While raccoons are not found on the eastern slopes of the High Sierras, or in the near neighborhood of the Lake, they are not uncommon on the western slopes, near the Rubicon and the headwaters of the various forks of the American and other near-by rivers.

Watson assured me that every fall he sees tracks on the Rubicon and in the Hell Hole region of very large mountain lions.  They hide, among other places, under and on the limbs of the wild grapevines, which here grow to unusual size.  In the fall of 1912 he saw some strange markings, and following them was led to a cluster of wild raspberry vines, among which was a dead deer covered over with fir boughs.  In telling me the story he said: 

I can generally read most of the things I see in the woods, but this completely puzzled me.  I determined to find out all there was to be found.  Close by I discovered the fir from which the boughs had been stripped.  It was as if some one of giant strength had reached up to a height of seven or eight feet and completely stripped the tree of all its lower limbs.  Then I asked myself the question:  “Who’s camping here?” I thought he had used these limbs to make a bed of.  But there was no water nearby, and no signs of camping, so I saw that was a wrong lead.  Then I noticed that the limbs were too big to be torn off by a man’s hands, and there were blood stains all about.  Then I found the fragments of a deer.  “Now,” I said to myself, “I’ve got it.  A bear has killed this deer and has eaten part of it and will come back for the rest.”  You know a bear does this sometimes.  But when I hunted for bear tracks there wasn’t a sign of a bear.  Then I assumed that some hunter had been along, killed a doe (contrary to law), had eaten what he could and hidden the rest, covering the hide with leaves and these branches.  But then I knew a hunter would cut off those branches with a knife, and these were torn off.  The blood spattered about, the torn-off boughs and the fact that there were no tracks puzzled me, and I felt there was a mystery and, probably, a tragedy.

But a day or two later I met a woodsman friend of mine, and I took him to the spot.  He explained the whole thing clearly.  As soon as he saw it he said, “That’s a mountain-lion.”  “But,” said I, “Where’s his tracks?” “He didn’t make any,” he replied, “he surprised the doe by crawling along the vines.  I’ve found calves and deer hidden like this before, and I’ve seen clear traces of the panthers, and once I watched one as he killed, ate and then hid his prey.  But as you know he won’t touch it after it begins to decompose, but a bear will.  And that’s the reason we generally think it is a bear that does the killing, when in reality it is a mountain lion who has had his fill and left the remains for other predatory animals, while he has gone off to hunt for a fresh kill.”

Occasionally sheep-herders report considerable devastations from mountain-lions and bear to the Forest Rangers.  James Bryden, who grazes his sheep on the Tahoe reserve near Downieville, lost sixteen sheep in one night in July, 1911.