"Vengeance"
Oil on panel, 9x12"
Price on request

The cougar gingerly but with great stealth, silently creeps thru the moonlit snow. She is distraught and on a mission. The year is 1875 at the head of Green River, Wyoming, and she has been following a trail only she is aware of. Every now and then she stops and listens, then picks up the trail again. She is wary, but determined.

In the tent is a hunter and friend of Teddy Roosevelt, Professor John Bache McMaster. In a make shift box, he has two cougar kittens, which he had found abandoned that afternoon. At least he thought they were abandoned. They were playful and clumsy little critters and made much noise. He desperately tries to calm them in his tent, but they are hungry and scared.

Unknown to him, the she cougar has followed him back to camp carefully keeping her distance. Now in the cover of night, she is investigating the camp. She knows her kittens are somewhere close, but can’t be sure as she goes from tent to tent. Rightfully fearful of man, she decides to hunker down for the night; safe in the knowledge her offspring have been found. She waits for them to be left alone so as to enable their escape.

The professor has a fitful night with his charges, although still unaware of the danger in which he has put himself.

The next day he decides to stay at camp along with the cook. It is afternoon; he happens to look up and sees the mother cougar running fast, but silently down towards them. Her eyes are wide and wild and her tail twitches. The ground between him and the cat is quickly vanishing as he reaches for his rifle and just manages to bring her down some twenty yards away.

We now know that cougars and other big cats will go to great lengths to save their young, indeed putting their own lives at risk.

What became of the two kittens is unknown.