HiafT YEARS A HUNTER. 15 



the panther. The cat leaped from the tree, and the 

 panther seized her just as she struck the ground. 

 The family hurried into the house and closed the 

 doors, and thus escaped. After the panther had 

 devoured the cat he stood looking at the house and 

 moved along the path. In about half an hour a 

 neighbor came along with a dog and gun. The pan- 

 ther continued to move slowly off, and the woman 

 came out and acquainted the neighbor with the cir- 

 cumstances. He immediately started in pursuit, and 

 the panther being driven up a tree by the dog, was 

 brought to the ground by a well-aimed shot. It was 

 a very large one, measuring four and a half feet 

 from the tip of the nose to the tail. 

 ^ Two miles from that place, up Big Pine Creek, 

 lived a family consisting of a man and three females. 

 The house stood on a flat lying between the river 

 and the rocky bluff, which rose to the height of 

 forty or fifty feet. In the month of January the 

 man was absent teaching school, and no one was left 

 at home but the women. On the morning of a blus- 

 tering day in the early part of the month, as one of 

 the women was going to the river for a pail of water 

 she heard a scream proceeding from the side of 

 the hill, which sounded like the voice of a woman 

 in distress. She returned into the house and told 

 the others that she thought there was woman on the 

 hill in trouble. They all went to the door to ascer- 

 tain the source of the cries, when they saw moving 

 toward them an animal which they took at first for a 

 dog. When it had approached within fifty yards, 



