It sprang down on
the man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a moment, and then ran
away. Another man I knew, a hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small
ranch near Helena, was once charged by a wounded cougar; he received a
couple of deep scratches, but was not seriously hurt.
Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's occasionally itself
making the attack, and dogging to his death some unfortunate wayfarer.
Many others laugh such tales to scorn. It is certain that if such
attacks occur they are altogether exceptional, being indeed of such
extreme rarity that they may be entirely disregarded in practice. I
should have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood where there
were cougars, or walking through it after nightfall, than I should have
if the cougars were tomcats.
Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional instances attacks may
occur. Cougars vary wonderfully in size, and no less in temper. Indeed I
think that by nature they are as ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are
cowardly; and that their habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles
is due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the courage to realize.
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