Close Call with a Cougar in Orting
Two children playing near the Carbon River were nearly snatched by a massive cougar before a quick-thinking visitor intervened.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Within the past month those living in that portion of the town that lies along the Carbon River have had more or less fear of a large yellow dog that was a constant prowler at night. It had killed several dogs, but seemed afraid of a human being. Some few suggested that it was a cougar, but that idea was laughed down. It was true, however, and two little children were only saved by accident from being carried away and eaten by it. On Wednesday evening, just as it was drawing dusk, little Willie and Jennie Smith were on the river bank looking for wild strawberries. At this time Mr. James Callahan, of Portland, who was visiting in Orting for a day, happened to be walking along the river bank and noticed an animal come down the bank from the other side of the river and start to swim across. Mr. Callahan was not desirous of a closer acquaintance, and was about to come up town and get a rifle. As he was moving away he heard the voices of children from the direction that the animal had gone, and picking up some stones threw them in that direction. This startled the animal, and it ran down the bank and swam the river again. This time he got a good look at it, and he saw that it was a large cougar, that must have measured at least twelve feet from tip to tip.
“It had been within a few feet of the children, and evidently was after them, although they knew nothing of its presence.”
Encounters with mountain lions continue to be a reality of life in the expanding wildland-urban interface of the Pacific Northwest, though twelve-foot accounts (likely hyperbole) remain rare.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.