No animal of the chase is so difficult to kill by fair still-hunting as
the cougar--that beast of many names, known in the East as panther and
painter, in the West as mountain lion, in the Southwest as Mexican lion,
and in the southern continent as lion and puma.
Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that from the still-hunter's
standpoint it hardly deserves to rank as game at all--though, by the
way, it is itself a more skilful still-hunter than any human rival. It
prefers to move abroad by night or at dusk; and in the daytime usually
lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it is absolutely
impossible even to stumble on it by chance. It is a beast of stealth and
rapine; its great, velvet paws never make a sound, and it is always
on the watch whether for prey or for enemies, while it rarely leaves
shelter even when it thinks itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements
and uniformity of color make it difficult to discover at best, and its
extreme watchfulness helps it; but it is the cougar's reluctance to
leave cover at any time, its habit of slinking off through the brush,
instead of running in the open, when startled, and the way in which it
lies motionless in its lair even when a man is within twenty yards, that
render it so difficult to still-hunt.
In fact it is next to impossible with any hope of success regularly to
hunt the cougar without dogs or bait. Most cougars that are killed by
still-hunters are shot by accident while the man is after other game.
This has been my own experience. Although not common, cougars are found
near my ranch, where the ground is peculiarly favorable for the solitary
rifleman; and for ten years I have, off and on, devoted a day or two to
their pursuit; but never successfully. One December a large cougar took
up his abode on a densely wooded bottom two miles above the ranch house.
I did not discover his existence until I went there one evening to kill
a deer, and found that he had driven all the deer off the bottom, having
killed several, as well as a young heifer. Snow was falling at the time,
but the storm was evidently almost over; the leaves were all off the
trees and bushes; and I felt that next day there would be such a chance
to follow the cougar as fate rarely offered. In the morning by dawn I
was at the bottom, and speedily found his trail. Following it I came
across his bed, among some cedars in a dark, steep gorge, where the
buttes bordered the bottom. He had evidently just left it, and I
followed his tracks all day. But I never caught a glimpse of him, and
late in the afternoon I trudged wearily homewards. When I went out
next morning I found that as soon as I abandoned the chase, my quarry,
according to the uncanny habit sometimes displayed by his kind, coolly
turned likewise, and deliberately dogged my footsteps to within a mile
of the ranch house; his round footprints being as clear as writing in
the snow.
This was the best chance of the kind that I ever had; but again and
again I have found fresh signs of cougar, such as a lair which they had
just left, game they had killed, or one of our venison caches which
they had robbed, and have hunted for them all day without success.
My failures were doubtless due in part to various shortcomings in
hunter's-craft on my own part; but equally without doubt they were
mainly due to the quarry's wariness and its sneaking ways.
I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice, and both times by chance.
On one occasion one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a
skunk in a bull-berry patch; and by our own bungling frightened it away
from its unsavory repast without getting a shot.
On the other occasion luck befriended me. I was with a pack train in
the Rockies, and one day, feeling lazy, and as we had no meat in camp, I
determined to try for deer by lying in wait beside a recently travelled
game trail. The spot I chose was a steep, pine-clad slope leading down
to a little mountain lake. I hid behind a breastwork of rotten logs,
with a few young evergreens in front--an excellent ambush. A broad game
trail slanted down the hill directly past me. I lay perfectly quiet
for about an hour, listening to the murmur of the pine forests, and the
occasional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gazing eagerly along the
trail in the waning light of the late afternoon. Suddenly, without
noise or warning of any kind, a cougar stood in the trail before me. The
unlooked-for and unheralded approach of the beast was fairly ghost-like.
With its head lower than its shoulders, and its long tail twitching, it
slouched down the path, treading as softly as a kitten. I waited until
it had passed and then fired into the short ribs, the bullet ranging
forward. Throwing its tail up in the air, and giving a bound, the
cougar galloped off over a slight ridge. But it did not go far; within
a hundred yards I found it stretched on its side, its jaws still working
convulsively.
The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow it with dogs. If the chase
is conducted in this fashion, it is very exciting, and resembles on a
larger scale the ordinary method of hunting the wildcat or small lynx,
as practised by the sport-loving planters of the southern States. With
a very little training, hounds readily and eagerly pursue the cougar,
showing in this kind of chase none of the fear and disgust they are
so prone to exhibit when put on the trail of the certainly no more
dangerous wolf. The cougar, when the hounds are on its track, at first
runs, but when hard-pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to bay in
thick cover. Its attention is then so taken up with the hounds that it
can usually be approached and shot without much difficulty; though some
cougars break bay when the hunters come near, and again make off, when
they can only be stopped by many large and fierce hounds. Hounds are
often killed in these fights; and if hungry a cougar will pounce on any
dog for food; yet, as I have elsewhere related, I know of one instance
in which a small pack of big, savage hounds killed a cougar unassisted.
General Wade Hampton, who with horse and hound has been the mightiest
hunter America has ever seen, informs me that he has killed with his
pack some sixteen cougars, during the fifty years he has hunted in South
Carolina and Mississippi. I believe they were all killed in the latter
State. General Hampton's hunting has been chiefly for bear and deer,
though his pack also follows the lynx and the gray fox; and, of course,
if good fortune throws either a wolf or a cougar in his way it is
followed as the game of all others. All the cougars he killed were
either treed or brought to bay in a canebrake by the hounds; and they
often handled the pack very roughly in the death struggle. He found them
much more dangerous antagonists than the black bear when assailed with
the hunting knife, a weapon of which he was very fond. However, if his
pack had held a few very large, savage, dogs, put in purely for
fighting when the quarry was at bay, I think the danger would have been
minimized.
General Hampton followed his game on horseback; but in following the
cougar with dogs this is by no means always necessary. Thus Col. Cecil
Clay, of Washington, killed a cougar in West Virginia, on foot with only
three or four hounds. The dogs took the cold trail, and he had to run
many miles over the rough, forest-clad mountains after them. Finally
they drove the cougar up a tree; where he found it, standing among the
branches, in a half-erect position, its hind-feet on one limb and its
fore-feet on another, while it glared down at the dogs, and switched its
tail from side to side. He shot it through both shoulders, and down it
came in a heap, whereupon the dogs jumped in and worried it, for its
fore-legs were useless, though it managed to catch one dog in its jaws
and bite him severely.
A wholly exceptional instance of the kind was related to me by my old
hunting friend Willis. In his youth, in southwest Missouri, he knew a
half-witted "poor white" who was very fond of hunting coons. He hunted
at night, armed with an axe, and accompanied by his dog Penny, a large,
savage, half-starved cur. One dark night the dog treed an animal which
he could not see; so he cut down the tree, and immediately Penny jumped
in and grabbed the beast. The man sung out "Hold on, Penny," seeing that
the dog had seized some large, wild animal; the next moment the brute
knocked the dog endways, and at the same instant the man split open its
head with the axe. Great was his astonishment, and greater still the
astonishment of the neighbors next day when it was found that he had
actually killed a cougar. These great cats often take to trees in a
perfectly foolish manner. My friend, the hunter Woody, in all his thirty
years' experience in the wilds never killed but one cougar. He was lying
out in camp with two dogs at the time; it was about midnight, the fire
was out, and the night was pitch-black. He was roused by the furious
barking of his two dogs, who had charged into the gloom, and were
apparently baying at something in a tree close by. He kindled the fire,
and to his astonishment found the thing in the tree to be a cougar.
Coming close underneath he shot it with his revolver; thereupon it
leaped down, ran some forty yards, and climbed up another tree, where it
died among the branches.
If cowboys come across a cougar in open ground they invariably chase
and try to rope it--as indeed they do with any wild animal. I have known
several instances of cougars being roped in this way; in one the animal
was brought into camp alive by two strapping cowpunchers.
The cougar sometimes stalks its prey, and sometimes lies in wait for it
beside a game-trail or drinking pool--very rarely indeed does it crouch
on the limb of a tree. When excited by the presence of game it is
sometimes very bold. Willis once fired at some bighorn sheep, on a steep
mountain-side; he missed, and immediately after his shot, a cougar made
a dash into the midst of the flying band, in hopes to secure a victim.
The cougar roams over long distances, and often changes its hunting
ground, perhaps remaining in one place two or three months, until the
game is exhausted, and then shifting to another. When it does not lie in
wait it usually spends most of the night, winter and summer, in prowling
restlessly around the places where it thinks it may come across prey,
and it will patiently follow an animal's trail. There is no kind of
game, save the full-grown grisly and buffalo, which it does not at times
assail and master. It readily snaps up grisly cubs or buffalo calves;
and in at least one instance, I have know of it springing on, slaying,
and eating a full-grown wolf. I presume the latter was taken by
surprise. On the other hand, the cougar itself has to fear the big
timber wolves when maddened by the winter hunger and gathered in small
parties; while a large grisly would of course be an overmatch for it
twice over, though its superior agility puts it beyond the grisly's
power to harm it, unless by some unlucky chance taken in a cave. Nor
could a cougar overcome a bull moose, or a bull elk either, if the
latter's horns were grown, save by taking it unawares. By choice, with
such big game, its victims are the cows and young. The prong-horn
rarely comes within reach of its spring; but it is the dreaded enemy of
bighorn, white goat, and every kind of deer, while it also preys on all
the smaller beasts, such as foxes, coons, rabbits, beavers, and even
gophers, rats, and mice. It sometimes makes a thorny meal of the
porcupine, and if sufficiently hungry attacks and eats its smaller
cousin the lynx. It is not a brave animal; nor does it run its prey down
in open chase. It always makes its attacks by stealth, and if possible
from behind, and relies on two or three tremendous springs to bring it
on the doomed creature's back. It uses its claws as well as its teeth
in holding and killing the prey. If possible it always seizes a large
animal by the throat, whereas the wolf's point of attack is more often
the haunch or flank. Small deer or sheep it will often knock over and
kill, merely using its big paws; sometimes it breaks their necks. It
has a small head compared to the jaguar, and its bite is much less
dangerous. Hence, as compared to its larger and bolder relative, it
places more trust in its claws and less in its teeth.
Though the cougar prefers woodland, it is not necessarily a beast of the
dense forests only; for it is found in all the plains country, living in
the scanty timber belts which fringe the streams, or among the patches
of brush in the Bad Lands. The persecution of hunters however always
tends to drive it into the most thickly wooded and broken fastnesses of
the mountains. The she has from one to three kittens, brought forth in a
cave or a secluded lair, under a dead log or in very thick brush. It
is said that the old he's kill the small male kittens when they get
a chance. They certainly at times during the breeding season fight
desperately among themselves. Cougars are very solitary beasts; it is
rare to see more than one at a time, and then only a mother and young,
or a mated male and female. While she has kittens, the mother is doubly
destructive to game. The young begin to kill for themselves very early.
The first fall, after they are born, they attack large game, and from
ignorance are bolder in making their attacks than their parents; but
they are clumsy and often let the prey escape. Like all cats, cougars
are comparatively easy to trap, much more so than beasts of the dog
kind, such as the fox and wolf.
They are silent animals; but old hunters say that at mating time the
males call loudly, while the females have a very distinct answer. They
are also sometimes noisy at other seasons. I am not sure that I have
ever heard one; but one night, while camped in a heavily timbered coulie
near Kildeer Mountains, where, as their footprints showed, the beasts
were plentiful, I twice heard a loud, wailing scream ringing through the
impenetrable gloom which shrouded the hills around us. My companion, an
old plainsman, said that this was the cry of the cougar prowling for its
prey. Certainly no man could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound.
Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from a hunted cougar; the
beast's one idea seems to be flight, and even if its assailant is very
close, it rarely charges if there is any chance for escape. Yet there
are occasions when it will show fight. In the spring of 1890, a man with
whom I had more than once worked on the round-up--though I never knew
his name--was badly mauled by a cougar near my ranch. He was hunting
with a companion and they unexpectedly came on the cougar on a shelf of
sandstone above their herds, only some ten feet off. It sprang down on
the man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a moment, and then ran
away. Another man I knew, a hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small
ranch near Helena, was once charged by a wounded cougar; he received a
couple of deep scratches, but was not seriously hurt.
Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's occasionally itself
making the attack, and dogging to his death some unfortunate wayfarer.
Many others laugh such tales to scorn. It is certain that if such
attacks occur they are altogether exceptional, being indeed of such
extreme rarity that they may be entirely disregarded in practice. I
should have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood where there
were cougars, or walking through it after nightfall, than I should have
if the cougars were tomcats.
Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional instances attacks may
occur. Cougars vary wonderfully in size, and no less in temper. Indeed I
think that by nature they are as ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are
cowardly; and that their habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles
is due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the courage to realize.
In the old days, when all wild beasts were less shy than at present,
there was more danger from the cougar; and this was especially true
in the dark canebrakes of some of the southern States where the man
a cougar was most likely to encounter was a nearly naked and unarmed
negro. General Hampton tells me that near his Mississippi plantation,
many years ago, a negro who was one of a gang engaged in building a
railroad through low and wet ground was waylaid and killed by a cougar
late one night as he was walking alone through the swamp.
I knew two men in Missoula who were once attacked by cougars in a very
curious manner. It was in January, and they were walking home through
the snow after a hunt, each carrying on his back the saddle, haunches,
and hide of a deer he had slain. Just at dusk, as they were passing
through a narrow ravine, the man in front heard his partner utter a
sudden loud call for help. Turning, he was dumbfounded to see the man
lying on his face in the snow, with a cougar which had evidently just
knocked him down standing over him, grasping the deer meat; while
another cougar was galloping up to assist. Swinging his rifle round he
shot the first one in the brain, and it dropped motionless, whereat the
second halted, wheeled, and bounded into the woods. His companion was
not in the least hurt or even frightened, though greatly amazed. The
cougars were not full grown, but young of the year.
Now in this case I do not believe the beasts had any real intention
of attacking the men. They were young animals, bold, stupid, and very
hungry. The smell of the raw meat excited them beyond control, and they
probably could not make out clearly what the men were, as they walked
bent under their burdens, with the deer skins on their backs. Evidently
the cougars were only trying to get at the venison.
In 1886 a cougar killed an Indian near Flathead Lake. Two Indians were
hunting together on horseback when they came on the cougar. It fell at
once to their shots, and they dismounted and ran towards it. Just as
they reached it it came to, and seized one, killing him instantly with a
couple of savage bites in the throat and chest; it then raced after the
other, and, as he sprung on his horse, struck him across the buttocks,
inflicting a deep but not dangerous scratch. I saw this survivor a year
later. He evinced great reluctance to talk of the event, and insisted
that the thing which had slain his companion was not really a cougar at
all, but a devil.
A she-cougar does not often attempt to avenge the loss of her young,
but sometimes she does. A remarkable instance of the kind happened to my
friend, Professor John Bache McMaster, in 1875. He was camped near the
head of Green River, Wyoming. One afternoon he found a couple of cougar
kittens, and took them into camp; they were clumsy, playful, friendly
little creatures. The next afternoon he remained in camp with the
cook. Happening to look up suddenly he spied the mother cougar running
noiselessly down on them, her eyes glaring and tail twitching. Snatching
up his rifle, he killed her when she was barely twenty yards distant.
A ranchman, named Trescott, who was at one time my neighbor, told me
that while he was living on a sheep-farm in the Argentine, he found
pumas very common, and killed many. They were very destructive to sheep
and colts, but were singularly cowardly when dealing with men. Not only
did they never attack human beings, under any stress of hunger, but they
made no effective resistance when brought to bay, merely scratching and
cuffing like a big cat; so that if found in a cave, it was safe to creep
in and shoot them with a revolver. Jaguars, on the contrary, were very
dangerous antagonists.