WILD ANIMALS.

I will write this chapter for the youngsters and the elderly wise-heads who wear specs may turn over the leaves without reading it, if they choose.

Wild animals in early days were very much more plentiful than now, particularly deer and black bear. The black bear troubled us a good deal and would come near the houses and kill our pigs; but it did not take many years to thin them out. They were very cowardly and would run away from us in the thick brush except when the young cubs were with them, and then we had to be more careful.

There was one animal, the cougar, we felt might be dangerous, but I never saw but one in the woods. Before I tell you about it I will relate an adventure one of my own little girls had with one of these creatures nearby our own home in the Puyallup Valley.

I have written elsewhere about our little log cabin schoolhouse, but have not told how our children got to it. From our house to the schoolhouse the trail led through very heavy timber and very heavy underbrush—so dense that most all the way one could not see, in the summer time when the leaves were on, as far as across the kitchen of the house.

One day little Carrie, now an elderly lady (I won't say how old), now living in Seattle, started to go to school, but soon came running back out of breath.

"Mamma! Mamma! I saw a great big cat sharpening his claws on a great big tree, just like pussy does," she said as soon as she could catch her breath. Sure enough, upon examination, there were the marks as high up on the tree as I could reach. It must have been a big one to reach up the tree that far. But the incident soon dropped out of mind and the children went to school on the trail just the same as if nothing had happened.

The way I happened to see the cougar was this: Lew. McMillan bought one hundred and sixty-one cattle and drove them from Oregon to what we then used to call Upper White River, but it was the present site of Auburn. He had to swim his cattle over all the rivers, and his horses, too, and then at the last day's drive brought them on the divide between Stuck River and the Sound. The cattle were all very tame when he took them into the White River valley, for they were tired and hungry. At that time White River valley was covered with brush and timber, except here and there a small prairie. The upper part of the valley was grown up with tall, coarse rushes that remained green all winter, and so he didn't have to feed his cattle, but they got nice and fat long before spring. We bought them and agreed to take twenty head at a time. By this time the cattle were nearly as wild as deer. So Lew built a very strong corral on the bank of the river, near where Auburn is now, and then made a brush fence from one corner down river way, which made it a sort of lane, with the fence on one side and the river on the other, and gradually widened out as he got further from the corral.

I used to go over from Steilacoom and stay all night so we could make a drive into the corral early, but this time I was belated and had to camp on the road, so that we did not get an early start for the next day's drive. The cattle seemed unruly that day, and when we let them out of the corral up river way, they scattered and we could do nothing with them. The upshot of the matter was that I had to go home without cattle. We had worked with the cattle so long that it was very late before I got started and had to go on foot. At that time the valley above Auburn near the Stuck River crossing was filled with a dense forest of monster fir and cedar trees, and a good deal of underbrush besides. That forest was so dense in places that it was difficult to see the road, even on a bright, sunshiny day, while on a cloudy day it seemed almost like night, though I could see well enough to keep on the crooked trail all right.

Well, just before I got to Stuck River crossing I came to a turn in the trail where it crossed the top of a big fir which had been turned up by the roots and had fallen nearly parallel with the trail. The big roots held the butt of the tree up from the ground, and I think the tree was four feet in diameter a hundred feet from the butt, and the whole body, from root to top, was eighty-four steps long, or about two hundred and fifty feet. I have seen longer trees, though, and bigger ones, but there were a great many like this one standing all around about me.

I didn't stop to step it then, but you may be sure I took some pretty long strides about that time. Just as I stepped over the fallen tree near the top I saw something move on the big body near the roots, and sure enough the thing was coming right toward me. In an instant I realized what it was. It was a tremendous, great big cougar. He was very pretty, but did not look very nice to me. I had just received a letter from a man living near the Chehalis telling me of three lank, lean cougars coming into his clearing where he was at work, and when he started to go to his cabin to get his gun the brutes started to follow him, and he just only escaped into his house, with barely time to slam the door shut. He wrote that his dogs had gotten them on the run by the time he was ready with his gun, and he finally killed all three of them. He found they were literally starving and had, he thought, recently robbed an Indian grave, or rather an Indian canoe that hung in the trees with their dead in it. That is the way the Indians used to dispose of their dead, but I haven't time to tell about that now. This man found bits of cloth, some hair, and a piece of bone in the stomach of one of them, so he felt sure he was right in his surmise, and I think he was, too. I sent this man's letter to the paper, the Olympia Transcript, and it was printed at the time, but I have forgotten his name.

Well, I didn't know what to do. I had no gun with me, and I knew perfectly well there was no use to run. I knew, too, that I could not do as Mr. Stocking did, grapple with it and kick it to death. This one confronting me was a monstrous big one—at least it looked so to me. I expect it looked bigger than it really was. Was I scared, did you say? Did you ever have creepers run up your back and right to the roots of your hair, and nearly to the top of your head? Yes, I'll warrant you have, though a good many fellows won't acknowledge it and say it's only cowards that feel that way. Maybe; but, anyway, I don't want to meet wild cougars in the timber.

Mr. Stocking, whom I spoke about, lived about ten miles from Olympia at Glasgow's place. He was walking on the prairie and had a stout young dog with him, and came suddenly upon a cougar lying in a corner of the fence. His dog tackled the brute at once, but was no match for him, and would soon have killed him if Stocking had not interfered. Mr. Stocking gathered on to a big club and struck the cougar one heavy blow over the back, but the stick broke and the cougar left the dog and attacked his master. And so it was a life and death struggle. Mr. Stocking was a very powerful man. It was said that he was double-jointed. He was full six feet high and heavy in proportion. He was a typical pioneer in health, strength and power of endurance. He said he felt as though his time had come, but there was one chance in a thousand and he was going to take that chance. As soon as the cougar let go of the dog to tackle Stocking, the cur sneaked off to let his master fight it out alone. He had had enough fight for one day. As the cougar raised on his hind legs Stocking luckily grasped him by the throat and began kicking him in the stomach. Stocking said he thought if he could get one good kick in the region of the heart he felt that he might settle him. I guess, boys, no football player ever kicked as hard as Stocking did that day. The difference was that he was literally kicking for dear life, while the player kicks only for fun. All this happened in less time that it takes to tell it. Meanwhile the cougar was not idle, but was clawing away at Stocking's arms and shoulders, and once he hit him a clip on the nose. The dog finally returned to the strife and between the two they laid Mr. Cougar low and took off his skin the next day. Mr. Stocking took it to Olympia, where it was used for a base purpose. It was stuffed and put into a saloon and kept there a long time to attract people into the saloon.

Did my cougar hurt me, did you say? I hadn't any cougar and hadn't lost one, and if I had been hurt I wouldn't have been here to tell you this story. The fun of it was that the cougar hadn't seen me yet, but just as soon as he did he scampered off like the Old Harry himself was after him, and I strode off down the trail as if old Beelzebub was after me.

Now, youngsters, before you go to bed, just bear in mind there is no danger here now from wild animals, and there was not much then, for in all the time I have been here, now over fifty years, I have known of but two persons killed by them.

And now I will tell you one more true story and then quit for this time. Aunt Abbie Sumner one evening heard Gus Johnson hallooing at the top of his voice, a little way out from the house. Her father said Gus was just driving up the cows, but Aunt Abbie said she never knew him to make such a noise as that before, and went out within speaking distance and where she could see him at times pounding vigorously on a tree for awhile and then turn and strike out toward the brush and yell so loud she said she believed he could be heard for more than a mile away. She soon saw something moving in the brush. It was a bear. Gus had suddenly come upon a bear and her cubs and run one of the cubs up a tree. He pounded on the tree to keep it there, but had to turn at times to fight the bear away from him. As soon as he could find time to speak he told her to go to the house and bring the gun, which she did, and that woman went right up to the tree and handed Gus the gun while the bear was nearby. Gus made a bad shot the first time and wounded the bear, but the next time killed her. But lo and behold! he hadn't any more bullets and the cub was still up the tree. So away went Aunt Abbie two miles to a neighbor to get lead to mold some bullets. But by this time it was dark, and Gus stayed all night at the butt of the tree and kept a fire burning, and next morning killed the cub. So he got the hides of both of them. This occurred about three miles east of Bucoda, Washington.