, 
parted the brush with my hands, 
and there lay ‘‘Little Tiger.’’ 
It was just a little kitten, a 
female, about one-half the size of 
a domestic cat and probably 
three or four weeks old. The 
loud noise and the shot tearing 
the brush just in front of it had 
overpowered it with fear; not a 
shot had touched it. I hurriedly 
tied a leather thong about its 
neck and by that time it seemed Baby Bobcat captured by District 
to have recovered from the shock Game Warden George Tonkin. 
and fought quite fiercely for a 
creature so young and small. Its little teeth reached right to the bone 
in my fingers and its claws were used very effectively. 
It soon began to howl and thinking that the old cat would attempt 
its rescue I tied it to a bush and stepped back a few feet with my shot- 
gun ready. I was wearing very thin summer clothes, had no coat, and 
as the thick brush and steep hillside did not offer a good means of 
either defense or retreat I was not sorry that the mother cat failed to 
appear. 
Tying the kitten to a light branch with the choice of riding or 
hanging—it rode the branch most of the way—I carried it out of the 
brush to the open ridge above. Here I made a swing by tying a leather 
thong in either side of my hat and thus making a handle far enough 
above the hat that my hands were safe. It seemed to take to the hat 
at once and rode three miles to camp in this manner. 
During the first four weeks of Tiger’s captivity we had hopes of 
thoroughly taming her. She played with a young house eat, came shyly 
up to the table and took pieces of meat from our hands and ran over 
the house from the basement to the second floor. But she never wanted 
to be caressed or petted and sometimes had a determination that was 
. had often been told me that ‘‘wild animals of the eat family can- 

