230 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



His object was the cubs, who, as he knew, 

 would be still tiny and manageable at this 

 season. A good panther skin was well worth 

 the effort of the chase, but a man in the 

 settlements, who was collecting wild animals 

 for a circus, had offered him one hundred 

 and fifty dollars for a pair of healthy cubs. 

 The half-breed's idea was to get the cubs as 

 young as possible, and bring them up by 

 bottle in his cabin till they should be big 

 enough for delivery to the collector. 



Before starting up the steep and difficult 

 trail, the man examined his rifle. A panther 

 at home, protecting her young, was not a foe 

 with whom he could take risks. She com- 

 manded the tribute of his utmost precaution. 



A careful survey of the slope before him 

 convinced his practised eye that the den 

 must be somewhere in that high cleft, where 

 the broken faces of the red sandstone glowed 

 brightly through dark patches and veils of 

 clinging firs. He marked the great half- 

 fallen pine-tree, with its top swung out from 

 the rock face, and its branches curling up- 

 wards. Somewhere not far from that, he 

 concluded, would he come upon the object 

 of his search. 



Difficult as was the ascending trail, now 

 slippery with wet moss, now obstructed with 



