cry assigned to him. They say he is silent, and that this classic
scream is made by a lynx in the mating period. However, popular
experience to the contrary seems to be too strong and counterbalances
this iconoclastic opinion.
For many years, off and on, we have hunted lions, but sad to say, we
have done more hunting than finding. They are a very wary creature.
Practically, one never sees them unless hunting with dogs; they may be
in the brush within thirty yards, but the human eye will fail to
discern them.
Our camps have been robbed by lions, our horses killed by them, cattle
and sheep ruthlessly murdered; lion tracks have been all about, and yet
unless trapped or treed by dogs, we have never met.
Camping at the base of Pico Blanco, in Monterey County, several years
ago, a lion was seen to bound across the road and follow a small band
of deer. At this very spot a few seasons before one leaped upon an old
mare with foal and broke her neck as she crashed through the fence and
rolled down the hill. Three years later I rode the young horse. As we
passed the tree from which it is thought the lion sprang, where the
broken fence was still unmended, my colt jumped and reared, the memory
of his fright was still vivid in his mind. Up the trail a half mile
beyond we saw other fresh lion tracks. At night we camped on the ridge
with our dogs in hope that our feline friend would come again.
It was too late to hunt that evening, so we turned in. Nothing happened
save that in the middle of the night I was roused by the whine of our
dogs, and looking up in the face of the pale moon, I saw two deer go
bounding past, silhouetted like graceful phantoms across the silvered
sky. They swept across the lunar disc and melted into blackness over
the dark horizon.
No sound followed them, and having appeased the fretful hounds, we
returned to sleep. In the morning, up the trail, there were his tracks;
too wise to cross the human scent, and knowing that there are more deer
in the brush, he had turned upon his course and let his quarry slip.
Because of the heat and the inferior tracking capacity of our dogs, we
never got this panther. A lion dog is a specialist and must be so
trained that no other track will divert him from his quest. These dogs
were willing, but erratic.
The best dogs for this work are mongrels. By far the finest lion dog I
ever saw was a cross between a shepherd and an airedale. He had the
intelligence of the former and the courage of the latter. The airedale
himself is not a good trailer, he is too temperamental. He will start
on a lion track, jump off and chase a deer and wind up by digging out a
ground squirrel. After a good hound finds a lion, the airedale will
tackle him.
We once started an airedale on a lion track, followed him at a fiendish
pace, dashed down the side of a mountain, and found that he had an
angora goat up a tree.
This cougar on Pico Blanco still roams the forests, so far as I know,
and many with him. Once we saw him across a canyon. He appeared as a
tawny slow-moving body as large as a deer but low to the earth and
trailing a listless tail, while his head slowly swung from side to
side. He seemed to be looking for something on the ground. For the
space of a hundred yards we watched him traverse an open side hill,
deep in ferns and brakes. Seeing him thus was little satisfaction to
us, for we had lost our dogs. Ferguson and I were returning from one of
our unsuccessful expeditions.
We started with two saddle horses, a pack animal, and five good lion
dogs. On the trail to the Ventana Mountains we came across lion tracks
and followed them for a day, then lost them; but we knew that a large
male and young female were ranging over the country. Their circuit
extended over a radius of ten miles; they are great travelers.
The track of a lion is characteristic. The general contour is round,
from three to four inches in diameter. There are four toe prints
arranged in a semicircle which show no claw marks. But the ball of the
foot is the unmistakable feature. It consists of three distinct
eminences or pads which lie parallel, antero-posteriorly, and appear in
the track as if you had pressed the terminal phalanges of your fingers
side by side in the dust. These marks are nearly equal in length and
absolutely identify the big cat.
On the morning of the second day of our trailing this lion, our pack
was working down in the thick brush below the crest of Rattlesnake
Ridge, when suddenly they raised a chorus of yelps. There was a rush of
bodies in the chamise brush, and the chase was on at a furious pace. We
rode up to an observation point and saw the dogs speeding down the
canyon side, close on the heels of a yellow leaping demon. They
switched from side to side, as cat and dog races have been carried on
since time immemorial.
The undergrowth was so dense we could not follow, so we sat our horses
and waited for them to tree. But further and further they descended.
They crossed the bottom, mounted a cliff on the opposite side, came
scrambling down from this and plunged into the bed of the stream, where
their voices were lost to hearing.
We rode around to a spur of the hill that dipped into the brush and
overhung the canyon. From this we heard occasional barks away down at
least a mile below us. It was a difficult situation. Nothing but a
bluejay could possibly get down to the creek below. I never saw such a
jungle! So we waited for the indications that the lion was treed, but
all became silent.
Evening approached, we ate our supper and then sat on the hill above,
sounding our horns. Their vibrant echoes rang from mountain to mountain
and returned to us clear and sweet.
Way down below us, where a purple haze hung over the deep ravine, we
faintly heard the answering hounds. In their voices we caught the dog's
response to his master and friend. It said, "We have him. Come! Come!"
We blew the horns again. The elf-land notes returned again and again,
and with them came the call of the faithful hound, "We are here. Come!
Come!"
Now, there was a pitiful plight. No sane man would venture down such a
chasm, impenetrable with thorns, and night descending. So we built a
beacon fire and waited for dawn. All during the long dark hours we
heard the distant appeal of the hounds, and we slept little.
At the first rays of dawn we took a hasty meal, fed our horses, and
stripping ourselves of every unnecessary accoutrement, we prepared to
descend the canyon. Our bows and quivers we left behind because it
would have been impossible to drag them through the jungle. Ferguson
carried only his Colt pistol; I took my hunting knife.
Having surveyed the topography carefully, we attacked the problem at
its most available angle and slid from view. We literally dived beneath
the brush. For more than two hours we wormed our way down the face of
the mountain, crawling like moles at the base of the overhanging
thickets of poison oak, wild lilac, chamise, sage, manzanita, hazel and
buckthorn. At last we reached the depth of the canyon and, finding a
little water, we bathed our sweat-grimed faces and cooled off.
No sound of the dogs was heard, but pressing forward we followed the
boulder-strewn bottom of the creek for a mile or more, almost
despairing of ever finding them, when suddenly we came upon a strange
sight. There was the pack in a circle about a big reclining oak. They
were voiceless and utterly exhausted, but sat watching a huge lion
crouched on a great overhanging limb of the tree. The moment we
appeared they raised a feeble, hoarse yelp of delight. The panther
turned his head, saw us, sprang from the tree with a prodigious bound,
landed on the side hill, tore down the canyon, and leaped over a
precipice below.
The dogs, heartened by our presence, with instant accord charged after
the lion. When they came to the precipitous drop in the bed of the
stream, they whined a second, ran back and forth, then mounted the
lateral wall, circled sidewise and, by a detour, gained the ground
below. We ran and looked over. The drop was at least thirty feet. The
cat had taken it without hesitation, but we were absolutely stalled.
Even if we had cared to take the risk of the descent, we saw so many
similar drops beyond that the situation was hopeless. The dogs having
lost their voices, we were at a great disadvantage. So we returned to
the tree to rest and meditate.
There we saw the evidence of the long vigil of the night. All about its
base were little nests, where the tired dogs had bedded down and kept
their weary watch. Their incessant barking had served to keep the
cougar treed, but it cost them a temporary loss of voice. Poor devils,
they had our admiration and sympathy.
At noon, hearing nothing from the hounds, we decided to return to camp.
If coming down was hard, going up was herculean. We crawled on hands
and knees, dragged ourselves by projecting roots, panted, rested, and
worked again. After a three-hours' struggle we came out upon a rough
ledge of granite, a mile below the spot at which we aimed, but near
enough to the top to permit us, after a little more brush fighting, to
gain our camp and lie down, too fatigued to eat.
For another day we remained at this place, hoping that the dogs would
return, but in vain. At last we decided to pack up and go around a
ten-mile detour and work up the outlet of the canyon. We left a mess of
food in several piles for the dogs should they return, and knew they
could follow our horses' tracks if they came to camp.
But our detour was futile. We lost all signs of our pack and returned
to our headquarters to await results.
It was on this homeward journey that we saw the lion of Pico Blanco,
and had to let him slip.
Ten days later, two weak, emaciated hounds came into camp, an old
veteran and a young dog that trailed after him as if tied with a rope.
He had followed him to save his life, and for days after he could not
be separated without whining with fear.
We fed them carefully and nursed them back to health. But these were
all of the five to appear. Old Belle, the greatest fighter of them all,
was gone. She must have met her death at the claws of the cougar, for
nothing else could keep her. This ended that particular lion hunt.
In our travels over California in search for cougars, we have picked up
more tales than trails of the big cats.
Just before one of my visits to Gorda, on the Monterey Coast, a panther
visited the Mansfield ranch in broad daylight. Jasper being up on the
mountainside after deer, his wife, left at home with the two little
children, noticed a very large lion out in the pasture back of the
house. It wandered among the cattle in a most unconcerned manner and
did not even cause a stir. While it did not approach any of the cows
very closely, they seemed to be not in the least alarmed. For half an
hour or more it stayed in the neighborhood of the house, where Mrs.
Mansfield locked herself in and waited for her husband's return. It was
not until evening, and too late to track the beast, that Jasper came
home. So no capture was made.
Some time before this, one of the hired hands on the ranch was going to
his cabin in the dusk; and swinging his hand idly to catch the tops of
tall grass by the side of the path, he suddenly touched something warm
and soft. Instantly he grasped a handful of the substance. At the same
moment some sort of an animal bounded off in the dark. Holding fast to
the material in his hand, he ran back to the farmhouse and found his
fist full of lion hair. To say that he was startled, puts it very
mildly. Apparently one of these beasts had been crouched on a log by
the side of his path, waiting for something to turn up. The hired man
took a lantern home with him after that.
At another ranch on the Big Sur River, one of the little boys called to
his mother that there was a funny sort of a "big dog" out in the
pasture. His mother paid no attention to it, but a diminutive pet black
and tan started an assault on the animal in question. The lion and the
dog disappeared in the brush. Presently the canine barking ceased and
the small boy wondered what had become of his valiant companion. In a
few minutes he heard a plaintive whine up in a near-by tree, and
running to its base he found that the panther had seized his pet by the
nape of the neck and climbed a tall fir with him. The boy ran for his
father, working in the fields, who, bringing his rifle, dispatched the
panther. As it fell from the tree, the little dog clung to the upper
limbs, and stayed at the top. Nothing they could do would coax him
down. The fir was one difficult to climb, so to save time the man took
an ax and felled the tree, which, falling gently against another,
precipitated the canine hero to the ground without harm. Later I had
the pleasure of shaking his paw and congratulating him on his bravery.
After many futile attempts, at last our opportunity to get a _Felis
Concolor_ arrived. We received word from a certain ranger station in
Tuolumne County that a mountain lion was killing sheep and deer in the
immediate vicinity, and having the promise of a well trained pack,
Arthur Young and I gathered our archery tackle and started from San
Francisco at night in an automobile. We traveled until the small hours
of the morning, then lay down on the side of the road to take a short
sleep; and rising at the first gray of dawn, sped on our way.
We reached the Sierras by sun-up and began to climb. At noon we met our
guide above Italian Bar, and prepared for an evening hunt. This,
however, was as unsatisfactory as evening hunts usually are.
A morning expedition the next day only brought out the fact that our
lion had left the country. News of his activities twelve miles further
up the mountains having been obtained, we gathered our bows, arrows,
and dogs and departed for this region. Here we found a bloody record of
his work. More than two hundred goats had been killed by the big cat in
the past year. In fact, the rancher thought that several panthers were
at work. Goats were taken from beneath the shepherd's nose, and as he
turned in one direction, another goat would be killed behind him. It
seemed impossible to apprehend the villain; their dogs were useless.
Equipped for rough camping, we soon planned our morning excursion and
bedded down for rest.
At 3 o'clock we waked, ate a meager breakfast, and hit the trail up the
mountain. We knew the general range of our cougar. It is necessary in
all his tracking to get in the field while the dew is on the ground and
before the sun dissipates it, also before the goats obliterate the
tracks.
Arrived at the crest of the ridge, we struck a well-defined goat trail,
and soon the fresh tracks of a lion were discovered. Our dogs took up
the scent at once and we began to travel at a rapid pace.
Here again, one must have a good pair of legs. If automobiles,
elevators, and general laziness have not ruined your powers of
locomotion, you may follow the dogs; otherwise, you had best stay at
home.
At first we walk, then we trot, and when with a leap the hounds start
in full cry, we race. Regardless of five thousand feet of altitude,
regardless of brush, rocks, and dizzy cliffs, we follow at a breakneck
pace. I don't know where our breath comes from in these trials. We just
have to run; in fact, we have planned to run on our hands when our legs
play out. With pounding hearts we surge ahead. "Keep the dogs within
hearing!" "It can't last long!" But this time we come to a sudden halt
on a rocky slide. We've lost the scent. The dogs circle and backtrack
and work with feverish haste. The sun has risen, and up the mountain
side comes a band of goats led by a single shepherd dog--no man in
sight. We shout to the dog to steer his rabble away, but on they come,
and obliterate our trail with a thousand hoofprints and a cloud of
dust.
The sun then comes out, and our day is done. No felis this time.
So we scout the country for information to be used later, and return to
camp to drown our sorrow in food.
This was my first knowledge that a dog could be placed in charge of a
flock of sheep or goats. It seems that these little sheep dogs, not
even collies, but some shaggy little plebeians, are given full charge
of the band. They lead them out to pasture, guard them, and keep them
together during the day and bring them home at night. They will, when
properly instructed, take a band of goats out for a week on a long
route, and bring them all safely home again. At least, they used to do
this until the lion appeared on the scene.
That evening we asked the rancher to lock his goats in the corral till
noon.
Next morning we rose again in time to see the morning star glitter with
undimmed glory. Up the trail we mounted, the dogs eager for the chase.
An old owl in a hollow tree asked us again and again who we were; all
else was silent in the woods.
Saving our strength, we arrived quietly on the upper ridges and waited
for the dawn. Way down below us in the canyon we could smell the faint
incense of our camp-fire. The morning breeze was just beginning to
breathe in the trees. The birds awoke with little whispered
confidences, small twitterings and chirps. A faint lavender tint melted
the stars in the eastern sky. Shadows crept beneath the trees, and we
knew it was time to start.
Just as the light defined the margins of the trail, we picked up in the
grayness the track of a lion. Strange to say, the dogs had not smelled
it, but when we pointed to the footprint in the dust, which was
apparently none too fresh, they took up the work of tracking. It is
astonishing to see how a dog can tell which way a track leads. If in
doubt, he runs quickly back and forth on the scent, and thus gauges the
way the animal has progressed. A mediocre dog cannot do this, but we
had dogs with college educations.
Traveling carefully and at a moderate pace, we came to an open knoll in
the forest. Here in the ferns our pack circled about us as if the cat
had been doing a circus stunt, and they seemed confused. Later on we
found that our feline friend had been experimenting with a porcupine
and learned another lesson in natural history.
Suddenly the leader sniffed at a fallen tree where, doubtless, the cat
had perched, then with a ringing bay, the hound clamped his tail close
to his rump and left in a streak of yellow light. The rest of the pack
leaped into full cry.
We were off on a hot track. Oh, for the wings of a bird! Trained as
Young and I were to desperate running, this game taxed us to the
utmost. First we climbed the knoll, deep in ferns and mountain misery,
then we dashed over the crest, tore through manzanita brush, thickets
of young cedar and buckthorn, over ledges of lava rock, down deep
declivities, among giant oaks, cedars, and pines. As we ran we grasped
our ready strung bows in one hand and the flapping quivers in the
other.
You would not think that at this time we could take note of the
fragrant shrubs and pine needles beneath our feet, but I smelled them
as we passed in flight, and they revived me to renewed energy. On we
rushed, only to lose the sound of the dogs. Then we listened and caught
it down the hill below us. Again we hurdled barriers of brush, took
long sliding leaps down the treacherous shale and ran breathless to the
shade of a great oak.
There above our heads was the lion. Oh, the beauty of that beast!
Heaving and giddy with exertion, we saw a wonderful sight, a great
tawny, buff-colored body crouched on a limb, grace and power in every
outline. A huge, soft cylindrical tail swung slowly back and forth.
Luminous eyes gazed at us in utmost calm, a cold calculating calm. He
watched and waited our next move, waited with his great muscles tense
for action.
We retreated, not only to get out of his reach, but to gain a better
shooting position. As we did this, he gave a lithe leap to a higher
limb and shielded himself as best he could behind the boughs of the
tree.
From our position, his chest and throat were visible through a
triangular space in the branches, not more than a foot across. We must
shoot through this. His attitude was so huddled that his head hung over
his shoulder.
Young and I caught our breath, drew our arrows from their quivers,
nocked them, and set ourselves in the archer's "stable stand." We drew
together and, at a mutual thought, shot together. Because of our
unsteady condition the arrows flew a trifle wild. Mine buried itself in
the lion's shoulder. Young's hit him in the nose.
He reared and struck at this latter shaft, then, not dislodging it,
began swaying back and forth while with both front paws he fought the
arrow.
While he thrashed about thus in the tree top, we nocked two more arrows
and shot. We both missed the brute. Young's flew off into the next
state, and if you ever go up into Tuolumne County, you will find mine
buried deep in the heart of an oak.
Just as we nocked a third arrow, he freed himself from the offending
shaft in his muzzle, raised his fore-paws upon a limb and prepared to
leap. In that movement he bared the white hair of his throat and chest,
and like a flash, two keen arrows were driven through his heart area.
[Illustration: ARTHUR YOUNG AND HIS COUGAR]
[Illustration: OUR FIRST MOUNTAIN LION]
[Illustration: WE PACK THE PANTHER TO CAMP]
As they struck and disappeared from sight, he leaped. Like a flying
squirrel, he soared over our heads. Full seventy-five feet he cleared
in one mighty outward, downward bound. I saw his body glint across the
rising sun, swoop in a wonderful curve and land in a sheltering bush.
The dogs threw themselves upon him. There was a medley of sounds, a
fierce, but brief fight, and all was over. We grabbed him by the tail
and dragged him forth--dead. The ringleader of our pack, trembling with
excitement, effort, and fighting frenzy, drove all the other dogs away
and took possession of the body. No one but a man, his master, might
touch it.
Our lion was a young male, six feet eight inches from tip to tip, and
weighing a little over one hundred and twenty pounds. Later, as we
skinned him, we found his paws full of porcupine quills, speaking
loudly of his recent experience. The stomach was empty; the chest was
full of blood from our arrows.
He was as easy to kill as a deer. We packed him back to camp and added
his photograph to our rogues' gallery.
There was no further goat killing on that Sierra ranch.
This was our first lion, and for me so far, my only one. Arthur Young,
however, has been fortunate enough to land two cougars by himself on
another hunting trip.
Captain C. H. Styles, a recent addition to the ranks of field archers,
while on an expedition to cut yew staves in Humboldt County,
California, started a mountain lion, ran him to bay with hounds, and
killed him with one arrow in the chest. We shall undoubtedly hear more
of the captain later on.
But so long as we can draw a bowstring and our legs hold out, and there
is an intelligent dog to be had, it will not be the last lion on our
list. Wherever there are deer, there will be found panthers, and it is
our business to help reduce their number in the game fields to maintain
the balance of power.
XIV
GRIZZLY BEAR
The very idea of shooting grizzly bears with the bow and arrow strikes
most people as so absurd that they laugh at the mention of it. The
mental picture of the puny little archery implements of their childhood
opposed to that of the largest and most fearsome beast of the Western
world, produces merriment and incredulity.
Because it seemed so impossible, I presume, this added to our desire to
accomplish it.
Ever since we began hunting with the bow, we had talked of shooting
grizzlies. We thought of an Alaskan trip as a remotely attainable
adventure, and planned murderous arrows of various ingenious spring
devices to increase their cutting qualities. We estimated the power of
formidable bows necessary to pierce the hides of these monsters. In
fact, it was the acme of our hunting desires.
We read the biography of John Capen Adams and his adventures with the
California grizzlies, and Roosevelt's admirable descriptions of these
animals. They filled out our dreams with detail. And after killing
black bears we needed only the opportunity to make our wish become an
exploit.
The opportunity to do this arrived unexpectedly, as many opportunities
seem to, when the want and the preparedness coincide.