242 COUGAR

and moved it or had eaten part of it and the coyotes had
finished it off is impossible to say, but I am inclined to
think that the coyotes had taken a hand in the matter.

In addition to its being almost impossible to shoot a
cougar at a ‘“‘ kill,” it is equally difficult to track one,
even when there is snow on the ground, with any great
chance of getting ina shot. There may be men who have
killed a cougar this way, but I never met one yet and
certainly it was beyond my powers, though I tried often
enough and once or twice must have been very close to
my quarry. Once, very early in the morning, when it was
snowing hard I happened on a cougar track that had
palpably only been made a few minutes previously,
Hour after hour I followed that track, expecting to get a
shot every instant. Somewhere about two o’clock my
quarry began to make a turn to the left and I left the
trail and turned off too, hoping I might succeed in cutting
him off,

After another hour’s fruitless wandering, not having
seen a sign of my quarry, I bent farther back, struck
my old tracks and began to follow them back home.
Hardly had I followed my trail for a hundred yards
when I suddenly came on the cougar tracks on it. I
must almost have been in sight of him when he either
heard, saw, or smelt me, and went off at top speed. It
was the same cougar that I had been following; he
had made a complete circle, picked up my trail, and in
turn followed me.

It is by no means an uncommon thing for both cougar
and wolves to follow a man’s trail, especially if he is
carrying meat or wearing snow shoes, as was the case
when the incident I have just narrated took place. Some-
times they do it on account of the smell of the meat or
snow-shoe strings, but often because it is easier going for
them,

When hunting cougar with really first-rate hounds you
have the pleasure of hearing them running, but when once
the quarry is treed the sport is over as the actual shooting
is too simple. But even with good hounds it is by no