364 
of a bed of dry grass and leaves by a mite of 
a black dog and made a tawny streak through 
the woods as he ran from his ten pound pur¬ 
suer. 
And the other? Well, he had the opportunity 
of a lifetime to get even with man but all he 
did was to snarl and screech. 
It happened in this way. A mile from a camp 
was a runway much used by deer. It was not 
long before one was killed there, taken to one 
side, skinned and cut up. All that night the 
woman-like cry of a cougar was heard as he 
trotted in wide circles around the offal, seeming 
to fear it was bait for a trap. He walked and 
wailed, and wailed and walked; his noise, the 
uneasiness of the horse and the growls of the 
dogs making sleep impossible until coming day¬ 
light drove him into retirement. 
That afternoon, the writer carrying a 12 
gauge automatic, loaded with six buck shot 
charged shells, stationed himself under a tall 
branching tree, the runway in front and a wood¬ 
ed canyon—a thousand feet from rim to bot¬ 
tom—at his back. 
He had little faith in his gun for he had seen, 
a few days before, twelve buck shot fired into a 
bear not ten steps from the shooter and of the 
dozen, only four penetrated the animal’s hide 
and those not deeply. He took the shot gun 
however, so the younger hunters could use the 
rifles, really thinking they, in the long tramp 
undertaken would have better chance of find¬ 
ing bear or deer than he. 
It was a lazy afternoon. Bees were dron¬ 
ing among the wild flowers clustering along the 
hillside; sweet voiced birds were flitting from 
tree to tree; the sun was warm and a gentle 
breeze rustled among the boughs of the pines. 
For nearly an hour the writer watched that 
runway, yielding more and more to a drowsi¬ 
ness that seemed to fill the air, until at last it 
overpowered him, and before he knew it, he 
was sound asleep and the deer he was hoping to 
meet, could have pushed him over the rim and 
into the depths below without awakening him 
until too late. 
All this time, hidden in the branches over¬ 
head was a cougar, he too, watching for veni¬ 
son. Here was his chance—a man for dinner. 
A man rich in blood with plenty of meat on 
his bones, albeit though perhaps a little tough. 
And what did he do? Spring on the man’s 
back? Break his neck at a blow, then gorge 
himself with rich feastings? No. He probably 
peered around the tree, trying to nerve himself 
to action, licked his chops in sweet anticipa¬ 
tion, then let his willing stomach be conquered 
by his cowardly heart and when he realized he 
must go supperless through lack of bravery, 
opened his mouth and squalled and yelled. Such 
a yell it was too! 
Did any reader, when a boy of tender years 
and following a circus, have the calliope open 
suddenly close by his ear? That would not 
have been a circumstance to the noise this thing 
made. Jump? Well, yes; the writer made, for 
him, a record jump and landed face to the tree 
and gun at ready, before the sands of sleep 
were out of his eyes. And the lion, the brave 
lion? He, alarmed at the noise he had made, 
turned tail, springing from tree to tree and 
soon disappeared down the canyon. A rabbit 
could not have shown less courage. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The writer twice raised his gun to shoot, 
each time thought better of it and did not pull 
the trigger because he knew there was no chance 
to kill and perhaps after the shots had all been 
wasted, the cougar might turn and then—but 
pshaw! He didn’t know cougars at that time 
as well as afterward, else he would have tackled 
him had he only a single load of sevens. 
Of course that night around the camp fire, 
the talk was all of cougars and their doings. 
Said Joe, the guide, “I ain’t afraid of cougars 
any more since what happened to me about two 
years ago. 
“One moonlight night coming ’long the trail 
from town, I heard a lot of yowling like a yard 
full of cats holding a ward caucus. Lions or 
Bob cats I didn’t know which and didn’t care 
much. I knew they wouldn’t bother me if I let 
them alone and seeing as how my gun was in 
town and a pocket knife was all I had, I wasn’t 
going to stir them up very much. I kept right 
on to where the trail took a sharp bend and 
when I turned, there on the fallen trunk of an 
old dead pine, stood the yowlers—two of the 
biggest cougars I ever saw. They were sharp¬ 
ening their claws and facing each other like a 
couple of house cats on a back yard fence; then 
first one would scream and after he’d hollered 
a bit, the other would join in on the chorus. 
Pleasant, wasn’t it? Home two miles ahead, 
town eight miles behind and I tired out. Old 
Buck, the horse didn’t much relish the situa¬ 
tion and for such a bag of skin and bones was 
surprisingly lively, dancing and side stepping 
like a two year old. 
“I looked on a little while and as neither of 
them sports showed signs of having a home to 
go to, or getting paralysis in his vocal chords, it 
was up to me to do something; so I went back 
a piece and cut a heavy club, then with old 
Buck between them and me, I started to go past 
them. The old horse kinder crowded me a bit, 
but wasn’t as much scared as I would have been 
in his place, ’cause they must jump over him 
to get me. Kinder reckon he knowed what 
cowards they was, ’cause he’d been in the moun¬ 
tains enough to have more sense than some of 
them tenderfeet I take in. Well, we had to 
pass within ’bout twenty feet of them. When 
we got opposite, they turned and faced us, 
snarled, spit like a cat when she sees a dog, then 
they faced about, jumped off the log and loped 
away. I did think, seeing there was two, they’d 
stand their ground; one, I knew would run. 
“Next day I got some of the neighbors to¬ 
gether and with a couple of dogs we chased 
them sports until almost dark and never got 
near them and lost their trail in a windfall where 
the dogs nor me either couldn’t go.” 
Such is the truth about the tawny-skinned 
man eaters and child stealers of romance; the 
cowardly, overgrown, fawn-eating cats of the 
mountains. 
Bob cats are a lesser edition of the cougar. 
Less in size, and courage; more cowardly, more 
sneaking, but equally destructive of game. 
And bears? The writer has personal knowl¬ 
edge of neither Grizzlies, nor of the great white 
Polar variety; but the common, every day kind, 
brown and black, like the cougar, will run first 
and see if there is danger afterward, believing 
He who growls and runs away 
Will live to growl another day. 
Why if all of their tribe in any one of the 
great North Western states could be herded in a 
single drove, a ten year old boy with a toy gun 
and a tin sword could drive them out of the 
country, only so he was to windward where they 
could catch a whiff of the human scent. 
Once only, did the writer know a bear to 
show fight, and that because he was cornered, 
cut off from where he wished to go, and so 
frightened he didn’t know what else to do. 
One of the woodsmen in service of the camp¬ 
ing party had been sent out twenty-five miles 
after mail and light groceries. While in town 
he dallied with the flowing bowl, not only dal¬ 
lied, but brought some of the flowing stuff along 
in a bottle, so when he took the back track 
there were many things in his line of vision 
not described in natural history and contrary 
to book lore. Once he shot at a green mouse, 
larger than a yearling calf, once at a red ostrich 
with pea green whiskers and black goggles 
which was flying over like an air ship. Both 
vanished when shot at and muttering, “Blowed 
them fellers to Kingdom Come,” he let the 
bottle gurgle some more and staggered on. As 
the trail lengthened behind him, the liquid joy 
leaked itself out, so by time he was within a 
mile of camp, he had commenced to feel bet¬ 
ter and for a drunken man was reasonably sober. 
Suddenly he became fixed in his tracks and 
started rubbing his eyes, for a hundred feet to 
one side stood, grubbing among the roots of a 
mammoth pine, a large brown bear with a'whitish 
face. It seemed more real than the mouse, more 
natural than the ostrich, yet he didn’t know, and 
that is why he stopped and rubbed his eyes. 
“Well, I ain’t sure,” he thought, “but I’ll shoot; 
if it’s a bear, I’ll kill him and if he’s like them 
others and blows away, I’ll only be a shell the 
loser,” so, by some crazy whim, setting his back 
sight for 400 yards, he aimed carefully and drove 
a bullet into the pine a foot over the bear’s 
head. 
For the first time Bruin noticed he had com¬ 
pany and with a loud w-o-o-f, started straight 
for the shooter, not because he was man hungry, 
but for the reason he thought safety lay in some 
thick cover down the canyon and the shooter 
was in the way. 
The man was frightened sober and fired his 
four remaining shots as fast as he could pull 
the automatic trigger, the last when his target 
was not ten steps distant. 
Not a shot drew blood. All went high, as 
the place where each struck, showed next morn¬ 
ing. He never thought of stepping aside and 
giving the animal a clear road. 
The bear, half whining, half snarling, was as 
scared as his human opponent, but instinct said 
“Stand up,” and stand up he did, mouth open, 
fore legs ready for a hit or a hug. He had to 
do something if he wished to ever reach the 
bottom of the canyon. 
The man was trying to remember a prayer, 
to club his rifle and draw his knife all at the 
same time, and had no success in any of his 
efforts. To say the least, the situation was 
strained, when out of the bushes where he’d been 
nosing after a rabbit, the little black dog came 
a tearing, and he was the only one of the three 
not scared out of all reason. He knew what to 
do, and with no hesitation rushed at the bear, 
grabbed hold of his left hind leg and tried to 
