Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — CAT OF THE SIERRAS. [ARTICLE]

CAT OF THE SIERRAS.

Hunting the Mountain Lion in Southern California. While making the descent, says a writer in the Californian, the hunters camo suddenly to a huge rock that projected from the mountain, extending toward a like mass on the opposite side of the chasm. On reaching it, Don Felipe uttered a cry of precaution, and pointed across the canyon. There in its sanctuary stood, in strong relief against the rock, the great cat of the Sierras—the mountain lion—its head raised in a listening attitude. . The whole position was so noble and impressive that it was some seconds before the rifles cracked, and the fierce yell of the wounded animal broke the stillness. It. turned quickly and savagely, snarling and biting at the wound in its flank; then, being struck again, whirled, and blinded by pain ana fury, sprang or rolled over the precipice, and went thundering down the side of the canyon, lodging dead in the chaparral far below. “That chap was a-lying for the doe,” said the old mountaineer, as later he came up the mountain, with the skin of the lion over his back. “They kill more deer in and out of season than all the hunters in California put together; and when your folks say a mountain lion ain’t up to the mark, don’t take any stock in it No, I never knew one to kill a man; but they will tackle a grizzly, and I've seen ’em tear a horse so that the owner didn’t know him when he saw him. I’ve killed the mountain lion from the Rockies down to San Bernardino, and when they’re cornered they are as bad as a regular lion, from all I have read."