PANTHER AND BEER CHASE. 89 



which at night the wolves and panthers gather, fill- 

 ing the solitude with their cries. 



Two Indians killed eighteen in this region last 

 spring, and one hunter told me that he had shot three 

 in a single day in the early part of March. These 

 enormous wild cattle are of a black color, and when 

 closely pressed, will fight desperately. "Wolves have 

 fine picking in deep snow, especially when there is a 

 stiff crust on the surface. The slender hoof of the 

 deer, which yard like the moose, cuts through at every 

 leap, letting them up to the belly without giving firm 

 ground to spring from, even then ; while the broad- 

 spreading paw of the wolf supports him and he skims 

 along the surface. In this unequal chase, he soon 

 overtakes his victim, and devours him. " But the 

 wildest chase I ever saw," remarked a hunter to me 

 once, with whom I was in the forest several days, 

 "was between a panther and a deer, in the open 

 woods." They were not fifteen feet apart, he said, 

 when they passed him, and such lightning speed he 

 never before witnessed. Though he had his rifle in 

 his hand, and they were but a few rods distant when 

 he saw them, he never thought of firing. 



They came and went more like shadows than living 



