134: WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



door, could have been spread in a more graceful place, 

 or with a more characteristic view. The deep well 

 spring with its seething sands at the bottom churned 

 into a constant motion, the trees that for ages had 

 guarded that source, the rippling murmur of the brook, 

 the soughing of the pine leaves, the broad perspective of 

 meadow, with the distant belt of river beyond, so far 

 away that its gleam was like the horizon, the nearer 

 scamper of the squirrel, or the flap of the heron's wing as 

 disturbed by our presence he rose from the flags, all gave 

 a landscape to the eye, or a sense of solitude to the 

 mind, and occu^^ied us in contemplation for an hour or 

 more after the dinner was ended. 



•' Do you think you ever saw that panther before to- 

 day?" I asked of Mike, as I tossed him over the tobacco 

 pouch. 



'' I'm not over sartin, but I reether spect. Yer see 

 thar ain't many on 'em heyar bout, and it was jist two 

 years ago when that ere painter cub I guv Colonel 

 Brown, at Tampa, vamosed, and then he was two 

 years old. This one, you. see, would be nigh on to 

 three, and that would jist make it." A long puff or two 

 followed from his short pipe, when he said in a musing 

 manner, " That air cub left bekase of a fight he got in 

 with a soldier at the fort. Yer see he guv the soldier a 

 slap, when the soldier struck him with his bay'nit, and 

 then the painter jist chawed him up and sloped. Wall, 

 now look a heyar, do you see that mark on his cheek ?" 

 There was a triangular scar on the animal's cheek, just 



