The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-07-30
A Terrible Walk.
tSt. Louis Republican.


As a test of nerve the recent exper-
ience of a wayfarer, travelingalong a
wood road near Olympia, Washington
territory, was as remarkable as any on
record. The man was a specuiator.
looking over wild land, and he trudged
through the forest, following the almost
unused path formed by an old road made
by pioneers in the wilderness. His mind
was devoted TO one subject-the critical
examination OF the kind of trees upon
the land about HIM and of the character
of the soil, and he filled TO notice for
some time "pit-a pat" upon the dead
leaves near him. He at first scarcely
looked down, when he felt something
rubbing against his legs and heard a
slight purring sound, but when he did
look his heart came up in his mouth
and the cold sweat started as suddenly
as though he were suspended by weak
rope over Niagara. Pressing itself soft
ly against his legs, twinIng about him
as he walked, moving its flexible body
swiftly, but with never a sound, turning
up fierce eyes with something almost
like terrible laugh in them, was a
huge cougarI No chicken was this man
manner in which his hat was raised by
his. hair is not to be considered as
apocryphal at all. Sleek, supple and
muscular, the beast glIded about, and at
intervals it would come closer again and
press its body against the legs of the
man, the light touch making goose-fesh
of every inch in his form. 1t was ter
rible experience, that interview with the
cougar in the forest primeval, and it was
well for the man that his nerves were
of the kind to do honor TO a frontier ad-
venturer. Steadily pursuing his course
with steps that would falter little oc-
casionally, he kept on, and with him
the beast continued its treacherous gam
bols. At times it would glide few
PAGES to the front and roll over and over
in the road and wait for the man to
come up, and then it would circle about
him again, until the impulse, almost too
strong to be resisted, would come upon
him to spring upon the brute, opposing
fists 10 fangs, and ending the intolerable
suspense at any risk. The movements
of the terrible animal were but as the
playing of cat with a mouse, and the
man knew it. The moment came, at
length, when the strain could be borne
no longer, and the man kicked desper-
ately at the beast as it passed by him.
In an instant it bounded in front and
crouched for spring, growing hoarse-
ly and showing its teeth. The man
stopped and shouted Eopnlessly for aid,
while the cougar did not spring at once,
but appeared waiting to crafty it's hu-
NOR little longer. The shout, FORUM
ately, was not in vain. There were
hunters and dogs in the immediate vi
entity, as rare fortune would have it,
and the hounds dashed suddenly from
the covert as the cougar, seeing them,
leaped for a tree. A few moments later
the beast fell a victim to bullets, and
the man with whom it had taken a stroll
was telling his story and trying to restore
the normal condition of his nerves by
internal applications from small flask.
1t was one of the episodes which turn
mems hair gray-one which would,
doubtless, have brought death to man
with less nerve than the hero of the af-
fair