Such an animal, if it jumped down from a considerable height, would carry a man to the ground with such force as to stun him, when he could be clawed and chewed up at the creature’s will.
While the curious and admiring crowd were measuring and guessing at the weight of the cougar, Mr. Yesler called at the cabin. He kept looking about while he talked and finally said, “You are quite high-toned here, I see your house is papered,” at which all laughed good-naturedly. Not all the cabins were “papered,” but this one was made quite neat by means of newspapers pasted on the walls, the finishing touch being a border of nothing more expensive than blue calico.
At last they were all satisfied with their inspection of the first cougar and returned to the settlement.
A moral might be pinned here: if this cougar had not dined so gluttonously on the tender calf, which no doubt made excellent veal, possibly he would not have come to such a sudden and violent end.
Had some skillful taxidermist been at hand to mount this splendid specimen of Felis Concolor, the first killed by a white man in this region, it would now be very highly prized.
Some imagine that the danger of encounters with cougars has been purposely exaggerated by the pioneer hunters to create admiring respect for their own prowess. This is not my opinion, as I believe there is good reason to fear them, especially if they are hungry.
They are large, swift and agile, and have the advantage in the dense forest of the northwest Pacific coast, as they can station themselves in tall trees amid thick foliage and pounce upon deer, cattle and human beings.
Several years after the killing of the first specimen, a cow was caught in the jaw by a cougar, but wrenched herself away in terror and pain and ran home with the whole frightened herd at her heels, into the settlement of Seattle.
The natives have always feared them and would much rather meet a bear than a cougar, as the former will, ordinarily, run away, while the latter is hard to scare and is liable to follow and spring out of the thick undergrowth.
In one instance known to the pioneers first mentioned in this chapter, an Indian woman who was washing at the edge of a stream beat a cougar off her child with a stick, thereby saving its life.