As you know, Tony has a run-in with a cougar one night in Hostile Lookout. What got things started, sort of, was the animal pressing his nose against Tony's tent and letting out a hiss.
I got the idea for this from an experience I had while camping at Herb Martyr campground in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona. Herb Martyr was the last campground on the road, the deepest into the mountains. It had a fairly steep access road, and consequently, not many folks stayed there. In fact, of the several times I stayed there, I think I was the only one in the campground at least half those times. The campground had maybe eight spaces tucked into the oak woodland and Cave Creek ran along one edge of the site.
Much to my wife's and mother's dislikes, I tended (and still do) to go out into the woods alone. I had just finished setting up the tent, had crawled in, kicked off my boots, and was just kind of sitting there. I noticed a sound outside the tent; something rooting around in the leaves. The sound got closer to the back of the tent. I continued to sit and listen. Suddenly, something pressed its nose hard against the back of the tent, hard enough to push the tent wall in a bit. It wasn't a big nose, like a bear or a cougar, but a nose all the same. It made no sounds though. In a second or so the nose retreated and I heard scuffling in the leaves again. Not wanting to startle whatever it was, I waited a few minutes before exiting the tent to investigate. I put my boots back on and climbed out of the tent and saw nothing around my campsite or any of the others. Well, I knew the nose wasn't imaginary. I then heard scuffling around down by the creek, which was perhaps ten feet down an embankment below my tent. I peeked over the edge to see a skunk waddling around in the brush along the edge of the creek. Made me glad I had not immediately shot out of the tent after it!
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