There is no royal road to success in the mountains, but there is the old road still for the self-reliant and adventurous who don’t stick to old trails and the railroad, and there is still plenty of game, for those who know how to seek it, in Colorado, British Columbia, Washington Territory, Ontario, Alaska, and even in parts of the province of Quebec. So much I dare personally guarantee. I. PANTHER (_Felis concolor_) [Illustration: Puma (_Felis concolor_)] The American Panther (_Felis concolor_) is a beast of many _aliases_ but of few virtues. He is the ‘painter,’ ‘catamount,’ ‘mountain lion,’ ‘cougar,’ ‘Californian lion,’ or ‘puma’ of early American legends; but, in spite of his many high-sounding titles, he is a mean, sneaking beast, hiding in dense timber by day, stealing or destroying more sheep in one night than he can eat in six months, affording no sport to anyone, and very little profit even to the fur dealer. Those who hunt the panther generally hunt him with dogs, and no dog is too small for the work, for the American lion will tree before a terrier and let himself be shot by a boy with ‘bird-shot.’ I am not traducing the beast, for I have myself hunted him with terriers in the States. But let an American authority be heard upon the question. A book was published in 1890 called ‘Big Game of North America,’ to which several well-known authorities contributed, such as Caton, Van Dyke, and Fannin. The authority referred to, however, is not one of these three, but a Mr. Perry, who maintains that the American lion is not a cowardly animal, and cites in support of his contention six or seven instances in which panthers attacked human beings unprovoked. In the first instance (p. 413) the ferocious animal was defeated and driven off by an heroic boy of twelve armed with an empty brandy-bottle. In the second case a blue-jacket who had deserted from Esquimault and ‘found his way through the woods until he rested under the domain of the starry flag,’ killed the panther which attacked him there by a ‘gladiatorial thrust’ with a spade (p. 415). The third and fourth of Mr. Perry’s pugnacious panthers behaved somewhat differently--one followed a gentleman, the other followed a lady, and in both cases showed the human beings somewhat marked attentions, licking their hands, gazing ‘intently’ into their eyes, and tearing off most of their clothes, but nothing more. The fifth panther was caned by a gentleman from Snohomish, and the sixth was stared out of countenance and put to flight by someone from Brownsville, whom the panther had knocked off his horse; but it was reserved for another hero from Snohomish to perform the marvellous feat of catching a panther on the wing (‘as it was passing in the air’) with ‘his left arm round its body just behind the forelegs.’ Of course, having got his grip, the gentleman from Snohomish thumped the head of that poor panther with his gun-barrels till it died.