“Are you a hunter?”
“Wal, I reckon so, though I'm more a trapper. Here, you pack my gun.”
With that he drew his knife and set to work on the deer. It was wonderful to see his skill. In a few cuts and strokes, a ripping of the hide and a powerful slash, he had cut out a haunch. It took even less work for the second. Then he hung the rest of the deer on a snag, and wiped his knife and hands on the grass.
“Come on, youngster,” he said, starting up the canyon.
I showed him where the carcass of my deer had been devoured.
“Cougar. Thar's a big feller has the run of this canyon.”
“Cougar? I thought it was a mountain-lion.”
“Cougar, painter, panther, lion—all the same critter. An' if you leave him alone he'll not bother you, but he's bad in a corner.”
“He scared away the coyotes.”
“Youngster, even a silver-tip—thet's a grizzly bear—will make tracks away from a cougar. I lent my pack of hounds to a pard over near Springer. If I had them we'd put thet cougar up a tree in no time.”