Letters to His Children | Page 5

baying. Then they struck the fresh trail, where the
cougar had killed a deer over night. In half an hour a clamorous yelling
told us they had overtaken the quarry; for we had been riding up the
slopes and along the crests, wherever it was possible for the horses to

get footing. As we plunged and scrambled down towards the noise, one
of my companions, Phil Stewart, stopped us while he took a kodak of a
rabbit which sat unconcernedly right beside our path. Soon we saw the
lion in a treetop, with two of the dogs so high up among the branches
that he was striking at them. He was more afraid of us than of the dogs,
and as soon as he saw us he took a great flying leap and was off, the
pack close behind. In a few hundred yards they had him up another tree.
Here I could have shot him (Tony climbed almost up to him, and then
fell twenty feet out of the tree), but waited for Stewart to get a photo;
and he jumped again. This time, after a couple of hundred yards, the
dogs caught him, and a great fight followed. They could have killed
him by themselves, but he bit or clawed four of them, and for fear he
might kill one I ran in and stabbed him behind the shoulder, thrusting
the knife you loaned me right into his heart. I have always wished to
kill a cougar as I did this one, with dogs and the knife.

DOGS THAT CLIMB TREES
Keystone Ranch, Jan. 18, 1901.
DARLING LITTLE ETHEL:
I have had great fun. Most of the trip neither you nor Mother nor Sister
would enjoy; but you would all of you be immensely amused with the
dogs. There are eleven all told, but really only eight do very much
hunting. These eight are all scarred with the wounds they have received
this very week in battling with the cougars and lynxes, and they are
always threatening to fight one another; but they are as affectionate
toward men (and especially toward me, as I pet them) as our own home
dogs. At this moment a large hound and a small half-breed bull-dog,
both of whom were quite badly wounded this morning by a cougar, are
shoving their noses into my lap to be petted, and humming defiance to
one another. They are on excellent terms with the ranch cat and kittens.
The three chief fighting dogs, who do not follow the trail, are the most
affectionate of all, and, moreover, they climb trees! Yesterday we got a
big lynx in the top of a pinon tree--a low, spreading kind of pine--about

thirty feet tall. Turk, the bloodhound, followed him up, and after much
sprawling actually got to the very top, within a couple of feet of him.
Then, when the lynx was shot out of the tree, Turk, after a short
scramble, took a header down through the branches, landing with a
bounce on his back. Tony, one of the half-breed bull-dogs, takes such
headers on an average at least once for every animal we put up a tree.
We have nice little horses which climb the most extraordinary places
you can imagine. Get Mother to show you some of Gustave Dore's
trees; the trees on these mountains look just like them.

THE PIG NAMED MAUDE
Keystone Ranch, Jan. 29, 1901
DARLING LITTLE ETHEL:
You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch. The
most thoroughly independent and self-possessed of them is a large
white pig which we have christened Maude. She goes everywhere at
her own will; she picks up scraps from the dogs, who bay dismally at
her, but know they have no right to kill her; and then she eats the green
alfalfa hay from the two milch cows who live in the big corral with the
horses. One of the dogs has just had a litter of puppies; you would love
them, with their little wrinkled noses and squeaky voices.

ADVICE AND NEWS
Oyster Bay, May 7th, 1901
BLESSED TED:
It was the greatest fun seeing you, and I really had a satisfactory time
with you, and came away feeling that you were doing well. I am
entirely satisfied with your standing, both in your studies and in
athletics. I want you to do well in your sports, and I want even more to

have you do well with your books; but I do not expect you to stand first
in either, if so to stand could cause you overwork and hurt your health.
I always believe in going hard at everything, whether it is Latin or
mathematics, boxing or football, but at the same time I want to keep the
sense