Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1875-12-10
a Terrible Walk.
Nowayiac Monitor

As a test Of nerve, The recent ex-
perience OF q wayfarer, travelling q
wood road near Olympia, Washing
ton Territory, was as remarkable as
any on record. The man was a spec
ulator, looking out wild lands, and
he trudged through the forest, fol-
lowing the almost unused path form
ed by an old road made by pioneers
in the wilderness. His mind was de-
voted to one subject-the critical ex-
animation Of the kind Of trees upon
the land about him, and of the char
acter of the soil, and he faile l to no.
tice for some time "plt-apat" upon
the dead leaves near Hun. He at
first scarcely looked down, when he
felt something rubbed against his
legs and heard a slight purring sound
but when he did look his heart came
up in his mouth and a cold sweat
started as suddenly as though he
were suspended by a weak rope over
Niagara. Pressing itself softly
against his legs, twining about him
as he walked, moving its flexile body
swiftly, but with never sound, turn
ing up fierce eyes with something
almost like terrible laugh in them,
was huge cougar! No chicken
was this man in the woods, but his
account OF the manner in which his
hat was raised by his hair is not to
be considered as apocryphal at all.
Sleek and supple and muscular the
beast glided about, and at intervals
it would come closer again, aud press
its body against the legs of the man,
the light touch making goose flesh of
every inch in his form. 1t was a
terrible experience, that interview
with the cougar in the forest prime
val, and it was well for the man that
his nerves were of the kind to do
honor to the frontier adventure.
Steadily pursuing his course with
steps that would falter little occa-
sionally, he kept on, and with him
the beast continued its treacherous
gambols. At times it would glide a
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 round him again until the i'm
pulse, to strong almost to be resisted,
would come upon him to spring upon
the brute, opposing fists to fangs,
and ending the intolerable suspense
at any risk. The movements Of the
terrible animal were but as the play
ing of a 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
desperately at the beast as it passed
him. In an instant it bounded in
front and crouched for a spring,
growing hoarsely and showing his
teeth. The man stopped and shout
ed hopelessly for aid, when the cougar
did not spring at once, but appeared
waiting to crafty its humor little
longer. The shout, fortunately was
not in vain.
There were hunters and dogs in
the immediate vicinity, as rare for
tune 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 victim to bullets, and the man
with whom it had taken stroll was
telling his story and trying to restore
the normal condition of his nerves by
internal application from small
flask. 1t was one of the episodes
which turn mems hair gray-one
which would, doubtless, have brought
death to a man with less nerve than
the hero of the affair