Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-12
LION HUNTING.
A MOUNTAIN LION MOCKS HIS
PURSUERS.
The Manner in Which He Took Ad-
vantage Of Two Nimrods to
Their Discontinue.

In the Central Park menagerie is amag
niticent specimen of the cougar or noun,
tain lion. The other afternoon two gen.
tlemen stood by the cage watching the
graceful animal as it moved from one end
of the cage to the other with rhythmical
precision. "Last winter" said one, " l was
shooting in the Sierra Tara Nate noun.
tains, in Mexico, where, from the signs
and tracks in the sand-bottomed canyons
these animals were very abundant Al
night one would sit upon the mesa above
our camp and give out hymns for the coy.
otes to sing. 1t was an unearthly yell
that made the goose flesh come on the top
of your head, and led you to even wish
to be back in the land of hand-organs
My guide, Jack Bridges, who used to be
with Custer, would sit up in his blankets
and say: Go it when you can, for we are
going to do you up
For days we looked for the home Of
the lion, and although we could see his
footprints, which appeared like very big
tours of clubs, he did so much walking that
it was impossible to track him to his cave
One day we met Mexican smuggling
outfit, and The Captain told us that in q
CANYON severa! miles from our camp there
WAS {. hermit lion whom he never failed to
get glimpse of when taking the trail
that way. For years back he had missed
seeing him, but of late he had noticed that
the lion was lame-probably from having
run a cactus point into his foot, or from
jumping too much ont Of the way of earth.
quakes. The smuggler described so accur.
ately where the lion hung out that we
went over there the next morning, hoping
to get shot.
''The canyon Wa Just about the worst
place you ever saw. The bottom was a
jungle of scrub live oak, so dense that We
had to crawl on our hands and knees in
many places. Jack was on ahead and | al
his heels when we came upon the lion
which was sitting in the mouth of its cave
trying to stare us out of countenance. He
gave one scratch, and then his long tail
disappeared around the corner of bic
bowlder just as we got sight of him
Neither had chance to shoot. Half q
minute later we saw him 60 limping ur
the side of the divide, and when he reached
the top he squatted and looked compla.
Gently down at us. He was provokingly
out of shot, and he knew it as well as we
did.
''Then began one of the most scientific
hunts on record. We were both as mad as
hornets. Up hill and down dale we fol
lowed that brute until dark. He was
never over one thousand yards away, but
never in shot. He would run, and limp
and squat, blink at us, wiggle his tail at
us, and seem to coax us to follow him
Eleven miles we went in bee line from
camp, and it took us until next morning
to get back. We then set to work to put
up a job on that lion. We went over to
the canyon where he lived, killed white.
tailed deer, took his paunch, and trailed il
in circle around the canyon. The car
cass we then hung high up on a limb, five
feet out from the trunk. Then we cut up
the deer's liver into thirteen bats, for
luck, and dosed each with strychnine. We
also rubbed the poison into the paunch
which we left at the bottom of the
tree.
eve smiled as we walked back to camp
and Jack told me of an Apache Indian
over at Montezuma mining camp who
would tan the lions hide with deer's
brains for 81. | kept awake that night
for two hours thinking whom l would give
it to, or if | would keep it myself About
sunrise we struck the lions canyon. When
we got near the deer tree we expect to
pick up the lion every step. But We
didn't He had been there though. He
had eaten up the thirteen poisoned bats
got away with some of the paunch, climbed
the tree, stretched himself out, and eaten
hunks as big as Derby hats out of the
deer's carcass.
owe spent the day in looking for the
dead lion, but could not find him. When
we turned to go home we suddenly spied
his nibs squatting on the top of the divide
winking at us. AT Ell Paso | told mer
chant this story, and showed him what was
left of the poison. He told us the strych
nine we had bought from the smuggler,
was only kind of flour, of which bar
relful would not faze chicken, and thai
he ought to know, for he put up the STUFF
himself -NeU York Sun.