The cougar, panther, or mountain lion is our largest representative of the cat family. Early settlers in the Eastern States record the existence of this treacherous beast in their conquest of the forests. The cry of the "painter," as he was called, rang through the dark woods and caused many hearts to quaver and little children to run to mother's side. Once in a while stories came of human beings having met their doom at the swift stealthy leap of this dreaded beast. He was bolder then than now. Today he is not less courageous, but more cautious. He has learned the increased power of man's weapons.

Our Indians knew that he would strike, as they struck, without warning and at an advantage. It is a matter of tradition among frontiersmen that he has upon rare occasions attacked and killed bears. Even today he will attack man if provoked by hunger, and can do so with some assurance of success, the statements of certain naturalists to the contrary notwithstanding.

John Capen Adams, in his adventures, [Footnote: The Adventures of James Capen Adams of California, by Theodore H. Hittell.] describes such an episode. The lion in this instance sprang upon a companion, seized him by the back of the neck, and bore him to the ground. He was only saved from death by a thick buckskin collar to his coat and the ready assistance of Adams who heard the cry for help.

I know of an instance where a California lion leaped upon some bathing children and attempted to kill them, but was driven off by the heroic efforts of a young woman school teacher, who in turn died of her wounds.

Those of us who have roamed the wilds of the western country have had varying experiences with this animal, while others have lived their lives in districts undoubtedly infested with cougars and have never seen one, although nearly every mountain rancher has heard that hair-raising, almost human scream echo down the canyon. It is like the wail of a woman in pain. Penetrating and quavering, it rings out on the night gloom, and brings to the human what it must, in a similar way, bring to the lesser animals a sense of impending attack, a death warning. It is part of the system of the predatory beast that he uses fear to weaken the powers of his prey before he assaults it. Animal psychology is essentially utilitarian. Cowering, trembling, muscularly relaxed, on the verge of emotional shock, we are easier to overcome.

The cougar lives principally on deer. His kill averages more than one a week, and often we may find evidence that this murderer has wantonly slain two or three deer in a single night's expedition.

It is not his habit to lie in wait on the limb of a tree, though he often sleeps there; but he makes a stealthy approach on the unsuspecting victim, then, with a series of stupendous bounds, he throws himself upon the deer, and by his momentum bears it to the ground. Here, while he holds on with teeth and forelegs, he rips open the flank with his hind claws and immediately plunges his head into the open abdomen, where he tears the great blood vessels with his teeth and drinks its life blood.

These are facts learned from lion hunters whose observations are accurate and reliable. A lion can jump a distance greater than twenty-four feet, and has been seen to ascend at a single leap a cliff of rock eighteen feet high.

Their weight runs from one hundred to two hundred pounds, and the length from six to nine feet. The skin will stretch farther than this, but we count only the carcass from the tip of the nose to the tip of the extended tail. The speed of a lion for a short distance is greater than that of a greyhound, less than five seconds to the hundred yards.

Some observers contend that the lion never gives that blood-curdling 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.

ARTHUR YOUNG AND HIS COUGAR

OUR FIRST MOUNTAIN LION

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.