The Last of the Plainsmen

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER 15.

  JONES ON COUGARS

  The mountain lion, or cougar, of our Rocky Mountain region, is nothingmore nor less than the panther. He is a little different in shape,color and size, which vary according to his environment. The panther ofthe Rockies is usually light, taking the grayish hue of the rocks. Heis stockier and heavier of build, and stronger of limb than the Easternspecies, which difference comes from climbing mountains and springingdown the cliffs after his prey.

  In regions accessible to man, or where man is encountered even rarely,the cougar is exceedingly shy, seldom or never venturing from coverduring the day. He spends the hours of daylight high on the most ruggedcliffs, sleeping and basking in the sunshine, and watching withwonderfully keen sight the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight,and if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to skulk awayunseen. At night he steals down the mountain side toward deer or elk hehas located during the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and thickets,he creeps upon his prey. His cunning and ferocity are keener and moresavage in proportion to the length of time he has been without food. Ashe grows hungrier and thinner, his skill and fierce strategycorrespondingly increase. A well-fed cougar will creep upon and secureonly about one in seven of the deer, elk, antelope or mountain sheepthat he stalks. But a starving cougar is another animal. He creeps likea snake, is as sure on the scent as a vulture, makes no more noise thana shadow, and he hides behind a stone or bush that would scarcelyconceal a rabbit. Then he springs with terrific force, and intensity ofpurpose, and seldom fails to reach his victim, and once the claws of astarved lion touch flesh, they never let go.

  A cougar seldom pursues his quarry after he has leaped and missed,either from disgust or failure, or knowledge that a second attemptwould be futile. The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar isthe elk. About every other elk attacked falls a victim. Deer are morefortunate, the ratio being one dead to five leaped at. The antelope,living on the lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out often; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom falls to the onslaughtof his enemy.

  Once the lion gets a hold with the great forepaw, every movement of thestruggling prey sinks the sharp, hooked claws deeper. Then as quicklyas is possible, the lion fastens his teeth in the throat of his preyand grips till it is dead. In this way elk have carried lions for manyrods. The lion seldom tears the skin of the neck, and never, as isgenerally supposed, sucks the blood of its victim; but he cuts into theside, just behind the foreshoulder, and eats the liver first. He rollsthe skin back as neatly and tightly as a person could do it. When hehas gorged himself, he drags the carcass into a ravine or densethicket, and rakes leaves, sticks or dirt over it to hide it from otheranimals. Usually he returns to his cache on the second night, and afterthat the frequency of his visits depends on the supply of fresh prey.In remote regions, unfrequented by man, the lion will guard his cachefrom coyote and buzzards.

  In sex there are about five female lions to one male. This is caused bythe jealous and vicious disposition of the male. It is a fact that theold Toms kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and female ofthe litter suffer alike until after weaning time, and then only themales. In this matter wise animal logic is displayed by the Toms. Thedomestic cat, to some extent, possesses the same trait. If the litteris destroyed, the mating time is sure to come about regardless of theseason. Thus this savage trait of the lions prevents overproduction,and breeds a hardy and intrepid race. If by chance or that cardinalfeature of animal life--the survival of the fittest--a young male lionescapes to the weaning time, even after that he is persecuted. Youngmale lions have been killed and found to have had their flesh beatenuntil it was a mass of bruises and undoubtedly it had been the work ofan old Tom. Moreover, old males and females have been killed, and foundto be in the same bruised condition. A feature, and a conclusive one,is the fact that invariably the female is suckling her young at thisperiod, and sustains the bruises in desperately defending her litter.

  It is astonishing how cunning, wise and faithful an old lioness is. Sheseldom leaves her kittens. From the time they are six weeks old shetakes them out to train them for the battles of life, and the strugglecontinues from birth to death. A lion hardly ever dies naturally. Assoon as night descends, the lioness stealthily stalks forth, andbecause of her little ones, takes very short steps. The cubs follow,stepping in their mother's tracks. When she crouches for game, eachlittle lion crouches also, and each one remains perfectly still untilshe springs, or signals them to come. If she secures the prey, they allgorge themselves. After the feast the mother takes her back trail,stepping in the tracks she made coming down the mountain. And the cubsare very careful to follow suit, and not to leave marks of their trailin the soft snow. No doubt this habit is practiced to keep their deadlyenemies in ignorance of their existence. The old Toms and white huntersare their only foes. Indians never kill a lion. This trick of the lionshas fooled many a hunter, concerning not only the direction, butparticularly the number.

  The only successful way to hunt lions is with trained dogs. A goodhound can trail them for several hours after the tracks have been made,and on a cloudy or wet day can hold the scent much longer. In snow thehound can trail for three or four days after the track has been made.

  When Jones was game warden of the Yellowstone National Park, he hadunexampled opportunities to hunt cougars and learn their habits. Allthe cougars in that region of the Rockies made a rendezvous of the gamepreserve. Jones soon procured a pack of hounds, but as they had beentrained to run deer, foxes and coyotes he had great trouble. They wouldbreak on the trail of these animals, and also on elk and antelope justwhen this was farthest from his wish. He soon realized that to trainthe hounds was a sore task. When they refused to come back at his call,he stung them with fine shot, and in this manner taught obedience. Butobedience was not enough; the hounds must know how to follow and tree alion. With this in mind, Jones decided to catch a lion alive and givehis dogs practical lessons.

  A few days after reaching this decision, he discovered the tracks oftwo lions in the neighborhood of Mt. Everett. The hounds were put onthe trail and followed it into an abandoned coal shaft. Jonesrecognized this as his opportunity, and taking his lasso and an extrarope, he crawled into the hole. Not fifteen feet from the opening satone of the cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly lassoed it,passed his end of the lasso round a side prop of the shaft, and out tothe soldiers who had followed him. Instructing them not to pull till hecalled, he cautiously began to crawl by the cougar, with the intentionof getting farther back and roping its hind leg, so as to preventdisaster when the soldiers pulled it out. He accomplished this, notwithout some uneasiness in regard to the second lion, and giving theword to his companions, soon had his captive hauled from the shaft andtied so tightly it could not move.

  Jones took the cougar and his hounds to an open place in the park,where there were trees, and prepared for a chase. Loosing the lion, heheld his hounds back a moment, then let them go. Within one hundredyards the cougar climbed a tree, and the dogs saw the performance.Taking a forked stick, Jones mounted up to the cougar, caught it underthe jaw with the stick, and pushed it out. There was a fight, ascramble, and the cougar dashed off to run up another tree. In thismanner, he soon trained his hounds to the pink of perfection.

  Jones discovered, while in the park, that the cougar is king of all thebeasts of North America. Even a grizzly dashed away in great haste whena cougar made his appearance. At the road camp, near Mt. Washburn,during the fall of 1904, the bears, grizzlies and others, were alwayshanging round the cook tent. There were cougars also, and almost everyevening, about dusk, a big fellow would come parading past the tent.The bears would grunt furiously and scamper in every direction. It waseasy to tell when a cougar was in the neighborhood, by the peculiargrunts and snorts of the bears, and the sharp, distinct, alarmed yelpsof coyotes. A lion would just as lief kill a coyote as any other animaland he would devour it, too. As to the fighting of cougars andgrizzlies, t
hat was a mooted question, with the credit on the side ofthe former.

  The story of the doings of cougars, as told in the snow, was intenselyfascinating and tragic! How they stalked deer and elk, crept to withinspringing distance, then crouched flat to leap, was as easy to read asif it had been told in print. The leaps and bounds were beyond belief.The longest leap on a level measured eighteen and one-half feet. Jonestrailed a half-grown cougar, which in turn was trailing a big elk. Hefound where the cougar had struck his game, had clung for many rods, tobe dashed off by the low limb of a spruce tree. The imprint of the bodyof the cougar was a foot deep in the snow; blood and tufts of haircovered the place. But there was no sign of the cougar renewing thechase.

  In rare cases cougars would refuse to run, or take to trees. One dayJones followed the hounds, eight in number, to come on a huge Tomholding the whole pack at bay. He walked to and fro, lashing his tailfrom side to side, and when Jones dashed up, he coolly climbed a tree.Jones shot the cougar, which, in falling, struck one of the hounds,crippling him. This hound would never approach a tree after thisincident, believing probably that the cougar had sprung upon him.

  Usually the hounds chased their quarry into a tree long before Jonesrode up. It was always desirable to kill the animal with the firstshot. If the cougar was wounded, and fell or jumped among the dogs,there was sure to be a terrible fight, and the best dogs alwaysreceived serious injuries, if they were not killed outright. The lionwould seize a hound, pull him close, and bite him in the brain.

  Jones asserted that a cougar would usually run from a hunter, but thatthis feature was not to be relied upon. And a wounded cougar was asdangerous as a tiger. In his hunts Jones carried a shotgun, and shellsloaded with ball for the cougar, and others loaded with fine shot forthe hounds. One day, about ten miles from the camp, the hounds took atrail and ran rapidly, as there were only a few inches of snow. Jonesfound a large lion had taken refuge in a tree that had fallen againstanother, and aiming at the shoulder of the beast, he fired bothbarrels. The cougar made no sign he had been hit. Jones reloaded andfired at the head. The old fellow growled fiercely, turned in the treeand walked down head first, something he would not have been able to dohad the tree been upright. The hounds were ready for him, but wiselyattacked in the rear. Realizing he had been shooting fine shot at theanimal, Jones began a hurried search for a shell loaded with ball. Thelion made for him, compelling him to dodge behind trees. Even thoughthe hounds kept nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursuedthe hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougarreached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in,and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabledJones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Uponexamination, it was discovered the cougar had been half-blinded by thefine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he had made tocatch Jones.

  The mountain lion rarely attacks a human being for the purpose ofeating. When hungry he will often follow the tracks of people, andunder favorable circumstances may ambush them. In the park where gameis plentiful, no one has ever known a cougar to follow the trail of aperson; but outside the park lions have been known to follow hunters,and particularly stalk little children. The Davis family, living a fewmiles north of the park, have had children pursued to the very doors oftheir cabin. And other families relate similar experiences. Jones heardof only one fatality, but he believes that if the children were leftalone in the woods, the cougars would creep closer and closer, and whenassured there was no danger, would spring to kill.

  Jones never heard the cry of a cougar in the National Park, whichstrange circumstance, considering the great number of the animalsthere, he believed to be on account of the abundance of game. But hehad heard it when a boy in Illinois, and when a man all over the West,and the cry was always the same, weird and wild, like the scream of aterrified woman. He did not understand the significance of the cry,unless it meant hunger, or the wailing mourn of a lioness for hermurdered cubs.

  The destructiveness of this savage species was murderous. Jones cameupon one old Tom's den, where there was a pile of nineteen elk, mostlyyearlings. Only five or six had been eaten. Jones hunted this oldfellow for months, and found that the lion killed on the average threeanimals a week. The hounds got him up at length, and chased him to theYellowstone River, which he swam at a point impassable for man orhorse. One of the dogs, a giant bloodhound named Jack, swam the swiftchannel, kept on after the lion, but never returned. All cougars havetheir peculiar traits and habits, the same as other creatures, and allold Toms have strongly marked characteristics, but this one was themost destructive cougar Jones ever knew.

  During Jones's short sojourn as warden in the park, he capturednumerous cougars alive, and killed seventy-two.