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