CHAPTER XXVI. 



, v The Screech of the Panther. 



SOME time ago, a writer to the H-T-T, whose name I have 

 forgotten, gave his views in regard to this subject, and re- 

 quested that the readers give their experiences and ideas 

 on the matter. A year or so ago, I wrote to a sporting 

 magazine (now defunct) giving my views on this horrible screech 

 of the panther. 



I have camped in the wilds of California, Oregon, Idaho and 

 Washington. Sixty years ago, in my childhood days, ic was an 

 everyday occurrence to hear some one tell of having a panther 

 follow them through a certain piece of woods, and tell of the 

 horrible screams that the panther gave while following them. 

 And still to this day, there is, occasionally a person who reports 

 of hearing that terrible screech of the panther here in old Potter, 

 notwithstanding that there has not been a panther killed in the 

 county for upwards of fifty years, though twice within fifty years, 

 I have been frightened nearly out of my boots by that terrible 

 screech. 



On one occasion I was watching a salt lick for deer ; I was 

 on a scaffold built up in a tree thirty or forty feet from the ground. 

 The lick was in a dense hemlock forest. It was well along into 

 the night I was listening with all my energy, expecting to hear 

 the tread of a deer, but, so far I had heard nothing but the rustle 

 of the porcupine and the hop of the deer-mouse and the jump of 

 the rabbit on the dry leaves. Still, I was listening intently for 

 that tread of a deer which sounds different from that of any other 

 animal, when, with the suddenness of a flash of lightning that 

 terrible screech of the panther came within six feet of my head. 



Was I frightened? I guess yes. And had not my gun been 

 tied to a limb of the tree to keep it in place it would have gone 

 tumbling down the tree to the ground. 



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