FEARLESS GIRLS OF THE WILDERNESS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

FEARLESS GIRLS OF

THE WILDERNESS

OX a ro-kv liill<le. whore the . Paciric Ocean at the changing of the tide>s ru-hes roaring and whitely through the narrow pass of Oki-0110 between high mountainous i.-lands clothed with soml-ie evergreens. dwell in a neat cabin the three Schnarr girls, Marion. 13: Pearl. 14: Pansy. 111. These girls have made playmates of ferocious mountain lions, animals which with one flash of paw can kill a deer, or rip a man wide open. This remote and lonely setting, named Sonora I-land by ih_' litst Spanish explorer.-, is one of the countless many which dot the waterof the Pacific fur half a thousand miles leading to Alaska in what i.~ known as the '"Inland Passage." The

island is one little portion of the immense territory over which ranges the mountain lion, perhaps the most destructive of America's carnivorous animals, next to the hear in strength, lmt more persistent and deadly in its attacks on varied wild creatures and the flocks of live stock so precious to men pioneering the frontier. The mountain lion, also called cougar, panther or puma, is found all over the western region of North America ■from British Columbia "and the western States down through the tablelands and tropic forests of South I America as far as Patagonia. A long, lean, flat-sided, snarling creature. vet queerlv beautiful, it attains a maximum of about 2"20 pounds weight, a length of eight feet; but a body of tremendous strength. The ! cougar, puma, .panther, mountain i lion, so variously named according to

locality, can break the neck of a cow with a twist and blow of its paws. It is chiefly objectionable to pioneering settlers because it will kill everything from a cow to a cat. From the days of the first settlers into the present stories of this animal's marauding depredations have filled countless newspaper columns and the pages of many books. But the three Schnarr girls up in the British Columbia wilds present the only instance where mountain liona are being handled by young women in their 'teens very much as girls in towns would ordinary house cats. Yet these Schnarr girls' "pets" become snarling and dangerous when strangers approach, and particularly object to men. But don't make any mistake when you see the half-inch chains so prominently in sight in the accompanying photographs of Leo and Cleo —these t-hains are not to keep the animals from going away, merely to prevent them killing off the pigs, goats, chickens, cats and doge of the scattered settlers who are endeavouring to make a success of their little . farmlets on this rocky island. For. strangest of examples in the history | of this particular wild animal, these mountain lions brought up by the three girls don't want to go away. On three different occasions, all of which were when the lions were nearly two years old. the great bea-«ts broke the chains holding them —but not to escape back into the surrounding wilderness which lies not a dozen bounds from their dens. No! They stayed around: but it was a hectic and dramatic lingering. Scene One: The half dark of a still coastal summer evening. Suddenly the bark of the female hound tied in the big open woodshed, a bark half fury, half fear from a dog trained to run and tree mountain lions, but pitifully weak and helpless to do adequate battle with so tremendous an adversary. In her bed Pearl

Sc-hnarr, aged 14, rouses at the sound and to hear quick-following a snarl familiar to her ears. Still half dazed with sleep, ishe springs up, bounds from her bedroom and across the living room, out a door, and is at the entrance of the woodshed a split second ahead of Leo, the biggest, male mountain lion tensed to spring upon the gamely facing hound. In

the moment the lion launches to close with the dog, Pearl, short, blonde, speedy from a lifetime of outdoor dwelling, is also in fast motion, in her hand an 18-inch stovewood stick swinging high. As the lion's fangs close on the side of the dog'a head, Pearl brings down the stout stick on the back of Leo's head with so tremendous atul well placed a blow that the animal crumples, knocked out cleanly. Now when Leo got loose that first time, the girls attributed it only to a weak link in the chain, not comprehending the growing power of these maturing animals. Tlten upon another afternoon shortly after this happening. Marion, aged 13. but almo«t as big ae her elder sisters and quite as brave, saw Leo again trotting free, this time | toward the railed enclosure behind

TRAPPER'S DAUGH

ERS WHOSE PLAYMATES ARE FEROCIOUS MOUNTAIN LIONS

the house. His eyes were on a big white pig. Without hesitating Marion raced to intercept him. Keeping between the pig and the mountain lion, unarmed, she met the huge, whiskered fellow. For weeks from his den Leo had watched that pig, had savoured his smell when the wind was right, and

Leo had a slightly stronger chain put upon him. But in a little while he snapped this. Pansy, the eldest of the family, saw him coming toward the house from his den a hundred yards away. Of course he was on the way to the pig pen; but let us give Leo the benefit of the doubt that hie intentions were honourable, that he merely wished to be near the girls, for it is quite true that when the girls for any reason have not been near the lions for a few hours the enormous cats whimper and grow uneasy. Unfortunately, when near the house, while Pansy hurried to grefet him, Leo sighted the family goat, and in that instant was once more all mountain lion who so far had missed a whole lot of fun in life. Perhaps he dwelt bitterly upon past disappointments, the dog, the juicy pig, snatched from him in the moment of success. Leo whirled away almost as the reaching hand of Pansy was on the dangling chain. But the goat had seen him, was already started. The goat was fast, the lead was good, the way was rocky, and soon complicated by a tangle of fallen timber. Leo was handicapped with 20 feet of continually snagging chain halting him momentarily again and again. Still, he caught up when the goat, heading into a pile of brush, 6ud-

developed a fearful hankering; just a& in the same way he had had destructive ideas on the hound. In this moment as he approached the fence his longing for fresli meat was far greater than an ordinary carnivore, because he had been denied it. Yet now, for all that longing, despite the fact that he was born in the wild, this moment when Marion ooolv laid hand upon the dragging chain and cuffed him across the nose with her open palm, the tremendous creature, deadly of fang and claw, capable of foiling an ox. relinquished that for which he hungered so, purred and was docile; gave up agreeably his chance of receiving the lung-desired prey when just within his grasp. He was, indeed, far more amiable than even a house cat often is. for they will scratch master or mistrese if attempting to thwart them from some cherished tit-bit.

denly was confronted with beyond it a higher fallen log. The goat, forced to turn, barred escape, lowered her horns to fight. Leo lunged. His flashing paw struck —alas, for him, an inch or so too short. His jink once again had held true; the chain was snagged more firmly this time among heavier fallen branches left lying thickly by the loggers. Surely, in that moment Leo's cup of bitterness was overflowing: cheated out of do? and pig, and now he could not reach that goat. He strained all his strength against collar and chain, only choked for his striving; he spit and clawed and snarled from fury, longing and disappointment. And then came Pansy straight into this tangle of smashed forest debris where her monster cat of the mountains vainly struck at the unreachable nanny. Pansy stepped in, with all the inherited coolness of her pioneering English m-other, her Canadian trapper father, and her own courage born of 18 years amid the great mountain fastnesses of British Columbia. Seizing a light and limber piece of broken branch, she whipped the cougar back. The goat escaped. Leo was returned to his den, a frustrated, brooding lion, yet yielding to that incredible power possessed by certain fearless persons in dealing with savage wild animals.

So there we are to date: the bcoi all even for the girls in brLngir home the prodigal. Thus the days go by on lone]; remote Sonora Inland. The thrt sisters catch fish in the sea jut beyond their front door for the pete. The animals appear health and happy despite living so diffe ently from their savage kind in tho. 1 long reaches of evergreen clad moui tains. Since cubhood the two su: vivors of four, which the gir started to raise from kittens, lia\ been the girls constant companior for two years. Whether the frienc ship will last, or whether some da one or both the big cats will tur suddenly and unexpectedly rip an rend one of their brave young huma friends is one of those problems tha only time will answer. Both moui tain lions and girls are products c the wilderness. The girls lost thei mother when they were tiny tots; s did the cougars. They are all grow ing up together. The girl's fathe: Augustus Schnarr, is bringing thei up, and while he does so they hel him with his fur farming, and d the housework while he traps an logs. They are alone at times whil he is in the far places, but they hav their, lions for pets; just one jot, i any, less dangerous than playin with grizzly bears.