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