Equipped for rough camping, we soon planned our morning excursion and bedded down for rest.
At 3 o'clock we waked, ate a meager breakfast, and hit the trail up the mountain. We knew the general range of our cougar. It is necessary in all his tracking to get in the field while the dew is on the ground and before the sun dissipates it, also before the goats obliterate the tracks.
Arrived at the crest of the ridge, we struck a well-defined goat trail, and soon the fresh tracks of a lion were discovered. Our dogs took up the scent at once and we began to travel at a rapid pace.
Here again, one must have a good pair of legs. If automobiles, elevators, and general laziness have not ruined your powers of locomotion, you may follow the dogs; otherwise, you had best stay at home.
At first we walk, then we trot, and when with a leap the hounds start in full cry, we race. Regardless of five thousand feet of altitude, regardless of brush, rocks, and dizzy cliffs, we follow at a breakneck pace. I don't know where our breath comes from in these trials. We just have to run; in fact, we have planned to run on our hands when our legs play out. With pounding hearts we surge ahead. "Keep the dogs within hearing!" "It can't last long!" But this time we come to a sudden halt on a rocky slide. We've lost the scent. The dogs circle and backtrack and work with feverish haste. The sun has risen, and up the mountain side comes a band of goats led by a single shepherd dog--no man in sight. We shout to the dog to steer his rabble away, but on they come, and obliterate our trail with a thousand hoofprints and a cloud of dust.
The sun then comes out, and our day is done. No felis this time.
So we scout the country for information to be used later, and return to camp to drown our sorrow in food.
This was my first knowledge that a dog could be placed in charge of a flock of sheep or goats. It seems that these little sheep dogs, not even collies, but some shaggy little plebeians, are given full charge of the band. They lead them out to pasture, guard them, and keep them together during the day and bring them home at night. They will, when properly instructed, take a band of goats out for a week on a long route, and bring them all safely home again. At least, they used to do this until the lion appeared on the scene.
That evening we asked the rancher to lock his goats in the corral till noon.
Next morning we rose again in time to see the morning star glitter with undimmed glory. Up the trail we mounted, the dogs eager for the chase. An old owl in a hollow tree asked us again and again who we were; all else was silent in the woods.