Wild Animals at Home Part 16

In the fall of 1912 I was staying at Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota. On the broken ground, between the river and the high level prairie, I noted a ridge with holes exactly like those I had seen on the Yellowstone. A faint squeak underground gave additional and corroborative evidence. So I set a trap and next night had a specimen of the Squeaker as well as a couple of the omnipresent Deer-mice.

Doubtless the Calling Mouse has an interesting and peculiar life history, but little is known of it except that it dwells on the dry plains, is a caller by habit;--through not around the campfire--it feeds largely on gra.s.shoppers, and is in mortal terror of ants.

XI

Sneak-cats Big and Small

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XI

Sneak-cats--Big and Small

You may ride five hundred miles among the mountains, in a country where these beasts of prey abound, and yet see never a hair of a living Wildcat. _But how many do you suppose see you?_ Peeping from a thicket, near the trail, glimpsing you across some open valley in the mountains, or inspecting you from various points as you recline by the campfire, they size you up and decide they want no nearer dealings with you; you are bad medicine, a thing to be eluded. And oh! how clever they are at eluding us.

If you turn out the biggest Lynx on the smoothest prairie you ever saw, he will efface himself before you count twenty. The gra.s.s may be but three inches high and the Lynx twenty-three, but he will melt into it, and wholly escape the searching eyes of the keenest. One would not think an empty skin could lie more flat. Add to this the silent sinuosity of his glide; he seems to ooze around the b.u.mps and stumps, and bottle up his frightful energy for the final fearsome leap. His whole makeup is sacrificed to efficiency in that leap; on that depends his life; his very existence turns on the wondrous perfection of the sneak, of which the leap is the culmination. Hunters in all parts where these creatures abound, agree in calling Wildcat, Lynx, and Cougar by the undignified but descriptive name of Sneak-cat.

THE BOBCAT OR MOUNTAIN WILDCAT

The Wildcat of Europe, and of literature, is a creature of almost unparalleled ferocity. Our own Wildcat is three times as big and heavy, so many persons a.s.sume that it is three times as ferocious, and therefore to be dreaded almost like a Tiger. The fact is, the American Wildcat or Bobcat is a very shy creature, ready to run from a very small dog, never facing a man and rarely killing anything bigger than a Rabbit.

I never saw but one Bobcat in the Yellowstone Park, and that was not in the Park, but at Gardiner where it was held a captive. But it came from the Park, and the guides tell me that the species is quite common in some localities.

It is readily recognized by its cat-like form and its short or bob-tail, whence its name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: x.x.xVI. (a) Tracks of Deer escaping and (b) Tracks of Mountain Lion in pursuit _Photos by E. T. Seton_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: x.x.xVII. The Mountain Lion sneaking around us as we sleep _Sketch by E. T. Seton_]

MISUNDERSTOOD--THE CANADA LYNX

The southern part of North America is occupied by Bobcats of various kinds, the northern part by Lynxes, their very near kin, and there is a narrow belt of middle territory occupied by both. The Yellowstone Park happens to be in that belt, so we find here both the Mountain Bobcat and the Canada Lynx.

I remember well three scenes from my childhood days in Canada, in which this animal was the central figure. A timid neighbour of ours was surprised one day to see a large Lynx come out of the woods in broad daylight, and walk toward his house. He went inside, got his gun, opened the door a little, and knelt down. The Lynx walked around the house at about forty yards distance, the man covering it with the gun most of the time, but his hand was shaking, the gun was wabbling, and he was tormented with the thought, "What if I miss, then that brute will come right at me, and then, oh, dear! what?"

He had not the nerve to fire and the Lynx walked back to the woods. How well I remember that man. A kind-hearted, good fellow, but oh! so timid. His neighbours guyed him about it, until at last he sold out his farm and joined the ministry.

The next scene was similar. Two men were out c.o.o.n-hunting, when their dogs treed something. A blazing fire soon made, showed plainly aloft in the tree the whiskered head of a Lynx. The younger man levelled his gun at it, but the other clung to his arm begging him to come away, reminding him that both had families dependent on them, and earnestly protesting that the Lynx, if wounded, would certainly come down and kill the whole outfit.

The third was wholly different. In broad daylight a Lynx came out of the woods near a settler's house, entered the pasture and seized a lamb. The good wife heard the noise of the sheep rus.h.i.+ng, and went out in time to see the Lynx dragging the victim. She seized a stick and went for the robber. He growled defiantly, but at the first blow of the stick he dropped the lamb and ran. Then that plucky woman carried the lamb to the house; finding four deep cuts in its neck she sewed them up, and after a few days of careful nursing restored the woolly one to its mother, fully recovered.

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The first two incidents ill.u.s.trate the crazy ideas that some folks have about the Lynx, and the last shows what the real character of the animal is.

I have once or twice been followed by Lynxes, but I am sure it was merely out of curiosity. Many times I have met them in the woods at close range and each time they have gazed at me in a sort of mild-eyed wonder. There was no trace of ferocity in the gaze, but rather of innocent confidence.

The earliest meeting I ever had with a Lynx I shall remember when all the other meetings have been dimmed by time, but I have used the incident without embellishment in the early part of "Two Little Savages," so shall not repeat it here.

THE SHYEST THING IN THE WOODS--MOUNTAIN LION, PUMA OR COUGAR

Reference to the official report shows that there are about one hundred Mountain Lions now ranging the Yellowstone Park. And yet one is very safe in believing that not twenty-five persons of those living in the Park have ever seen one.

By way of contrast, the report gives the number of Blackbear at the same--about one hundred--and yet every one living in the Park or pa.s.sing through, has seen scores of Bears.

Why this difference? Chiefly owing to their respective habits. The Cougar is the most elusive, sneaking, adroit hider, and shyest thing in the woods. I have camped for twenty-five years in its country and have never yet seen a wild Cougar. Almost never are they found without dogs specially trained to trail and hunt them.

Although I have never seen a Cougar at large, it is quite certain that many a one has watched me. Yes! even in the Yellowstone Park. Remember this, oh traveller, sitting in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel!

you are in sight of two famous Cougar haunts--Mt. Evarts and Bunsen Peak, and the chances are that, as you sit and perhaps read these lines, a Cougar lolling gray-brown among the gray-brown rocks of the mountain opposite, is calmly surveying all the world about, including yourself.

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If you consult the witching contraband books that we of a bygone age used to read surrept.i.tiously in school hours, you will learn that "the Cougar is a fearsome beast of invincible prowess. He can kill a Buffalo or an ox with a blow of his paw, and run off with it at full speed or carry it up a tree to devour, and he is by choice a man-eater. Commonly uttering the cry of a woman in distress to decoy the gallant victim to his doom." If, on the other hand, you consult some careful natural histories, or one or two of the seasoned guides, you learn that the Cougar, though horribly destructive among Deer, sheep, and colts, rarely kills a larger prey, and never is known to attack man.

I have had many persons take exception to the last statement, and give contrary proof by referring to some hair-lifting incident which seemed to be a refutation. But most of these attacks by Cougars have failed to stand the disintegrating power of a carefully focussed searchlight.

There is no doubt that the Cougar is addicted to horseflesh, as his scientific name implies (_hippolestes_=horse pirate). He will go a long way to kill a colt, and several supposed cases of a Cougar attacking a man on horseback at night prove to have been attacks on the horse, and in each case on discovering the man the Cougar had decamped.

This creature is also possessed of a strong curiosity and many times is known to have followed a man in the woods merely to study the queer creature, but without intent to do him harm. Nevertheless the timid traveller who discovers he is "pursued by a Cougar" may manage to persuade himself that he has had a hairbreadth escape.

THE TIME I MET A LION

A newspaper reporter asked me once for a story of terrible peril from our wild animals, a time "when I nearly lost my life."

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My answer was, "I never had such an experience. Danger from wild animals is practically non-existent in America to-day."

"Did you never meet a Grizzly or a Mountain Lion?" he asked.

"Yes, many Grizzlies, and one or two Lions. I've had one look me over while I slept," was the answer.

And now the thrill-monger's face lighted up, he straightened his paper and stuck his pencil in his mouth by way of getting ready, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "Say! now you're getting it; let's hear the details. Don't spare me!"