AN UNWELCOME INTRUDER. 119 



woods, and he has his whelps to feed. In support of this 

 fact, permit me to relate the following anecdote : 



My second panther-hunt took place at Shenandoah, 

 in Virginia; along the small stream of Cedar Creek, 

 which flows at the foot of lofty mountains, clothed to 

 the very summit with pines, cedars, and brushwood. 



At Mr. Pendletoii's house I had enjoyed the most 

 cordial hospitality; and one evening, after supper, four of 

 us were seated round a table loaded with glasses, and a 

 steaming bowl of whisky-punch, when the quiet tenor of 

 our conversation was all at once interrupted by terrible 

 si i ricks proceeding from a chamber near the dining-hall. 

 Mrs. Pendletoii, it seems, had been sitting there with an 

 invalid child and her nurse, when the latter opening the 

 window, a panther of enormous size leaped from the 

 roof of the piazza which ran all round the house, to the 

 sill of the window, ready to spring upon the infant's 

 cradle. 



The cries of the mother and nurse brought us immedi- 

 ately to the chamber ; but the animal had taken fright, 

 and wo learned what had transpired when it was too late 

 to pursue him. The house dogs were immediately let 

 loose in his traces ; but soon returned, like cowards, with 

 tails between their legs, as if they had fled from too immi- 

 nent a danger. 



Next morning, long before day had dawned, the three 

 Messrs. Pendleton and myself, accompanied by two negroes 

 and a pack of light bloodhounds of magnificent breed, pur- 

 sued the panther's scent along the most difficult paths, 

 the most thickly beset with brambles and briers and sliarp- 

 ed^cd reeds, I had ever seen. Finally we arrived at a 

 sort of clearing, in the middle of which lay the half- 



