They are also sometimes noisy at other seasons.

I am not sure that I have ever heard one; but one night, while camped in a heavily timbered coulie near Kildeer Mountains, where, as their footprints showed, the beasts were plentiful, I twice heard a loud, wailing scream ringing through the impenetrable gloom which shrouded the hills around us.

My companion, an old plainsman, said that this was the cry of the cougar prowling for its prey.

Certainly no man could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound.
Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from a hunted cougar; the beast's one idea seems to be flight, and even if its assailant is very close, it rarely charges if there is any chance for escape.

Yet there are occasions when it will show fight.