One December a large cougar took
up his abode on a densely wooded bottom two miles above the ranch house.
I did not discover his existence until I went there one evening to kill
a deer, and found that he had driven all the deer off the bottom, having
killed several, as well as a young heifer. Snow was falling at the time,
but the storm was evidently almost over; the leaves were all off the
trees and bushes; and I felt that next day there would be such a chance
to follow the cougar as fate rarely offered. In the morning by dawn I
was at the bottom, and speedily found his trail. Following it I came
across his bed, among some cedars in a dark, steep gorge, where the
buttes bordered the bottom. He had evidently just left it, and I
followed his tracks all day. But I never caught a glimpse of him, and
late in the afternoon I trudged wearily homewards. When I went out
next morning I found that as soon as I abandoned the chase, my quarry,
according to the uncanny habit sometimes displayed by his kind, coolly
turned likewise, and deliberately dogged my footsteps to within a mile
of the ranch house; his round footprints being as clear as writing in
the snow.
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