its relentless rider. All in vain! Closely clasping its neck, the cougar clings on, tearing its victim in the throat, and drinking its blood throughout the wild gallop. Faint and feeble, the ruminant at length totters and falls, and the fierce destroyer squats itself along the body, and finishes its red repast. If the cougar can overcome several animals at a time, it will kill them all, although but the twentieth part may be required to satiate its hunger. Unlike the lion in this, even in repletion it will kill. With it, destruction of life seems to be an instinct.
There is a very small animal, and apparently a very helpless one, with which the cougar occasionally quarrels, but often with ill success – this is the Canada porcupine. Whether the cougar ever succeeds in killing one of these creatures is not known, but that it attacks them is beyond question, and its own death is often the result. The quills of the Canada porcupine are slightly barbed at their extremities; and when stuck into the flesh of a living animal, this arrangement causes them to penetrate mechanically deeper and deeper as the animal moves. That the porcupine can itself discharge them to some distance, is not true, but it is true that it can cause them to be easily detached; and this it does when rashly seized by any of the predatory animals. The result is, that these remarkable spines become fast in the tongue, jaws, and lips of the cougar, or any other creature which may make an attack on that seemingly unprotected little animal. The fisher (Mustela Canadensis) is said to be the only animal that can kill the porcupine with impunity. It fights the latter by first throwing it upon its back, and then springing upon its upturned belly, where the spines are almost entirely wanting.
The cougar is called a cowardly animal: some naturalists even assert that it will not venture to attack man. This is, to say the least, a singular declaration, after the numerous well-attested instances in which men have been attacked, and even killed by cougars. There are many such in the history of early settlement in America. To say that cougars are cowardly now when found in the United States – to say they are shy of man, and will not attack him, may be true enough. Strange, if the experience of 200 years’ hunting, and by such hunters too, did not bring them to that. We may safely believe, that if the lions of Africa were placed in the same circumstances, a very similar shyness and dread of the upright biped would soon exhibit itself. What all these creatures – bears, cougars, lynxes, wolves, and even alligators – are now, is no criterion of their past. Authentic history proves that their courage, at least so far as regards man, has changed altogether since they first heard the sharp detonation of the deadly rifle. Even contemporaneous history demonstrates this. In many parts of South America, both jaguar and cougar attack man, and numerous are the deadly encounters there. In Peru, on the eastern declivity of the Andes, large settlements and even villages have been abandoned solely on account of the perilous proximity of those fierce animals.
In the United States, the cougar is hunted by dog and gun. He will run from the hounds, because he knows they are backed by the unerring rifle of the hunter; but should one of the yelping pack approach too near, a single blow of the cougar’s paw is sufficient to stretch him out. When closely pushed, the cougar takes to a tree, and, halting in one of its forks, humps his back, bristles his hair, looks downward with gleaming eyes, and utters a sound somewhat like the purring of a cat, though far louder. The crack of the hunter’s rifle usually puts an end to these demonstrations, and the cougar drops to the ground either dead or wounded. If only the latter, a desperate fight ensues between him and the dogs, with several of whom he usually leaves a mark that distinguishes them for the rest of their lives.
The scream of the cougar is a common phrase. It is not very certain that the creature is addicted to the habit of screaming, although noises of this kind heard in the nocturnal forest have been attributed to him. Hunters, however, have certainly never heard him, and they believe that the scream talked about proceeds from one of the numerous species of owls that inhabit the deep forests of America. At short intervals, the cougar does make himself heard in a note which somewhat resembles a deep-drawn sigh, or as if one were to utter with an extremely guttural expression the syllables “Co-oa,” or “Cougar.” Is it from this that he derives his trivial name?
Chapter Eight.
Old Ike’s Adventure
Now a panther story was the natural winding-up of this day, and it had been already hinted that old Ike had “rubbed out” several of these creatures in his time, and no doubt could tell more than one “painter” story.
“Wal, strengers,” began he, “it’s true thet this hyur ain’t the fust painter I’ve comed acrosst. About fifteen yeern ago I moved to Loozyanny, an’ thur I met a painter, an’ a queer story it are.”
“Let us have it by all means,” said several of the party, drawing closer up and seating themselves to listen attentively. We all knew that a story from Ike could not be otherwise than “queer,” and our curiosity was on the qui vive.
“Wal then,” continued he, “they have floods dowd thur in Loozyanny, sich as, I guess, you’ve never seen the like o’ in England.” Here Ike addressed himself specially to our English comrade. “England ain’t big enough to hev sich floods. One o’ ’m ud kiver yur hul country, I hev heern said. I won’t say that ar’s true, as I ain’t acquainted with yur jography. I know, howsomdever, they’re mighty big freshets thur, as I hev sailed a skift more ’n a hundred mile acrosst one o’ ’m, whur thur wan’t nothin’ to be seen but cypress tops peep in out o’ the water. The floods, as ye know, come every year, but them ar big ones only oncest in a while.
“Wal, as I’ve said about fifeteen yeern ago, I located in the Red River bottom, about fifty mile or tharabout below Nacketosh, whur I built me a shanty. I hed left my wife an’ two young critters in Massissippi state, intendin’ to go back for ’em in the spring; so, ye see, I wur all alone by meself, exceptin’ my ole mar, a Collins’s axe, an’ of coorse my rifle.
“I hed finished the shanty all but the chinkin’ an’ the buildin’ o’ a chimbly, when what shed come on but one o’ ’m tarnation floods. It wur at night when it begun to make its appearance. I wur asleep on the floor o’ the shanty, an’ the first warnin’ I hed o’ it wur the feel o’ the water soakin’ through my ole blanket. I hed been a-dreamin’, an’ thort it wur rainin’, an’ then agin I thort that I wur bein’ drownded in the Massissippi; but I wan’t many seconds awake, till I guessed what it wur in raality; so I jumped to my feet like a started buck, an’ groped my way to the door.
“A sight that wur when I got thur. I hed chirred a piece o’ ground around the shanty – a kupple o’ acres or better – I hed left the stumps a good three feet high: thur wan’t a stump to be seen. My clearin’, stumps an’ all, wur under water; an’ I could see it shinin’ among the trees all round the shanty.
“Of coorse, my fust thoughts wur about my rifle; an I turned back into the shanty, an’ laid my claws upon that quick enough.
“I next went in search o’ my ole mar. She wan’t hard to find; for if ever a critter made a noise, she did. She wur tied to a tree close by the shanty, an’ the way she wur a-squealin’ wur a caution to cats. I found her up to the belly in water, pitchin’ an’ flounderin’ all round the tree. She hed nothin’ on but the rope that she wur hitched by. Both saddle an’ bridle hed been washed away: so I made the rope into a sort o’ halter, an’ mounted her bare-backed.
“Jest then I begun to think whur I wur agoin’. The hul country appeared to be under water: an’ the nearest neighbour I hed lived acrosst the parairy ten miles off. I knew that his shanty sot on high ground, but how wur I to get thur? It wur night; I mout lose my way, an’ ride chuck into the river.
“When I thort o’ ibis, I concluded it mout be better to stay by my own shanty till mornin’. I could hitch the mar inside to keep her from bein’ floated away; an’ for meself, I could climb on the roof.
“While I wur thinkin’
