Jay C. Bruce - Cougar Killer

This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHINGwww.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our bookspicklepublishing@gmail.com

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1953 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

COUGAR KILLER

BY

JAY C. BRUCE, SR.

Contents

In consideration of the value of our wildlife resources to both the spiritual and physical well-being of mankind, I dedicate this work to the promotion of an effective program to increase all species of game birds and animals found in every section of these United States of America.

THINKING back over the thirty years I spent hunting mountain lions for the California Fish and Game Commission, I find that 1924 is impressed in my memory as being the one most particularly fraught with experiences involving interest and dangers, as well as incidents revealing the family life of Felis concolor californica commonly known as mountain lion, panther or cougar.

In the beginning of that year I made a memorable hunting trip to a famous areathat adjoining the western boundary of General Grant National Park, in Fresno County. Long famed for its forests of giant redwood trees ( Sequoia gigantea ) , it later became the gateway to the newly acquired Kings Canyon National Park, which rivals Yosemite in scenic wonders.

In addition to the possibility of its providing a good catch, of the big cats, this area had a special appeal to me because of its colorful history, it having been the refuge used by the outlaws Chris Evans and the Sontag brothers, George and John, accused of train robberies during the early 1890s. I still remembered having heard my parents read the accounts of those escapades, written by Joaquin Miller, who was sent there by a San Francisco newspaper to report the details of the prolonged manhunt. One pertinent sentence from the colorful pen of the prominent writer and naturalist still stuck in my memory. It was: The way the wind blows in these parts, all those living along the road between Visalia and Sequoia Mills say they would rather have Chris Evans in their homes than any of those who are hunting him. This sentiment, impressed in the minds and hearts of people who had known Evans for years, probably accounts for the outlaws having been able to avoid capture for several years, while making periodic visits to the Evans family home in Visalia, county seat of Tulare County.

When the outlaws were finally taken, it was rumored that they had been betrayed by one of their own gang, who wanted to give up. In any event, John Sontag was missing from the scene of capture at Stone Corral, on the road between Visalia and Badger in Tulare County. George Sontag was killed, while Chris Evans was wounded by bullets which smashed his left arm and gouged out his left eye. Even then he managed to take to the brush and walk several miles and hide in a ranchers hay loft, where he was discovered and turned over to the sheriff by the rancher. When the news reached Wawona, where our homestead was situated, the big talk was about Hiram Rappelje, who had led the posse that made the killing. You see, Hi Rappelje was well-known to all of us, since he had been employed to drive a coach and four on the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company line, owned by Albert Henry Washburn and John Jay Cookboth uncles to me by marriage.

The opportunity for me to visit this area for the first time came early in January, 1924, when our game warden, Art Bullard, living at Dunlap, wrote to our home office, reporting that lion sign was plentiful on McKenzie Ridge and around Millwood, and that deer were being exterminated by the big cats. Joe Hunter, in charge of our office, approved of an immediate lion hunt in that section.

Knowing that the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of California was anxious to have specimens from all parts of the state, I thought it would be worthwhile for the Museum to send a zoologist along with me to record data and to care for specimens (hides and skeletons). Therefore I telephoned Dr. Joseph Grinnel, director of that institution, explaining the possibilities. Dr. Grinnel assigned Joe Dixon, one of their most experienced naturalists, for the task. Dixon had previously accompanied me on three lion hunts since June 1920, during which time we became very good friends.

Leaving my home near Haywards, Alameda County, early on a stormy, January morning, we drove an old Dodge the 200 miles to Dunlap, arriving there around six oclock that evening, after churning through mud hub-deep for forty miles from Fresno on. Since Art had no room for us, we put up for the night at the Greeley Ranger Station five miles farther on. Ray Stephens, the district ranger, who had hunted with me three years before in Tuolumne County, made us all comfortable, including my four lion dogs, Eli, Ranger, Scout and Duke, who were billeted in the barn. That evening I talked to Bullard over the Forest Service telephone and arranged to use a two-room cabin (known as the Green house) belonging to his brother-in-law. Situated in the lion country on McKenzie Ridge at an elevation of 5000 feet, it seemed suitable for a permanent base camp. The game warden offered to guide us to it and spend a few days with us, until we became acquainted with the lay of the land.

During the night the rain changed to snow, covering the ground with a layer four inches thick by daybreak. Climbing some 3000 feet in 10 miles, we found the snow increasing in depth as we proceeded, until it was some 12 inches deep in the vicinity of the Green house when we reached there, about noon. Just as we caught the first view of our new camp, something still more interesting caught my eyea line of round depressions four inches across and spaced some twenty inches apart in the snow, which revealed that a lion had crossed the road some time during the previous nightprobably about midnight, when the snow was about eight inches thick on the ground. Four inches more had fallen and half-filled the impression since the hunting feline had passed here.

Ordinarily, I would have started the dogs on the trail at once, but this afternoon there was more immediate work to be done to make the camp more comfortable for men and dogs. Wood had to be gathered and chopped into stove lengths; bedding places had to be provided for the dogs, under the cabin-floor, which was some two and a half feet above the ground on the downhill or front side of the building. The kitchen part contained a stove of family size and in fair shape. A rough board table and several rickety chairs made up the other furniture.