From the railroad we drove fifty miles to the little frontier town
of Meeker. There we were met by the hunter Goff, a fine, quiet, hardy
fellow, who knows his business thoroughly. Next morning we started on
horseback, while our luggage went by wagon to Goff's ranch. We started
soon after sunrise, and made our way, hunting as we went, across the
high, exceedingly rugged hills, until sunset. We were hunting cougar and
lynx or, as they are called out here, "lion" and "cat." The first cat
we put up gave the dogs a two hours' chase, and got away among some high
cliffs. In the afternoon we put up another, and had a very good hour's
run, the dogs baying until the glens rang again to the echoes, as they
worked hither and thither through the ravines. We walked our ponies up
and down steep, rock-strewn, and tree-clad slopes, where it did not seem
possible a horse could climb, and on the level places we got one or
two smart gallops. At last the lynx went up a tree. Then I saw a really
funny sight. Seven hounds had been doing the trailing, while a large
brindled bloodhound and two half-breeds between collie and bull stayed
behind Goff, running so close to his horse's heels that they continually
bumped into them, which he accepted with philosophic composure. Then the
dogs proceeded literally to _climb the tree_, which was a many-forked
pinon; one of the half-breeds, named Tony, got up certainly sixteen
feet, until the lynx, which looked like a huge and exceedingly
malevolent pussy-cat, made vicious dabs at him. I shot the lynx low, so
as not to hurt his skin.
Yesterday we were in the saddle for ten hours. The dogs ran one lynx
down and killed it among the rocks after a vigorous scuffle. It was in a
hole and only two of them could get at it.
This morning, soon after starting out, we struck the cold trail of a
mountain lion. The hounds puzzled about for nearly two hours, going up
and down the great gorges, until we sometimes absolutely lost even the
sound of the baying. Then they struck the fresh trail, where the cougar
had killed a deer over night. In half an hour a clamorous yelling told
us they had overtaken the quarry; for we had been riding up the slopes
and along the crests, wherever it was possible for the horses to get
footing. As we plunged and scrambled down towards the noise, one of my
companions, Phil Stewart, stopped us while he took a kodak of a rabbit
which sat unconcernedly right beside our path. Soon we saw the lion in a
treetop, with two of the dogs so high up among the branches that he was
striking at them. He was more afraid of us than of the dogs, and as soon
as he saw us he took a great flying leap and was off, the pack close
behind. In a few hundred yards they had him up another tree. Here I
could have shot him (Tony climbed almost up to him, and then fell twenty
feet out of the tree), but waited for Stewart to get a photo; and he
jumped again. This time, after a couple of hundred yards, the dogs
caught him, and a great fight followed. They could have killed him by
themselves, but he bit or clawed four of them, and for fear he might
kill one I ran in and stabbed him behind the shoulder, thrusting the
knife you loaned me right into his heart. I have always wished to kill a
cougar as I did this one, with dogs and the knife.