This incident took place at Lakamus, Washington, about 1917:
The fence in the lower pasture had gotten broken down and the cattle were getting out. Lois' older brother, Ernie, and her older sister, Grace, were sent out to fix the fence. It was several miles to the fence, so they loaded up their horses with the necessary equipment, called their dog, and off they rode. They got the fence fixed, and then being young teens, decided to go wading in Mill Creek.
In the distance they could hear their dog barking at something, as dogs will do. They didn't think anything about it. Suddenly, he came racing back with his tail between his legs. Then from behind the horses he took up barking again.
Ernie realized that something was wrong. "We'd better get our boots on and get out of here!" Grace followed his lead and had just barely pulled on her boots when the dog yelped and took off down the road off for home. The horses started whinnying and pulling at their reins to get away. Just then came that blood-curdling sound, the squall of a cougar on the prowl! Ernie gave a flying leap and vaulted up over the closest horses back, which left Grace having to run around their rears to the other side to climb aboard. Leaning forward she pulled the reins loose from the branch with one tug. Ernie had already whirled his steed and was galloping down the road.
"RRRRoOowwrrrrrrr!"
The cougar leaped at her horse. The horse screamed, reared, whirled and in a few strides had passed Ernie's horse in their flight from Death! The cougar chased them for several hundred feet, then with a roar of disgust slunk off into the forest again. But, the horses were run-away and the kids had no desire to slow them.
At the same time their mother realized that it was getting along towards evening and her children should have been home long ago. She went to the phone and called the neighbor who lived down that way. "No, I haven't seen them. I'll call you back if I do."
It wasn't 2 minutes until she called back. "They just went by here on a dead run."
In about another 5 minutes they came clattering into the yard. The kids threw their selves off the horses and dashed into the house, leaving their mounts to make their own way to the barn.
Their mother was baking cookies. As she listened to their hair-raising escape from Death, she pulled 2 cookie sheets out of the oven, carefully stacked the cookies from one sheet onto the other, then put them back in the oven.
When Grace and Ernie had calmed down, and after rescuing their cookies from burning, they went out to the barn to rub down their frightened horses. Grace found that her horse's nose was badly scratch by the cougar. There was blood all down the horse's front, but no more scratches were found. His nose was washed in warm water and healing salve applied. In a few days his nose was healed, but not his memory! He never wanted to go down the road to that pasture again!
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.......8 Sharri Lorraine, 2001
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