Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-04
MOCkED BY A COUGAR.
Having Gorged Himself with Poison, the
Beast Ninked Innn HIS Pnrsners

Beast winked Upon HIS Pursuers.
In the Central Park menagerie is a mag
niicent specimen of the cougar, or mount
ain lion. The other afternoon two gentle
men stood by the cage watching the grace
full animal as 1t restlessly moved from one
end of the cage to the other with ryth-
NAUTICAL precision. Last winter" said
one, " was shooting in the Sierra Tara
Nate mountains, in Mexico, where, from
the signs and tracks in the sand-bottomed
canyons, these animals were very abund-
ant. At night one would sit upon the
mesa above our camp and give out hymns
for the coyotes TO sing. 1t was an I'M
earthly yell that made the gooseAesh 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 rock walk
ing that it was impossible to track him to
his cave. One day we met a Mexican
smuggling outfit, and the captain told US
that in a canyon several miles from our
camp there was hermit lion, whom he
never failed to get a glimpse of when tax
ing 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 cactus point into his
foot, or from jumping too much out of the
way of earthquakes. The smuggler de-
! scribed so accurately where the lion hung
out that we went over the next morning to
get a shot.
The canyon was just about the worst
place you ever saw The bottom was
| jungle of scrub Gve-oak, so dense that we
had to crawl on our hands and knees in
many places. The sides were volcanic
rock, jagged and broken with holes and
crevices. Jack was on ahead, and at his
| heels, when we came face to face with the
lion, who was sitting in the mouth of his
cave trying to stare us out of countenance.
He gave one scratch, and then his long
tail disappeared around the corner of a
big bowlder, just as we got sight of him
| Neither had Il chance to shoot. Half a
minute later We saw him go limping up
| 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
| 10 30 fAll /.
miles We went in a Decline from camp,
and it took us until next morning to get
back. We then set to work to put up
job on that lion. We went over to the
canyon where he lived, killed white
tailed deer, took his paunch, and trailed
it in circle around the canyon. The car
cass we then hung high on 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.
We 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. / laid awake that night for two
hours, thinking whom would give it to,
or If L would keep it myself. About sun
rise we struck the lions canyon. When
we got near the deer tree we expected 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 up the tree, stretched himself out,
and eaten hunks as big as Derby hats out
of the deer's carcass.
We 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 down on top of the di-
vide winking at us. At FL Paso | told a
merchant this story, and showed him
what was left of the poison. He said that
the strychnine we had bought from the
smugglers was only a kind of -four, of
which barrelful would not faze chicken,
and that he ought to know, for he put up
the stuff himself" Y Sun.