n
Crocket's own words:

"One glance satisfied me that there was no time to be lost. There was
no retreat either for me or the cougar. So I levelled my Betsey and
blazed away. The report was followed by a furious growl, and the next
moment, when I expected to find the tarnal critter struggling with
death, I beheld him shaking his head, as if nothing more than a bee had
stung him. The ball had struck him on the forehead and glanced off,
doing no other injury than stunning him for an instant, and tearing off
the skin, which tended to infuriate him the more. The cougar wasn't
long in making up his mind what to do, nor was I neither; but he would
have it all his own way, and vetoed my motion to back out. I had not
retreated three steps before he sprang at me like a steamboat; I
stepped aside and as he lit upon the ground, I struck him violently
with the barrel of my rifle, but he didn't mind that, but wheeled
around and made at me again. The gun was now of no use, so I threw it
away, and drew my hunting-knife, for I knew we should come to close
quarters before the fight would be over. This time he succeeded in
fastening on my left arm, and was just beginning to amuse himself by
tearing the flesh off with his fangs, when I ripped my knife into his
side, and he let go his hold, much to my satisfaction.

"He wheeled about and came at me with increased fury, occasioned by the
smarting of his wounds. I now tried to blind him, knowing that if I
succeeded he would become an easy prey; so as he approached me I
watched my opportunity, and aimed a blow at his eyes with my knife; but
unfortunately it struck him on the nose, and he paid no other attention
to it than by a shake of the head and a low growl. He pressed me close,
and as I was stepping backward my foot tripped in a vine, and I fell to
the ground. He was down upon me like a night-hawk upon a June-bug. He
seized hold of the outer part of my right thigh, which afforded him
considerable amusement; the hinder part of his body was towards my
face; I grasped his tail with my left hand, and tickled his ribs with
my haunting-knife, which I held in my right. Still the critter wouldn't
let go his hold; and as I found that he would lacerate my leg
dreadfully unless he was speedily shaken off, I tried to hurl him down
the bank into the river, for our scuffle had already brought us to the
edge of the bank. I stuck my knife into his side, and summoned all my
strength to throw him over. H