(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
INCHELIUM, Wash -For Amaya Simpson and Cole Seymour, Saturday means time to practice elk calls.
But on this Saturday, Amaya said she felt something was off.
"I just kinda got chills," Simpson said.
And those chills of uncertainty, would become sheer terror.
"I turned around and there was a cougar right behind my brother," Simpson said.
Amaya tells me she froze, in shock. She says it looked like the cougar was stalking her six-year-old brother.
She called for Cole to come to her.
"I just smiled at her for a second, thought she was joking around on me again," Seymour said.
But he then sensed the seriousness in her tone, ran towards his sister and that's when Amaya sprung into action.
She says she grabbed her bow and arrow, and aimed for the cougar.
"It went into it's ear, then into it's back," Simpson said.
Amaya tells me that the cougar ran away, and so did they.
When the siblings made it back home and told their family what had happened, their parents went out to find it.
"We had our dogs, and our Airedale got on it's trail.
Worried that the cougar would attack someone else, Amaya's dad felt he had no choice but to put it down.
Amaya and Cole's mom took to Facebook to describe the story and to praise her daughter's quick thinking.
She ends her post with Cole summing it up best: quote "mom, she saved my life."