HOW THE COUGAR KILLED HIS VICTIM 241

When the cougar earried it off the hind legs of the deer
trailed in the dust, making a mark, just as if a wide broom
had been lightly drawn along.

As soon as my curiosity about the killing was satisfied
I set out to follow the trail; not that there was any great
hope of getting a shot, but I wanted to find the deer
and see what had been done with it. There had been a
very heavy dew during the night, so the trail in the long &
grass was plain. After going forty or fifty yards the a
cougar must have stopped and worked the deer into a g
different position, as, from then on, the hind legs of the
deer did not trail behind, but only touched the grass
now and then where it was extra long, and then off to
one side. For another two hundred yards the trail led
over open grass land, then through a small thicket, over
a hillock, and down into a wide gulch. The gulch was
covered with a thick growth of very young firs which
gradually became more and more dense until they got
so close together that it was difficult to pass through
them. In this thicket a lot of time was lost, as it was
by no means easy to follow the trail, there being nothing a
to go by but broken sticks and here and there a little 4
hair which had been scraped off the deer. A good hour
must have been spent in making the next two hundred
yards to where the deer was hidden. By the time I
eventually found it the cougar had covered it up with
leaves, moss, sticks, and dirt; and all that could be seen
was one hind leg sticking up. It had not been broken
up and there was no wound visible: not even a scratch
could I find until I had skinned it. Up where the neck a
joined the skull there was a mass of congealed blood. ¢@
The neck was broken, but the body was hardly marked: i
just a few bruises and claw marks high up on the shoulders, (f
The deer was a very old doe that had not had any fawns h
that year, and she was fat and heavy and must have |
weighed more than the cougar, which, judging from his :
tracks, was only a small one.

When I visited this “‘ kill’’ several days afterwards there
was nothing of it left. Whether the cougar had returned