SOUTHERN EXPERIENCES ON THE TRAP LINE. 279 



The party who told me this bear story, said it was a put up job, 

 so as to make it appear that the bear was killed in self defense. 



I know of many excuses to avoid game laws, but this one beats 

 them all. I have had a good deal of experience in game hunting, 

 but never had the luck to have a bear run on to me in this manner. 



I will tell a panther story, which a man told me that happened 

 some year ago, in North Carolina, near the Tennessee line. The 

 man was in a small shack, and he often heard panthers screaming 

 about the shack, and finally one night when he had some fresh 

 deer meat in the shack, the man was awakened by some animal 

 trying to pull up a roof board. The roof of the shack was not 

 more than six or eight feet from the ground floor, and soon the 

 panther raised up a board sufficient to run a foot down through 

 the crack. The man stood watching the game, and when the 

 foot came through the crack, the man seized the panther by the 

 foot, and a terrible fight began. The hunter finally cut a foot of 

 the panther off, and stabbed it with his knife until he killed it. 

 The hunter had a rug made of the skin of this panther, which he 

 intends to keep in the family for all time to come. I think that 

 this hunter is doing the right thing in so doing. 



I will now give a little of my own experience, but it is not 

 in the way of an adventure with either a bear or panther, but, no 

 doubt, I was just as nervous for a time as those who had the 

 reported adventure with the bear and the panther. 



The last days of December, 1912, I went into camp about 

 twelve or fourteen miles from Crandel, near the Tennessee line. 

 Early the next morning after going into camp, a man came to the 

 camp and asked many questions as to what I was doing. How 

 long I was going to be there? Where I was from? Also many 

 other similar questions, and then went away. That evening four 

 or five men came to my tent, and asked about the same questions 

 that the man in the morning had asked. 



When I stepped outside of the tent next morning, there were 

 three or four bunches of hickory withes standing against the guy 

 ropes of the tent. I did not know what those hickory withes 

 meant, but surmised that some jealous trapper had put them there 

 as a warning for me to get out. But it was not long after day- 



