r Moreno with a party of men working on the
boundary commission, and with a number of Patagonian horse-Indians,
was encamped for some weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before
been visited by white men for a century, and which was rarely visited
even by Indians. One morning, just before sunrise, he left his camp by
the south shore of the lake, to make a topographical sketch of the
lake. He was unarmed, but carried a prismatic compass in a leather
case with a strap. It was cold, and he wrapped his poncho of guanaco-
hide round his neck and head. He had walked a few hundred yards, when
a puma, a female, sprang on him from behind and knocked him down. As
she sprang on him she tried to seize his head with one paw, striking
him on the shoulder with the other. She lacerated his mouth and also
his back, but tumbled over with him, and in the scuffle they separated
before she could bite him. He sprang to his feet, and, as he said, was
forced to think quickly. She had recovered herself, and sat on her
haunches like a cat, looking at him, and then crouched to spring
again; whereupon he whipped off his poncho, and as she sprang at him
he opened it, and at the same moment hit her head with the prismatic
compass in its case which he held by the strap. She struck the poncho
and was evidently puzzled by it, for, turning, she slunk off to one
side, under a bush, and then proceeded to try to get round behind him.
He faced her, keeping his eyes upon her, and backed off. She followed
him for three or four hundred yards. At least twice she came up to
attack him, but each time he opened his poncho and yelled, and at the
last moment she shrank back. She continually, however, tried, by
taking advantage of cover, to sneak up to one side, or behind, to
attack him. Finally, when he got near camp, she abandoned the pursuit
and went into a small patch of bushes. He raised the alarm; an Indian
rode up and set fire to the bushes from the windward side. When the
cougar broke from the bushes, the Indian rode after her, and threw his
bolas, which twisted around her hind legs; and while she was
struggling to free herself, he brained her with his second bolas. The
doctor's injuries were rather painful, but not serious.

Twenty-one years later, in April, 1898, he was camped on the same
lake, but on the north shore, at the foot of a basaltic cliff. He was
in company with four soldiers, with whom he had travelled from the
Strait of Magellan. In the nigh