I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice, and both times by chance.  On one occasion one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a skunk in a bull-berry patch; and by our own bungling frightened it away from its unsavory repast without getting a shot.

On the other occasion luck befriended me.  I was with a pack train in the Rockies, and one day, feeling lazy, and as we had no meat in camp, I determined to try for deer by lying in wait beside a recently travelled game trail.  The spot I chose was a steep, pine-clad slope leading down to a little mountain lake.  I hid behind a breastwork of rotten logs, with a few young evergreens in front—­an excellent ambush.  A broad game trail slanted down the hill directly past me.  I lay perfectly quiet for about an hour, listening to the murmur of the pine forests, and the occasional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gazing eagerly along the trail in the waning light of the late afternoon.  Suddenly, without noise or warning of any kind, a cougar stood in the trail before me.  The unlooked-for and unheralded approach of the beast was fairly ghost-like.  With its head lower than its shoulders, and its long tail twitching, it slouched down the path, treading as softly as a kitten.  I waited until it had passed and then fired into the short ribs, the bullet ranging forward.  Throwing its tail up in the air, and giving a bound, the cougar galloped off over a slight ridge.  But it did not go far; within a hundred yards I found it stretched on its side, its jaws still working convulsively.

The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow it with dogs.  If the chase is conducted in this fashion, it is very exciting, and resembles on a larger scale the ordinary method of hunting the wildcat or small lynx, as practised by the sport-loving planters of the southern States.  With a very little training, hounds readily and eagerly pursue the cougar, showing in this kind of chase none of the fear and disgust they are so prone to exhibit when put on the trail of the certainly no more dangerous wolf.  The cougar, when the hounds are on its track, at first runs, but when hard-pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to bay in thick cover.  Its attention is then so taken up with the hounds that it can usually be approached and shot without much difficulty; though some cougars break bay when the hunters come near, and again make off, when they can only be stopped by many large and fierce hounds.  Hounds are often killed in these fights; and if hungry a cougar will pounce on any dog for food; yet, as I have elsewhere related, I know of one instance in which a small pack of big, savage hounds killed a cougar unassisted.  General Wade Hampton, who with horse and hound has been the mightiest hunter America has ever seen, informs me that he has killed with his pack some sixteen cougars, during the fifty years he has hunted in South Carolina and Mississippi.  I believe they were all killed in the latter State.  General Hampton’s