When he talked, his eyes smiled. He was nothing that I thought he'd be. I thought he would be socially awkward because he'd been living in the mountain bush for more than 15 years. I thought at least he would have had poor conversational skills. He looked young, and spoke like he knew allot. He did know allot. He told us of his guinea pigs they are raising in the house they built, and about the rabbit they rescued from life sentence in a demeaningly small cage. Once, about a year ago, september he encountered a cougar. He said that because he had seen the cougar before the cougar had seen him, that he had the upper hand. I thought that sounded heroic, to have the upper hand on a cougar. Byran taught me that with a cat, it's all about the stare down. If you look away first, it either means that you are submitting or that you are weak. Byran told me that he won the stare down, which made him seem heroic. After that I wasn't sure if I should look him in the eye when he talked to me, or not.
