"The distance from the wall of one mountain to the precipice of the other was but eight feet. Both had originally been but one mountain, but ages ago some great convulsion of nature had split them apart, and had left a huge fissure between them at least two thousand feet deep, with walls as smooth as glass.
"The old one ran back and forth from the precipice to the kids several times, showing them as plainly as if she could talk that they must make the leap to escape from their natural enemy. At last, as if the whole matter was understood, the mother flew back to the edge of the cañon, the little ones hot in her tracks, and then all three made the jump, just clearing the frightful gorge by half the length of the young ones.
"I was dumfounded for an instant, but soon recovered my senses and went for my rifle, but the coveted animals were far out of range on the top of the twin peak. I then returned to my camp on Green River more than a hundred miles away, disgusted and worn out, and never again attempted to capture the kids of the bighorn in the fashion of my first venture."
Joe and the rest of the family, remembering Joe's scrap with the young panther, asked the old man if he had ever had any fight with one of them. He said that he had, and would tell them all about it. Then they would go to bed, as it was very late for the ranche folks to be up.
"I remember the day you had that tussle with a young panther, Joe, and I tell you that you got off mighty luckily; the chances were that the animal would have made mincemeat of you if it hadn't been for that thrust with your knife.
"The California lion, puma, or panther, as the animal is indifferently called according to locality, once had a very extensive range on the North American continent. It could be found from the Adirondacks to Patagonia, but now, like nearly all of our indigenous great mammals, is relatively scarce, and is rapidly following the sad trail of the buffalo.
"Although sometimes called a lion, he in nowise resembles either his African or Asiatic namesake. He is more nearly related to the tiger in his habits, though lion-like in color. He is the puma or American cougar of the naturalists. He is really a long-tailed cat, and the only true representative of the genus felis on the continent.
"He is a splendid fellow, too, with sleepy green eyes, skin as soft as velvet and beautifully mottled, and teeth half an inch long and sharp as razors. His paws measure four inches across, and his limbs are as finely proportioned as a sculptor could desire, while all his muscles are as brawny as a prize-fighter's. His breast is broad, and his body as flexible as a snake's. He is an active climber and generally drops or springs upon his prey from a limb where he has carefully secreted himself. Like the majority of wild beasts, he generally runs from man, excepting when cornered, or in the case of a female with kittens when suddenly met; then her motherly love presents itself as strongly as in any other animal.
"The cougar attains its greatest size in the Rocky Mountains, where its body reaches a length of four feet ten inches, and its tail from two to two and a half feet.
"The American panther has one inveterate foe, the bear. The grizzly and the panther are mortal enemies. The famous trappers I have known, such men as Kit Carson and Lucien B. Maxwell, have told me that in these animals' frequent combats, the panther generally comes out victor, and that in their early trapping days they often came across the carcass of a bear which had evidently met its death in a lively encounter with a mountain lion, as they called it.