astonishing.

Like a yellow rubber ball she bounded up, and fled with the yelping
hounds at her heels. The chase was short. At the end of a hundred yards
Moze caught up with her and nipped her. She whirled with savage
suddenness, and lunged at Moze, but he cunningly eluded the vicious
paws. Then she sought safety in another pine.

Frank, who was as quick as the hounds, almost rode them down in his
eagerness. While Jones descended from his perch, I led the two horses
down the forest.

This time the cougar was well out on a low spreading branch. Jones
conceived the idea of raising the loop of his lasso on a long pole, but
as no pole of sufficient length could be found, he tried from the back
of his horse. The bay walked forward well enough; when, however, he got
under the beast and heard her growl, he reared and almost threw Jones.
Frank's horse could not be persuaded to go near the tree. Satan evinced
no fear of the cougar, and without flinching carried Jones directly
beneath the limb and stood with ears back and forelegs stiff.

"Look at that! look at that!" cried Jones, as the wary cougar pawed the
loop aside. Three successive times did Jones have the lasso just ready
to drop over her neck, when she flashed a yellow paw and knocked the
noose awry. Then she leaped far out over the waiting dogs, struck the
ground with a light, sharp thud, and began to run with the speed of a
deer. Frank's cowboy training now stood us in good stead. He was off
like a shot and turned the cougar from the direction of the canyon.
Jones lost not a moment in pursuit, and I, left with Jones's badly
frightened bay, got going in time to see the race, but not to assist.
For several hundred yards Kitty made the hounds appear slow. Don, being
swiftest, gained on her steadily toward the close of the dash, and
presently was running under her upraised tail. On the next jump he
nipped her. She turned and sent him reeling. Sounder came flying up to
bite her flank, and at the same moment fierce old Moze closed in on
her. The next instant a struggling mass whirled on the ground. Jones
and Frank, yelling like demons, almost rode over it. The cougar broke
from her assailants, and dashing away leaped on the first tree. It was
a half-dead pine with short snags low down and a big branch extending
out over a ravine.

"I think we can hold her now," said Jones. The tree proved to be a most
difficult one to climb. Jones made several ineffectual attempts before