Year: 1875

''e' " nerve, the recent ;expe


rience OF a wayfarer travelling wood


road near Olympia, Washington Ter


r'tory, was as remarkable as any, on


record. The man was a speculator


looking out wild land, and he trudged


through the forest, following the al,


most unused path formed by an old


road made by pioneers in the wilder.


ness. bis mind was devoted to one


suolect--the critical examination of


the KIND OF trees upon the land about


him, and of the character of the soil,


and he failed to notice for some time


a "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 slight
pnrrlng sound, but when he did look


his heart came up in his mouth and a
cold sweat started as suddenly as


though ne were suspended by weak
rope over Niagara. Pressing itself
softly against his legs, twining about
him as he walked, moving its hexile
body swiftly, but with never a sound
turning up fierce eyes with something
almost like terrible laugh in them,
was huge cougar! No chicken was
this man in the woods, but his ac-
count 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, and press
its body against the legs of the man,
the light touch making gooscnesh of
every inch in his form


1t was terrible experience, that in
tcrvicw with the cougar in the forest
prmcval and il was well for the man
that his nerves were of the kind TO do
honor to a frontier advcnturcr. Stead
ily pursuing his course with steps that
would faltcr occasionally, he kept on,
and with him the beast continued its
trcachcrous gambols. At times it
would glide few PAGES Il the front,
and roll over and over in the road and
wait for the man to come up. and then
it would circle around him again, un-
til the impulse, almost too strong 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 move
mcnts of the terrible animal were but
as the playing of a cat with mouse,
and the man knew it. The moment
came, at length, when the strain
could be borne no longer, and the
nan kicked desperately at the beast
IS it passed him. In an instant it
bounded in front and couched for a
spring, growing hoarscly and show
ng it's teeth. The man stopped and
shouted hopclcssly for aid, while the
cougar did not spring at once, but ap-
,earcd waiting to crafty its humor a
title longer. The shout, fortunately,
vas not in vain.


There were hunters and dogs in the
immediate vicinity, as rare fortune
would have it, and the hounds dashed
'uddenly from the covert as the cou-
,ar, seeing them, leaped for a tree.
few moments later the beast fell a
,ictim to bullets, and the man who
,ad taken stroll was telling his sto-
y and trying to restore the normal
condition Of his nerves by internal ap-
,lications from small flask. 1t was
me Of the episodes which turn mems
'air gray-one which would, doubt
ess, have brought death to q man
With less nerve than the hero Of the


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