Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from a hunted cougar; the
beast's one idea seems to be flight, and even if its assailant is very
close, it rarely charges if there is any chance for escape. Yet there
are occasions when it will show fight. In the spring of 1890, a man with
whom I had more than once worked on the round-up--though I never knew
his name--was badly mauled by a cougar near my ranch. He was hunting
with a companion and they unexpectedly came on the cougar on a shelf of
sandstone above their herds, only some ten feet off. It sprang down on
the man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a moment, and then ran
away. Another man I knew, a hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small
ranch near Helena, was once charged by a wounded cougar; he received a
couple of deep scratches, but was not seriously hurt.

Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's occasionally itself
making the attack, and dogging to his death some unfortunate wayfarer.
Many others laugh such tales to scorn. It is certain that if such
attacks occur they are altogether exceptional, being indeed of such
extreme rarity that they may be entirely disregarded in practice. I
should have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood where there
were cougars, or walking through it after nightfall, than I should have
if the cougars were tomcats.

Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional instances attacks may
occur. Cougars vary wonderfully in size, and no less in temper. Indeed I
think that by nature they are as ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are
cowardly; and that their habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles
is due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the courage to realize.
In the old days, when all wild beasts were less shy than at present,
there was more danger from the cougar; and this was especially true