THE PANTHER '8 CUB. 7SJ 



" Wall, that's queer !' sez I to myself. * If that's the 

 same varmint, she's what I'm arter, and if she aint she's 

 just as good, for I calkelate that one painter is just as 

 good as another, providin' allers she's as big.' So I 

 cheered on Yowler, and we went on the side track. 

 Now over logs, then in a mucky place, and now through 

 the water, that dog and I stuck to that painter like two 

 wood-ticks. Arter going a little to the east the track 

 went back to the river, and went across about a mile 

 above where it had crossed before. * Wall, that's queer,' 

 sez I to myself. ' There's somethin' onnateral in that 

 painter. She won't tree, and she goes in a straight line 

 to t'other eend of creation, and now she's going back 

 agin. Wall, here goes,' sez I, and I took another log and 

 ferried back agin to the north shore. There was the 

 trail as clare as mud, and big as an alligator's. Up the 

 bank and away inter the woods we went. There's no 

 sucking of cubs now. Yowler is a hurryin' her along a 

 leetle too fast for any sich family doin's. So on we went 

 right north. ' Jerusalem !' sez I to myself, ' keep on this 

 way, old steamboat, much longer, and you'll be back 

 where you started from, and I'll drive you into Colonel 

 Jackson's pen, and shut the door on you !' 

 "'Bout by the Black Mud Creek there's a flat of land 

 that had been overflowed and had dried off, and as we 

 come here I seed the painter had jumped through, and 

 every time she had jumped she had come up to her belly 

 in the mud, and once or twice had come so low that her 

 neck and chin had sunk in the mud. Thinks I, that must 



