In early days, about 1869 or ’70, a Mr. T. Cherry, cradling oats in a field in Squowh Valley, was attacked by a cougar; holding his cradle between him and the hungry beast, he backed toward the fence, the animal following until the fence was reached. A gang of hogs were feeding just outside the enclosure and the cougar leaped the fence, seized one of the hogs and ran off with it.
A saloon-keeper on the Snohomish River, walking along the trail in the adjacent forest one day with his yellow dog, was startled by the sudden accession to their party of a huge and hungry cougar. The man fled precipitately, leaving the dog to his fate. The wild beast fell to and made a meal of the hapless canine, devouring all but the tip of his yellow tail, which his sorrowing master found near the trail the next day.
A lonely pioneer cabin on the Columbia River was enclosed by a high board fence. One sunny day as the two children of the family were playing in the yard, a cougar sprang from a neighboring tree and caught one of the children; the mother ran out and beat off the murderous beast, but the child was dead.
She then walked six or seven miles to a settlement carrying the dead child, while leading the other. What a task! The precious burden, the heavier load of sorrow, the care of the remaining child, the dread of a renewed attack from the cougar and the bodily fatigue incident to such a journey, forming an experience upon which it would be painful to dwell.
Many more such incidents might be given, but I am reminded at this point that they would appropriately appear in another volume.
Since the first settlement there have been killed in King County nearly thirty of these animals.
C. Brownfield, an old settler on Lake Union, killed several with the aid of “Jack,” a yellow dog which belonged to D. T. Denny for a time, then to A. A. Denny.
C. D. Boren, with his dog, killed others.
Moses Kirkland brought a dog from Louisiana, a half bloodhound, with which Henry Van Asselt hunted and killed several cougars.
D. T. Denny killed one in the region occupied by the suburb of Seattle known as Ross. It had been dining off mutton secured from Dr. H. A. Smith’s flock of sheep. It was half grown and much the color of a deer.