The Summer of 1938
The story of my meeting with a big,
(bigger than me) black cougar.
My family was back at Squam Lake, at Grandpa Crawford's summer place, and I was getting my mobility back. One bright, sunny day, I decided to explore the hurricane dead fall on the property to the west. That big blow of 1936 had cut a wide swath through New England and Long Island, but it did now damage to our property at all. The area that I was to explore, had no trees standing, they were all knocked down like a giant's game of pick up sticks. All the foliage was gone, but there was space under the old trunks for an n 8-year-old to squeeze through, which I proceeded to do. As I was making my way underneath a two- foot thick trunk, I heard a low growl. I stood up, and there not more than four-feet away, I was looking into the bright yellow eyes of the biggest black cat I had ever seen outside of the zoo or Barnum and Bailey's Circus. We stared at each other, neither one moving nor blinking, in quiet astonishment for several moments, and then with a flick of the tip of his tale, he silently stood, turned, and slowly walked up the fallen trunk. He stopped, looked back at me and bared his teeth, and jumped out of site, all in absolute silence. During the rest of the summer, I would occasionally find his tracks, but he never came near the house, I guess that Teddy and he had come to an agreement because the signs followed an old Indian trail, along the edge of the property that was marked by bent trees. You see, in the old days, throughout the area, they had marked the trail by bending, and holding down, a sapling away from the direction of travel. The tree would grow straight up from the tie-down, and would mark that trail for as long as it lived. In open areas, like on bare rock, you would find three stones, a large one, with a smaller one centered on top, and the third, laying against the large one, and pointing the way to the next marker. Usually you could see the next marker from there. It was a well-known fact, that to move the stones, or cut down a marker tree was taboo, and very bad luck. The Indian's spirits would come after you; we never wanted to find out the truth, so none of us would break a trail marker.
