THE RAVEN'S NEST 83 



Revolution. When he lay a-dying, three quarters 

 of a century later, the wailing howl of a wolf-pack 

 sounded outside his cabin, although wolves had been 

 gone from the Valley for fifty years. Old Dan sat 

 up with the death-sweat on his forehead and 

 grinned. "They've come to see me off," he whis- 

 pered and fell back dead. 



They bred hunters in that Valley. Peter Penz, the 

 Indian fighter, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday 

 by killing a red bear, came from there. So did Jacob 

 Quiggle, who killed a maned panther one winter 

 night, under the light of a wind-swept moon, with his 

 famous gun, Black Sam. Over on Panther's Run not 

 ten miles away, lived Solomon Miller, who shot the 

 last wood-bison, and died at the age of eighty-eight, 

 clapping his hands and shouting the chorus of a 

 hunting-song. 



As the light began to show in the eastern sky, 

 came the first bird-notes of the day. The caw of a 

 crow, a snatch of song-sparrow melody, the chirp of 

 a robin, the fluted alto note of a blue-bird, and the 

 squeal of a red-tailed hawk sounded before the sun 

 came up. 



A change of trains, and I met the Collector, as 

 enthusiastic as ever. Already that year he had found 

 six ravens' nests with eggs in them, but the one he 

 had promised to show me was the best of the lot. 

 It was located in Poe's Gap, where local tradition 

 hath it that the poet wooed, not unsuccessfully, a 

 mountain girl, and wrote "The Raven" in her cabin. 

 On the way to the Gap we heard and saw nineteen 



