The Clawed tiller of
Malcolm Island

“Felis Oregonensis Hippolestes” They Call Him in Museum Language: Cougar
in the B.C. Bush—Here’s How Game Warden Jimmy Dewar and Pete the
Blue Tick Settled Scores with the Terror of Malcolm Island.

THE PHONE in the Alberni District Game
Office jangled insistently. Game Warden
Jimmy Dewar picked it up with an inquisi-
tive twinkle in his Scotch eyes. The opera-
tor told him to hold the line, long distance
was calling from Vancouver.

A moment later a deep voice resounded
over the wire.

“Hello. Hello. That you, Jimmy?”

It was Commissioner James Cunningham
from the Game Headquarters in Vancouver.

“Yes, Mr. Cunningham. What can I do
for you?” asked Jimmy surprised at the
urgent call.

“How soon can you go to Malcolm
Island?” came back Cunningham.

“Right away, I guess,” answered Jimmy
readily. “What's the trouble?”

“There have been over forty sheep killed
up there in the past two months—we think
it’s a cougar. Can you take your hounds up
and get the thing?”

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Jimmy took down the instructions from
his Commissioner with a pleased frown. He
hadn't killed a cougar for a few months.
The hunt was just what he wanted. Must
be a big cat, he mused, to do all that
killing. He left the office, and going to his
residence packed his duffle and loaded his
Kentucky Blue Tick hound into the car.

“Going huntin’, Pete, old boy,” he
grinned as the dog wiggled, waggled and
whined impatiently. Pete knew when his
master meant business. The sign of a gun
and pack meant a trip in the woods.

Jimmy arrived at the highway terminus
of Campbell River to find the Game Launch
skippered by Game Warden William
Massey had not arrived. A blinding snow-
storm was filling the treacherous waters
of Quadra Channel with yet another haz-
ard, making Seymour Narrows the twisting
turbulence, through which the inner coastal
waters struggled, impassable to the little
launch.

The following day Massey arrived and
Jimmy greeted him eagerly.

“How soon do we get out?” he asked.

“There isn’t a tide I can go through on
today, Jim,” informed Massey. “We'll have
to wait until tomorrow.”

“What's the matter?” asked Jimmy im-
patient to leave.

“Too tough and too much weather for
the Game Launch,” said Massey sadly.

The following day the weather had
changed to a drizzle of irritating rain, calm

TWELFTH EDITION

enough to navigate the Seymour Narrows
with safety. In the morning the little craft
put out for Alert Bay arriving at her destin-
ation in the afternoon. Heavy rain. was
sheeting down, drenching the timbered
shores of Malcolm Island in a cleansing
deluge. It would be hopeless to set a dog
on a track in such weather as the insistent
downpour washed the scent from the cou-
gar’s trail in a matter of minutes.
Undaunted, Jimmy Dewar decided to
visit some of the farmers who had suffered
the loss of livestock. At one of the farms

Game Warden Jimmy Dewar, Pete the Blue
Tick and the 148-lb. mountain lion.

he surveyed the torn carcass of a sheep
recently killed. Sizing it up from long ex-
perience, he decided the evidence was sufh-
cient to be fairly sure the killer was a
cougar.

“What do you think of it?” asked the
farmer.

“Td say it was a cougar all right, and a
fair-sized one.”

“Think you will get him? He’s caused a
lot of damage here.”

“TIL try,” answered Jimmy noncommit-

*

By CONST.
MICHAEL CRAMOND

*

ally. A good cougar hunter won’t guarantee
he will kill a cougar, but a good try with a
good dog usually produced results. He
didn’t wish to enliven the farmer’s hopes
even if the chances did look good. He went
to his lodgings early that night, deciding to
have a good rest. The sky was lightening
up, its dour blackness promising drier
weather, and the country looked as if it
might be hard travelling.

The following morning Jimmy took Pete
to Turner’s farm where one of the most
recent kills had been made. The rain had
stopped and already the ground was losing
its damp spongy quality. Pete had hardly
sniffed the scent about the carcass when he
let a whooping bellow out of him and head-
ed for the bush. Jimmy plunged after him
into the unbroken forest. A dense covering
of salal, thicker, and more profuse than he
had ever previously experienced, impeded
his stride. In places it grew high over his
head, the springy branches pushing back
at him, the slippery, hard-surfaced leaves
rasping and rattling with a noise that
drowned out the sound of the hound’s trail-
ing voice. Pete had been able to slip be-
neath the salal brush almost without diffi-
culty and before Jimmy could avoid it the
dog had got out of his hearing.

He swore at the salal and fought his
way against it, worrying about the where-
abouts of the dog. It was evident the cougar
could not be far away, from the quick man-
ner in which Pete had straightened out the
trail. Now sweating, now swearing, Jimmy
circles his way across the rough terrain of
the Island. It had been over an hour since
he heard the familiar voice of Pete baying
in the chase.

“Woowoocc0owoocoeee” . . . the distant
sound drifted on the otherwise silent air.

Jimmy stopped and listened. The sound
came again. That was Pete barking treed!
He was elated. The dog must have the
cougar up a tree, holding it there. Stopping
only occasionally to ascertain the direction
of the bark, he headed for the sound.

A few minutes later he broke from the
dense bush into a small opening beneath
a tall hemlock timber. Pete was sitting
anxiously on his haunches howling at the
clouds. Hearing his master’s steps he
whooped the louder. Those steps usually
meant death to the killer cat, and a good
feed of cougar meat for him.

Sixty feet above in the massive arms of
the straight trunked hemlock the outlaw

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