I've been checking out a new to me YouTube channel, "The Appalachian Storyteller". Some really cool history of the area.
One was of a guy in the 1800's Tennessee wilderness, killed 99 bears in his lifetime, was out hunting with his dog when he spotted a beast unlike anything he had ever seen. Tracked it for 3 days, always just catching a glimpse as it disappeared over a ridge.
Early morning of the 4th day, before daybreak, his dog starts whimpering...turns out the hunter had become the hunted! Creature lunges out of the shadows and gets into it with the dog. Unable to see well enough to shoot, he lunged at the beast with his knife, slicing its stomach open. The creature turned its attention to him, biting his leg. At that point, his trusty pooch, although wounded, started attacking the strange animal. With the distraction, the man jumped on the beast's back, and proceeded to kill it with just his hunting knife.
As the sun began to break, it revealed the strange creature's identity...a full grown tiger! It had escaped from a traveling circus in North Carolina two years prior, and had been surviving killing cattle.