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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter, by
Theodore Roosevelt
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
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to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
Title: Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release Date: April 25, 2020 [EBook #61935]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER ***
Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN
AMERICAN HUNTER
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ BOOKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT │
│ │
│ PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS │
│ │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER. New Edition. $3.00 _net_.│
│ Illustrated. 8vo │
│ │
│OLIVER CROMWELL. Illustrated. 8vo $2.00 │
│ │
│THE ROUGH RIDERS. Illustrated. 8vo $1.50 │
│ │
│THE ROOSEVELT BOOK. Selections from the Writings of Theodore │
│ Roosevelt. 16mo 50 cents _net_. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
[Illustration:
_Copyright, 1908, by P.A. Juley, New York._
]
OUTDOOR PASTIMES
OF AN
AMERICAN HUNTER
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
ILLUSTRATED
NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1893, 1895, 1897, 1904, BY
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1907, 1908, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
_All rights reserved_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION
Chapters XII and XIII relate to experiences that occurred since the
first edition of this volume was published. The photographs in Chapter
XII were taken by Dr. Alexander Lambert; those in Chapter XIII by Mrs.
Herbert Wadsworth and Mr. Clinedinst.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
THE WHITE HOUSE, January 1, 1908.
TO
JOHN BURROUGHS
Dear Oom John:—Every lover of outdoor life must feel a sense of
affectionate obligation to you. Your writings appeal to all who care for
the life of the woods and the fields, whether their tastes keep them in
the homely, pleasant farm country or lead them into the wilderness. It
is a good thing for our people that you should have lived; and surely no
man can wish to have more said of him.
I wish to express my hearty appreciation of your warfare against the
sham nature-writers—those whom you have called “the yellow journalists
of the woods.” From the days of Æsop to the days of Reinecke Fuchs, and
from the days of Reinecke Fuchs to the present time, there has been a
distinct and attractive place in literature for those who write avowed
fiction in which the heroes are animals with human or semi-human
attributes. This fiction serves a useful purpose in many ways, even in
the way of encouraging people to take the right view of outdoor life and
outdoor creatures; but it is unpardonable for any observer of nature to
write fiction and then publish it as truth, and he who exposes and wars
against such action is entitled to respect and support. You in your own
person have illustrated what can be done by the lover of nature who has
trained himself to keen observation, who describes accurately what is
thus observed, and who, finally, possesses the additional gift of
writing with charm and interest.
You were with me on one of the trips described in this volume, and I
trust that to look over it will recall the pleasant days we spent
together.
Your friend,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
THE WHITE HOUSE, October 2, 1905.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 1
CHAPTER II
A COLORADO BEAR HUNT 68
CHAPTER III
WOLF-COURSING 100
CHAPTER IV
HUNTING IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY; THE PRONGBUCK 133
CHAPTER V
A SHOT AT A MOUNTAIN SHEEP 181
CHAPTER VI
THE WHITETAIL DEER 193
CHAPTER VII
THE MULE-DEER OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLACKTAIL 224
CHAPTER VIII
THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK 256
CHAPTER IX
WILDERNESS RESERVES; THE YELLOWSTONE PARK 287
CHAPTER X
BOOKS ON BIG GAME 318
CHAPTER XI
AT HOME 339
CHAPTER XII
IN THE LOUISIANA CANEBRAKES 360
CHAPTER XIII
SMALL COUNTRY NEIGHBORS 391
* * * * *
⁂ Seven of these Chapters have been recently written;
the others have been revised and added to since they
originally appeared in the publications of the Boone and
Crockett Club and in Mr. Caspar Whitney’s “Deer Family.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT _Frontispiece_
_Photogravure from a photograph._
FACING PAGE
GOFF AND THE PACK 5
TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON 12
BOBCAT IN PINYON 16
STARTING FOR A HUNT 33
THE FIRST COUGAR KILLED 37
AFTER THE FIGHT 44
COUGAR IN A TREE 50
BARKING TREED 63
STARTING FOR CAMP 68
AT DINNER 74
THE PACK STRIKES THE FRESH BEAR TRAIL 77
DEATH OF THE BIG BEAR 83
STEWART AND THE BOBCAT 86
THE PACK BAYING THE BEAR 88
A DOILY BEAR 91
THE BIG BEAR 94
STARTING TOWARD THE WOLF GROUNDS 101
GREYHOUNDS RESTING AFTER A RUN 104
AT THE TAIL OF THE CHUCK WAGON 108
THE BIG D COW PONY 112
ABERNETHY AND COYOTE 116
ABERNETHY RETURNS FROM THE HUNT 125
BONY MOORE AND THE COYOTE 129
ON THE LITTLE MISSOURI 138
CAMPING ON THE ANTELOPE GROUNDS 156
RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT 182
ELKHORN RANCH 216
THE RANCH HOUSE 238
THE RANCH VERANDA 248
THE PACK TRAIN 264
TROPHIES OF A SUCCESSFUL HUNT 277
TROPHIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE DINING-ROOM 284
ANTELOPE IN THE STREETS OF GARDINER 294
BLACKTAIL DEER ON PARADE GROUND 299
ELK IN SNOW 304
OOM JOHN 309
BEARS AND TOURISTS 311
GRIZZLY BEAR AND COOK 314
THE BEAR AND THE CHAMBERMAID 316
THE NORTH ROOM AT SAGAMORE HILL 324
RENOWN 341
HIS FIRST BUCK 343
ALGONQUIN AND SKIP 344
PETER RABBIT 346
THE GUINEA PIGS 348
FAMILY FRIENDS 350
JOSIAH 354
BLEISTEIN JUMPING 356
THE BEAR HUNTERS 366
LISTENING FOR THE PACK 376
AUDREY TAKES THE BARS 396
THE STONE WALL 402
ROSWELL BEHAVES LIKE A GENTLEMAN 414
ROSWELL FIGHTS FOR HIS HEAD 418
* * * * *
⁂ The cuts for Chapter I are from photographs taken by
Philip B. Stewart; those in Chapter II, from photographs
taken by Dr. Alexander Lambert and Philip B. Stewart;
those in Chapter III, from photographs taken by Dr.
Lambert and Sloan Simpson; those in Chapter IX were
obtained through Major Pitcher; most of the others are
from photographs taken by me or by members of my family.
OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF
AN AMERICAN HUNTER
CHAPTER I
WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS
In January, 1901, I started on a five weeks’ cougar hunt from Meeker in
Northwest Colorado. My companions were Mr. Philip B. Stewart and Dr.
Gerald Webb, of Colorado Springs; Stewart was the captain of the
victorious Yale nine of ’86. We reached Meeker on January 11th, after a
forty mile drive from the railroad, through the bitter winter weather;
it was eighteen degrees below zero when we started. At Meeker we met
John B. Goff, the hunter, and left town the next morning on horseback
for his ranch, our hunting beginning that same afternoon, when after a
brisk run our dogs treed a bobcat. After a fortnight Stewart and Webb
returned, Goff and I staying out three weeks longer. We did not have to
camp out, thanks to the warm-hearted hospitality of the proprietor and
manager of the Keystone Ranch, and of the Mathes Brothers and Judge
Foreman, both of whose ranches I also visited. The five weeks were spent
hunting north of the White River, most of the time in the neighborhood
of Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain. In midwinter, hunting on horseback
in the Rockies is apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to
mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin,
caps which drew down entirely over our ears, and on our feet heavy
ordinary socks, german socks, and overshoes. Galloping through the brush
and among the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then one got
snagged; I found tough overalls better than trousers; and most of the
time I did not need the jacket, wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is
to my mind a particularly useful and comfortable garment.
It is a high, dry country, where the winters are usually very cold, but
the snow not under ordinary circumstances very deep. It is wild and
broken in character, the hills and low mountains rising in sheer slopes,
broken by cliffs and riven by deeply cut and gloomy gorges and ravines.
The sage-brush grows everywhere upon the flats and hillsides. Large open
groves of pinyon and cedar are scattered over the peaks, ridges, and
table-lands. Tall spruces cluster in the cold ravines. Cottonwoods grow
along the stream courses, and there are occasional patches of scrub-oak
and quaking asp. The entire country is taken up with cattle ranges
wherever it is possible to get a sufficient water-supply, natural or
artificial. Some thirty miles to the east and north the mountains rise
higher, the evergreen forest becomes continuous, the snow lies deep all
through the winter, and such Northern animals as the wolverene, lucivee,
and snowshoe rabbit are found. This high country is the summer home of
the Colorado elk, now woefully diminished in numbers, and of the
Colorado blacktail deer, which are still very plentiful, but which,
unless better protected, will follow the elk in the next few decades. I
am happy to say that there are now signs to show that the State is
waking up to the need of protecting both elk and deer; the few remaining
mountain sheep in Colorado are so successfully protected that they are
said to be increasing in numbers. In winter both elk and deer come down
to the lower country, through a part of which I made my hunting trip. We
did not come across any elk, but I have never, even in the old days,
seen blacktail more abundant than they were in this region. The bucks
had not lost their antlers, and were generally, but not always, found in
small troops by themselves; the does, yearlings, and fawns—now almost
yearlings themselves—went in bands. They seemed tame, and we often
passed close to them before they took alarm. Of course at that season it
was against the law to kill them; and even had this not been so none of
our party would have dreamed of molesting them.
Flocks of Alaskan long-spurs and of rosy finches flitted around the
ranch buildings; but at that season there was not very much small bird
life.
The midwinter mountain landscape was very beautiful, whether under the
brilliant blue sky of the day, or the starlight or glorious moonlight of
the night, or when under the dying sun the snowy peaks, and the light
clouds above, kindled into flame, and sank again to gold and amber and
sombre purple. After the snow-storms the trees, almost hidden beneath
the light, feathery masses, gave a new and strange look to the
mountains, as if they were giant masses of frosted silver. Even the
storms had a beauty of their own. The keen, cold air, the wonderful
scenery, and the interest and excitement of the sport, made our veins
thrill and beat with buoyant life.
In cougar hunting the success of the hunter depends absolutely upon his
hounds. As hounds that are not perfectly trained are worse than useless,
this means that success depends absolutely upon the man who trains and
hunts the hounds. Goff was one of the best hunters with whom I have ever
been out, and he had trained his pack to a point of perfection for its
special work which I have never known another such pack to reach. With
the exception of one new hound, which he had just purchased, and of a
puppy, which was being trained, not one of the pack would look at a deer
even when they were all as keen as mustard, were not on a trail, and
when the deer got up but fifty yards or so from them. By the end of the
hunt both the new hound and the puppy were entirely trustworthy; of
course, Goff can only keep up his pack by continually including new or
young dogs with the veterans. As cougar are only plentiful where deer
are infinitely more plentiful, the first requisite for a good cougar
hound is that it shall leave its natural prey, the deer, entirely alone.
Goff’s pack ran only bear, cougar, and bobcat. Under no circumstances
were they ever permitted to follow elk, deer, antelope or, of course,
rabbit. Nor were they allowed to follow a wolf unless it was wounded;
for in such a rough country they would at once run out of sight and
hearing, and moreover if they did overtake the wolf they would be so
scattered as to come up singly and probably be overcome one after
another. Being bold dogs they were always especially eager after wolf
and coyote, and when they came across the trail of either, though they
would not follow it, they would usually challenge loudly. If the
circumstances were such that they could overtake the wolf in a body, it
could make no effective fight against them, no matter how large and
powerful. On the one or two occasions when this had occurred, the pack
had throttled “Isegrim” without getting a scratch.
[Illustration:
GOFF AND THE PACK
From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]
As the dogs did all the work, we naturally became extremely interested
in them, and rapidly grew to know the voice, peculiarities, and special
abilities of each. There were eight hounds and four fighting dogs. The
hounds were of the ordinary Eastern type, used from the Adirondacks to
the Mississippi and the Gulf in the chase of deer and fox. Six of them
were black and tan and two were mottled. They differed widely in size
and voice. The biggest, and, on the whole, the most useful, was Jim, a
very fast, powerful, and true dog with a great voice. When the animal
was treed or bayed, Jim was especially useful because he never stopped
barking; and we could only find the hounds, when at bay, by listening
for the sound of their voices. Among the cliffs and precipices the pack
usually ran out of sight and hearing if the chase lasted any length of
time. Their business was to bring the quarry to bay, or put it up a
tree, and then to stay with it and make a noise until the hunters came
up. During this hunt there were two or three occasions when they had a
cougar up a tree for at least three hours before we arrived, and on
several occasions Goff had known them to keep a cougar up a tree
overnight and to be still barking around the tree when the hunters at
last found them the following morning. Jim always did his share of the
killing, being a formidable fighter, though too wary to take hold until
one of the professional fighting dogs had seized. He was a great bully
with the other dogs, robbing them of their food, and yielding only to
Turk. He possessed great endurance, and very stout feet.
On the whole the most useful dog next to Jim was old Boxer. Age had made
Boxer slow, and in addition to this, the first cougar we tackled bit him
through one hind leg, so that for the remainder of the trip he went on
three legs, or, as Goff put it, “packed one leg”; but this seemed not to
interfere with his appetite, his endurance, or his desire for the chase.
Of all the dogs he was the best to puzzle out a cold trail on a bare
hillside, or in any difficult place. He hardly paid any heed to the
others, always insisting upon working out the trail for himself, and he
never gave up. Of course, the dogs were much more apt to come upon the
cold than upon the fresh trail of a cougar, and it was often necessary
for them to spend several hours in working out a track which was at
least two days old. Both Boxer and Jim had enormous appetites. Boxer was
a small dog and Jim a very large one, and as the relations of the pack
among themselves were those of brutal wild-beast selfishness, Boxer had
to eat very quickly if he expected to get anything when Jim was around.
He never ventured to fight Jim, but in deep-toned voice appealed to
heaven against the unrighteousness with which he was treated; and time
and again such appeal caused me to sally out and rescue his dinner from
Jim’s highway robbery. Once, when Boxer was given a biscuit, which he
tried to bolt whole, Jim simply took his entire head in his jaws, and
convinced him that he had his choice of surrendering the biscuit, or
sharing its passage down Jim’s capacious throat. Boxer promptly gave up
the biscuit, then lay on his back and wailed a protest to fate—his voice
being deep rather than loud, so that on the trail, when heard at a
distance, it sounded a little as if he was croaking. After killing a
cougar we usually cut up the carcass and fed it to the dogs, if we did
not expect another chase that day. They devoured it eagerly, Boxer,
after his meal, always looking as if he had swallowed a mattress.
Next in size to Jim was Tree’em. Tree’em was a good dog, but I never
considered him remarkable until his feat on the last day of our hunt, to
be afterward related. He was not a very noisy dog, and when “barking
treed” he had a meditative way of giving single barks separated by
intervals of several seconds, all the time gazing stolidly up at the
big, sinister cat which he was baying. Early in the hunt, in the course
of a fight with one of the cougars, he received some injury to his tail,
which made it hang down like a piece of old rope. Apparently it hurt him
a good deal and we let him rest for a fortnight. This put him in great
spirits and made him fat and strong, but only enabled him to recover
power over the root of the tail, while the tip hung down as before; it
looked like a curved pump-handle when he tried to carry it erect.
Lil and Nel were two very stanch and fast bitches, the only two dogs
that could keep up to Jim in a quick burst. They had shrill voices.
Their only failing was a tendency to let the other members of the pack
cow them so that they did not get their full share of the food. It was
not a pack in which a slow or timid dog had much chance for existence.
They would all unite in the chase and the fierce struggle which usually
closed it; but the instant the quarry was killed each dog resumed his
normal attitude of greedy anger or greedy fear toward the others.
Another bitch rejoiced in the not very appropriate name of Pete. She was
a most ardent huntress. In the middle of our trip she gave birth to a
litter of puppies, but before they were two weeks old she would slip
away after us and join with the utmost ardor in the hunting and
fighting. Her brother Jimmie, although of the same age (both were
young), was not nearly as far advanced. He would run well on a fresh
trail, but a cold trail or a long check always discouraged him and made
him come back to Goff. He was rapidly learning; a single beating taught
him to let deer alone. The remaining hound, Bruno, had just been added
to the pack. He showed tendencies both to muteness and babbling, and at
times, if he thought himself unobserved, could not resist making a
sprint after a deer; but he occasionally rendered good service. If Jim
or Boxer gave tongue every member of the pack ran to the sound; but not
a dog paid any heed to Jimmie or Bruno. Yet both ultimately became
first-class hounds.
The fighting dogs always trotted at the heels of the horses, which had
become entirely accustomed to them, and made no objection when they
literally rubbed against their heels. The fighters never left us until
we came to where we could hear the hounds “barking treed,” or with their
quarry at bay. Then they tore in a straight line to the sound. They were
the ones who were expected to do the seizing and take the punishment,
though the minute they actually had hold of the cougar, the hounds all
piled on too, and did their share of the killing; but the seizers fought
the head while the hounds generally took hold behind. All of them,
fighters and hounds alike, were exceedingly good-natured and
affectionate with their human friends, though short-tempered to a degree
with one another. The best of the fighters was old Turk, who was by
blood half hound and half “Siberian bloodhound.” Both his father and his
mother were half-breeds of the same strains, and both were famous
fighters. Once, when Goff had wounded an enormous gray wolf in the hind
leg, the father had overtaken it and fought it to a standstill. The two
dogs together were an overmatch for any wolf. Turk had had a sister who
was as good as he was; but she had been killed the year before by a
cougar which bit her through the skull; accidents being, of course,
frequent in the pack, for a big cougar is an even more formidable
opponent to dogs than a wolf. Turk’s head and body were seamed with
scars. He had lost his lower fangs, but he was still a most formidable
dog. While we were at the Keystone Ranch a big steer which had been
driven in, got on the fight, and the foreman, William Wilson, took Turk
out to aid him. At first Turk did not grasp what was expected of him,
because all the dogs were trained never to touch anything domestic—at
the different ranches where we stopped the cats and kittens wandered
about, perfectly safe, in the midst of this hard-biting crew of bear and
cougar fighters. But when Turk at last realized that he was expected to
seize the steer, he did the business with speed and thoroughness; he not
only threw the steer, but would have killed it then and there had he not
been, with much difficulty, taken away. Three dogs like Turk, in their
prime and with their teeth intact, could, I believe, kill an ordinary
female cougar, and could hold even a big male so as to allow it to be
killed with the knife.
Next to Turk were two half-breeds between bull and shepherd, named Tony
and Baldy. They were exceedingly game, knowing-looking little dogs, with
a certain alert swagger that reminded one of the walk of some
light-weight prize-fighters. In fights with cougars, bears, and lynx,
they too had been badly mauled and had lost a good many of their teeth.
Neither of the gallant little fellows survived the trip. Their place was
taken by a white bulldog bitch, Queen, which we picked up at the
Keystone Ranch; a very affectionate and good-humored dog, but, when her
blood was aroused, a dauntless though rather stupid fighter.
Unfortunately she did not seize by the head, taking hold of any part
that was nearest.
The pack had many interesting peculiarities, but none more so than the
fact that four of them climbed trees. Only one of the hounds, little
Jimmie, ever tried the feat; but of the fighters, not only Tony and
Baldy but big Turk climbed every tree that gave them any chance. The
pinyons and cedars were low, multi-forked, and usually sent off branches
from near the ground. In consequence the dogs could, by industrious
effort, work their way almost to the top. The photograph of Turk and the
bobcat in the pinyon (facing p. 12) shows them at an altitude of about
thirty feet above the ground. Now and then a dog would lose his footing
and come down with a whack which sounded as if he must be disabled, but
after a growl and a shake he would start up the tree again. They could
not fight well while in a tree, and were often scratched or knocked to
the ground by a cougar; and when the quarry was shot out of its perch
and seized by the expectant throng below, the dogs in the tree, yelping
with eager excitement, dived headlong down through the branches,
regardless of consequences.
The horses were stout, hardy, sure-footed beasts, not very fast, but
able to climb like goats, and to endure an immense amount of work. Goff
and I each used two for the trip.
The bear were all holed up for the winter, and so our game was limited
to cougars and bobcats. In the books the bobcat is always called a lynx,
which it of course is; but whenever a hunter or trapper speaks of a lynx
(which he usually calls “link,” feeling dimly that the other
pronunciation is a plural), he means a lucivee. Bobcat is a good
distinctive name, and it is one which I think the book people might with
advantage adopt; for wildcat, which is the name given to the small lynx
in the East, is already pre-empted by the true wildcat of Europe. Like
all people of European descent who have gone into strange lands, we
Americans have christened our wild beasts with a fine disregard for
their specific and generic relations. We called the bison “buffalo” as
long as it existed, and we still call the big stag an “elk,” instead of
using for it the excellent term wapiti; on the other hand, to the true
elk and the reindeer we gave the new names moose and caribou—excellent
names, too, by the way. The prong buck is always called antelope, though
it is not an antelope at all; and the white goat is not a goat; while
the distinctive name of “bighorn” is rarely used for the mountain sheep.
In most cases, however, it is mere pedantry to try to upset popular
custom in such matters; and where, as with the bobcat, a perfectly good
name is taken, it would be better for scientific men to adopt it. I may
add that in this particular of nomenclature we are no worse sinners than
other people. The English in Ceylon, the English and Dutch in South
Africa, and the Spanish in South America, have all shown the same genius
for misnaming beasts and birds.
[Illustration:
TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON
From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]
Bobcats were very numerous where we were hunting. They fed chiefly upon
the rabbits, which fairly swarmed; mostly cotton-tails, but a few jacks.
Contrary to the popular belief, the winter is in many places a time of
plenty for carnivorous wild beasts. In this place, for instance, the
abundance of deer and rabbits made good hunting for both cougar and
bobcat, and all those we killed were as fat as possible, and in
consequence weighed more than their inches promised. The bobcats are
very fond of prairie-dogs, and haunt the dog towns as soon as spring
comes and the inhabitants emerge from their hibernation. They sometimes
pounce on higher game. We came upon an eight months’ fawn—very nearly a
yearling—which had been killed by a big male bobcat; and Judge Foreman
informed me that near his ranch, a few years previously, an
exceptionally large bobcat had killed a yearling doe. Bobcats will also
take lambs and young pigs, and if the chance occurs will readily seize
their small kinsman, the house cat.
Bobcats are very fond of lurking round prairie-dog towns as soon as the
prairie-dogs come out in spring. In this part of Colorado, by the way,
the prairie-dogs were of an entirely different species from the common
kind of the plains east of the Rockies.
We found that the bobcats sometimes made their lairs along the rocky
ledges or in holes in the cut banks, and sometimes in thickets, prowling
about during the night, and now and then even during the day. We never
chased them unless the dogs happened to run across them by accident when
questing for cougar, or when we were returning home after a day when we
had failed to find cougar. Usually the cat gave a good run, occasionally
throwing out the dogs by doubling or jack-knifing. Two or three times
one of them gave us an hour’s sharp trotting, cantering, and galloping
through the open cedar and pinyon groves on the table-lands; and the
runs sometimes lasted for a much longer period when the dogs had to go
across ledges and through deep ravines.
On one of our runs a party of ravens fluttered along from tree to tree
beside us, making queer gurgling noises and evidently aware that they
might expect to reap a reward from our hunting. Ravens, multitudes of
magpies, and golden and bald eagles were seen continually, and all four
flocked to any carcass which was left in the open. The eagle and the
raven are true birds of the wilderness, and in a way their presence both
heightened and relieved the iron desolation of the wintry mountains.
Over half the cats we started escaped, getting into caves or deep holes
in washouts. In the other instances they went up trees and were of
course easily shot. Tony and Baldy would bring them out of any hole into
which they themselves could get. After their loss, Lil, who was a small
hound, once went into a hole in a washout after a cat. After awhile she
stopped barking, though we could still hear the cat growling. What had
happened to her we did not know. We spent a couple of hours calling to
her and trying to get her to come out, but she neither came out nor
answered, and, as sunset was approaching and the ranch was some miles
off, we rode back there, intending to return with spades in the morning.
However, by breakfast we found that Lil had come back. We supposed that
she had got on the other side of the cat and had been afraid or unable
to attack it; so that as Collins the cow-puncher, who was a Southerner,
phrased it, “she just naturally stayed in the hole” until some time
during the night the cat went out and she followed. When once hunters
and hounds have come into the land, it is evident that the bobcats which
take refuge in caves have a far better chance of surviving than those
which make their lairs in the open and go up trees. But trees are sure
havens against their wilderness foes. Goff informed me that he once came
in the snow to a place where the tracks showed that some coyotes had put
a bobcat up a tree, and had finally abandoned the effort to get at it.
Any good fighting dog will kill a bobcat; but an untrained dog, even of
large size, will probably fail, as the bobcat makes good use of both
teeth and claws. The cats we caught frequently left marks on some of the
pack. We found them very variable in size. My two largest—both of course
males—weighed respectively thirty-one and thirty-nine pounds. The
latter, Goff said, was of exceptional size, and as large as any he had
ever killed. The full-grown females went down as low as eighteen pounds,
or even lower.
When the bobcats were in the tree-tops we could get up very close. They
looked like large malevolent pussies. I once heard one of them squall
defiance when the dogs tried to get it out of a hole. Ordinarily they
confined themselves to a low growling. Stewart and Goff went up the
trees with their cameras whenever we got a bobcat in a favorable
position, and endeavored to take its photograph. Sometimes they were
very successful. Although they were frequently within six feet of a cat,
and occasionally even poked it in order to make it change its position,
I never saw one make a motion to jump on them. Two or three times on our
approach the cat jumped from the tree almost into the midst of the pack,
but it was so quick that it got off before they could seize it. They
invariably put it up another tree before it had gone any distance.
Hunting the bobcat was only an incident. Our true quarry was the cougar.
I had long been anxious to make a regular hunt after cougar in a country
where the beasts were plentiful and where we could follow them with a
good pack of hounds. Astonishingly little of a satisfactory nature has
been left on record about the cougar by hunters, and in most places the
chances for observation of the big cats steadily grow less. They have
been thinned out almost to the point of extermination throughout the
Eastern States. In the Rocky Mountain region they are still plentiful in
places, but are growing less so; while on the contrary the wolf, which
was exterminated even more quickly in the East, in the West has until
recently been increasing in numbers. In northwestern Colorado a dozen
years ago, cougars were far more plentiful than wolves; whereas at the
present day the wolf is probably the more numerous. Nevertheless, there
are large areas, here and there among the Rockies, in which cougars will
be fairly plentiful for years to come.
[Illustration:
BOBCAT IN PINYON
From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]
No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of
such wild fables as the cougar. Even its name is unsettled. In the
Eastern States it is usually called panther or painter; in the Western
States, mountain lion, or, toward the South, Mexican lion. The
Spanish-speaking people usually call it simply lion. It is, however,
sometimes called cougar in the West and Southwest of our country, and in
South America, puma. As it is desirable where possible not to use a name
that is misleading and is already appropriated to some entirely
different animal, it is best to call it cougar.
The cougar is a very singular beast, shy and elusive to an extraordinary
degree, very cowardly and yet bloodthirsty and ferocious, varying
wonderfully in size, and subject, like many other beasts, to queer
freaks of character in occasional individuals. This fact of individual
variation in size and temper is almost always ignored in treating of the
animal; whereas it ought never to be left out of sight.
The average writer, and for the matter of that, the average hunter,
where cougars are scarce, knows little or nothing of them, and in
describing them merely draws upon the stock of well-worn myths which
portray them as terrible foes of man, as dropping on their prey from
trees where they have been lying in wait, etc., etc. Very occasionally
there appears an absolutely trustworthy account like that by Dr. Hart
Merriam in his “Adirondack Mammals.” But many otherwise excellent
writers are wholly at sea in reference to the cougar. Thus one of the
best books on hunting in the far West in the old days is by Colonel
Dodge. Yet when Colonel Dodge came to describe the cougar he actually
treated of it as two species, one of which, the mountain lion, he
painted as a most ferocious and dangerous opponent of man; while the
other, the panther, was described as an abject coward, which would not
even in the last resort defend itself against man—the two of course
being the same animal.
However, the wildest of all fables about the cougar has been reserved
not for hunter or popular writer, but for a professed naturalist. In his
charmingly written book, “The Naturalist in La Plata,” Mr. Hudson
actually describes the cougar as being friendly to man, disinterestedly
adverse to harming him, and at the same time an enemy of other large
carnivores. Mr. Hudson bases his opinion chiefly upon the assertions of
the Gauchos. The Gauchos, however, go one degree beyond Mr. Hudson,
calling the puma the “friend of Christians”; whereas Mr. Hudson only
ventures to attribute to the beast humanitarian, not theological,
preferences. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hudson’s belief in the cougar’s
peculiar friendship for man, and peculiar enmity to other large beasts
of prey, has not one particle of foundation in fact as regards at any
rate the North American form—and it is hardly to be supposed that the
South American form would alone develop such extraordinary traits. For
instance, Mr. Hudson says that the South American puma when hunted will
attack the dogs in preference to the man. In North America he will fight
the dog if the dog is nearest, and if the man comes to close quarters at
the same time as the dog he will attack the man if anything more
readily, evidently recognizing in him his chief opponent. He will often
go up a tree for a single dog. On Mr. Hudson’s theory he must do this
because of his altruistic feeling toward the dog. In fact, Mr. Hudson
could make out a better case of philo-humanity for the North American
wolf than for the North American cougar. Equally absurd is it to talk,
as Mr. Hudson does, of the cougar as the especial enemy of other
ferocious beasts. Mr. Hudson speaks of it as attacking and conquering
the jaguar. Of this I know nothing, but such an extraordinary statement
should be well fortified with proofs; and if true it must mean that the
jaguar is an infinitely less formidable creature than it has been
painted. In support of his position Mr. Hudson alludes to the stories
about the cougar attacking the grizzly bear. Here I am on ground that I
do know. It is true that an occasional old hunter asserts that the
cougar does this, but the old hunter who makes such an assertion also
invariably insists that the cougar is a ferocious and habitual
man-killer, and the two statements rest upon equally slender foundations
of fact. I have never yet heard of a single authentic instance of a
cougar interfering with a full-grown big bear. It will kill bear cubs if
it gets a chance; but then so will the fox and the fisher, not to speak
of the wolf. In 1894, a cougar killed a colt on a brushy river bottom a
dozen miles below my ranch on the Little Missouri. I went down to visit
the carcass and found that it had been taken possession of by a large
grizzly. Both I and the hunter who was with me were very much interested
in what had occurred, and after a careful examination of the tracks we
concluded that the bear had arrived on the second night after the kill.
He had feasted heartily on the remains, while the cougar, whose tracks
were evident here and there at a little distance from the carcass, had
seemingly circled around it, and had certainly not interfered with the
bear, or even ventured to approach him. Now, if a cougar would ever have
meddled with a large bear it would surely have been on such an occasion
as this. If very much pressed by hunger, a large cougar will, if it gets
the chance, kill a wolf; but this is only when other game has failed,
and under all ordinary circumstances neither meddles with the other.
When I was down in Texas, hunting peccaries on the Nueces, I was in a
country where both cougar and jaguar were to be found; but no hunter had
ever heard of either molesting the other, though they were all of the
opinion that when the two met the cougar gave the path to his spotted
brother. Of course, it is never safe to dogmatize about the unknown in
zoology, or to generalize on insufficient evidence; but as regards the
North American cougar there is not a particle of truth of any kind,
sort, or description in the statement that he is the enemy of the larger
carnivores, or the friend of man; and if the South American cougar,
which so strongly resembles its Northern brother in its other habits,
has developed on these two points the extraordinary peculiarities of
which Mr. Hudson speaks, full and adequate proof should be forthcoming;
and this proof is now wholly wanting.
Fables aside, the cougar is a very interesting creature. It is found
from the cold, desolate plains of Patagonia to north of the Canadian
line, and lives alike among the snow-clad peaks of the Andes and in the
steaming forests of the Amazon. Doubtless careful investigation will
disclose several varying forms in an animal found over such immense
tracts of country and living under such utterly diverse conditions. But
in its essential habits and traits, the big, slinking, nearly
uni-colored cat seems to be much the same everywhere, whether living in
mountain, open plain, or forest, under arctic cold or tropic heat. When
the settlements become thick, it retires to dense forest, dark swamp or
inaccessible mountain gorge, and moves about only at night. In wilder
regions it not infrequently roams during the day and ventures freely
into the open. Deer are its customary prey where they are plentiful,
bucks, does, and fawns being killed indifferently. Usually the deer is
killed almost instantaneously, but occasionally there is quite a
scuffle, in which the cougar may get bruised, though, as far as I know,
never seriously. It is also a dreaded enemy of sheep, pigs, calves, and
especially colts, and when pressed by hunger a big male cougar will kill
a full-grown horse or cow, moose or wapiti. It is the special enemy of
mountain sheep. In 1886, while hunting white goats north of Clarke’s
fork of the Columbia, in a region where cougar were common, I found them
preying as freely on the goats as on the deer. It rarely catches
antelope, but is quick to seize rabbits, other small beasts, and even
porcupines, as well as bobcats, coyotes and foxes.
No animal, not even the wolf, is so rarely seen or so difficult to get
without dogs. On the other hand, no other wild beast of its size and
power is so easy to kill by the aid of dogs. There are many
contradictions in its character. Like the American wolf, it is certainly
very much afraid of man; yet it habitually follows the trail of the
hunter or solitary traveller, dogging his footsteps, itself always
unseen. I have had this happen to me personally. When hungry it will
seize and carry off any dog; yet it will sometimes go up a tree when
pursued even by a single small dog wholly unable to do it the least
harm. It is small wonder that the average frontier settler should grow
to regard almost with superstition the great furtive cat which he never
sees, but of whose presence he is ever aware, and of whose prowess
sinister proof is sometimes afforded by the deaths not alone of his
lesser stock, but even of his milch cow or saddle horse.
The cougar is as large, as powerful, and as formidably armed as the
Indian panther, and quite as well able to attack man; yet the instances
of its having done so are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of the
tales to this effect are undoubtedly inventions. But it is foolish to
deny that such attacks on human beings ever occur. There are a number of
authentic instances, the latest that has come to my knowledge being
related in the following letter, of May 15, 1893, written to Dr. Merriam
by Professor W. H. Brewer, of Yale: “In 1880 I visited the base of Mount
Shasta, and stopped a day to renew the memories of 1862, when I had
climbed and measured this mountain. Panthers were numerous and were so
destructive to sheep that poisoning by strychnine was common. A man
living near who had (as a young hunter) gone up Mount Shasta with us in
’62, now married (1880) and on a ranch, came to visit me, with a little
son five or six years old. This boy when younger, but two or three years
old, if I recollect rightly, had been attacked by a panther. He was
playing in the yard by the house when a lean two-thirds grown panther
came into the yard and seized the child by the throat. The child
screamed, and alarmed the mother (who told me the story). She seized a
broom and rushed out, while an old man at the house seized the gun. The
panther let go the child and was shot. I saw the boy. He had the scars
of the panther’s teeth in the cheek, and below on the under side of the
lower jaw, and just at the throat. This was the only case that came to
my knowledge at first hand of a panther attacking a human being in that
State, except one or two cases where panthers, exasperated by wounds,
had fought with the hunters who had wounded them.” This was a young
cougar, bold, stupid, and very hungry. Goff told me of one similar case
where a cougar stalked a young girl, but was shot just before it was
close enough to make the final rush. As I have elsewhere related, I know
of two undoubted cases, one in Mississippi, one in Florida, where a
negro was attacked and killed by a cougar, while alone in a swamp at
night. But these occurred many years ago. The instance related by
Professor Brewer is the only one I have come across happening in recent
years, in which the cougar actually seized a human being with the
purpose of making prey of it; though doubtless others have occurred. I
have never known the American wolf actually to attack a human being from
hunger or to make prey of him; whereas the Old-World wolf, like the
Old-World leopard, undoubtedly sometimes turns man-eater.
Even when hunted the cougar shows itself, as a rule, an abject coward,
not to be compared in courage and prowess with the grizzly bear, and but
little more dangerous to man than is the wolf under similar
circumstances. Without dogs it is usually a mere chance that one is
killed. Goff has killed some 300 cougars during the sixteen years he has
been hunting in northwestern Colorado, yet all but two of them were
encountered while he was with his pack; although this is in a region
where they were plentiful. When hunted with good dogs their attention is
so taken up with the pack that they have little time to devote to men.
When hunted without dogs they never charge unless actually cornered,
and, as a general rule, not even then, unless the man chooses to come
right up to them. I knew of one Indian being killed in 1887, and near my
ranch a cowboy was mauled; but in the first instance the cougar had been
knocked down and the Indian was bending over it when it revived; and in
the next instance, the cowboy literally came right on top of the animal.
Now, under such circumstances either a bull elk or a blacktail buck will
occasionally fight; twice I have known of wounded wapiti regularly
charging, and one of my own cowboys, George Myer, was very roughly
handled by a blacktail buck which he had wounded. In all his experience
Goff says that save when he approached one too close when it was
cornered by the dogs, he never but once had a cougar start to charge
him, and on that occasion it was promptly killed by a bullet. Usually
the cougar does not even charge at the dogs beyond a few feet, confining
itself to seizing or striking any member of the pack which comes close
up; although it will occasionally, when much irritated, make a rapid
dash and seize some bold assailant. While I was on my hunt, one of
Goff’s brothers lost a hound in hunting a cougar; there were but two
hounds, and the cougar would not tree for them, finally seizing and
killing one that came too near. At the same time a ranchman not far off
set his cattle dog on a cougar, which after a short run turned and
killed the dog. But time and again cougars are brought to bay or treed
by dogs powerless to do them the slightest damage; and they usually meet
their death tamely when the hunter comes up. I have had no personal
experience either with the South American jaguar or the Old-World
leopard or panther; but these great spotted cats must be far more
dangerous adversaries than the cougar.
It is true, as I have said, that a cougar will follow a man; but then a
weasel will sometimes do the same thing. Whatever the cougar’s motive,
it is certain that in the immense majority of cases there is not the
slightest danger of his attacking the man he follows. Dr. Hart Merriam