Catlin described this scene in a story published in The Crayon, a popular American journal in the mid-nineteenth century. Catlin and his traveling companion, a young Englishman named Smyth, had stopped to make a fire and roast a pig on the riverbank while their party slept. Surprisingly, while they cooked, a leopard had crept up and began playing with a sleeping companion’s legs. Catlin went quickly and quietly to the boat to retrieve his rifle and take aim, whereupon, “at the crack of the rifle the animal gave a piercing screech, and leaped about 15 feet straight into the air, and fell quite dead.” In words and images, Catlin portrays himself as both an expert shot and an entertaining storyteller.