44 
chicken, then poae cornbread, buttermilk and the pel- 
lucid honey which the bees make from the flowers of the 
sourwood treeSj which are so numerous in the forest, and 
indeed all through the mountain region. 
It is two miles from the lodge to the summit of Pisgah. 
All the waj' there is a view whicli embraces scores of 
miles. There is a trail to the top, which is a very ac- 
curately shaped cone. On it there is barely room for 
four ponies and half a dozen people on foot. It is 5.500 
feet above sea level, and so vast is the height that it 
seems to the pilgrims that they are on top of a tower. 
To the eastward is Biltmore House, hanging in the 
middle distance like Aladdin's palace, snowy white and 
vast, and quite near it is tree-embowered Asheville, 
twelve miles away. Four counties corner on this peak. 
To the southward there is the unbroken mass of Pisgah 
forest; to the east the great and fertile valley of the 
French Broad. Yet fui'ther eastward the cloud-touch- 
ing wall of the Blue Ridge rises, shutting out the world 
bej^ond. To the westward is piled mountain upon moun- 
tain, and in that direction the view is finally bounded by 
■the Great Smokies, which tower like a veritable wall of a 
world. Within the sweep of a glance is the culmination 
of the great Appalachian system. There are no less than 
forty-three peaks, with an altitude of more than 6,000 
feet" these hs'mg in the Smoky, the Balsam and the 
Black ranges.. Mount Mitchell, in the Black, dominates 
them all, Avith its 6,711 feet of altitude. In its entirety 
ihe viev\' is one of the very noblest which America 
affords. It is well worth the "pilgrimage to Pisgah." 
Fred A. Olds. 
With a Surveying Party, 
\Coneluded from fage 27.1 
I WAS out wandering over the park land not very intent 
on the pursuit of game, but hoping that it would be my 
good fortune to get a shot at an extra large buck Avhose 
wide spreading horns far surpassed any head we had 
secured, as described by Cap, who had seen him a few 
times when out with the corps of surveyors. 
While standing upon a high point of land carefully 
examining the landscape with a field glass, I saw a 
buck enter the high grass of a ravine at the bottom of 
the high land on which I was standing. As the ravine 
which the deer had entered was bounded upon the far 
•side by a high rocky wall and nearly surrounded the 
point of land upon which I was standing, I knew^ that 
the buck would give me a good shot as he passed down 
the ravine behind where I was standing, and I did not 
change my position, but stood looking down the slope 
to see if the buck would have any companions, when to 
my surprise I saw a large panther following the track 
of the deer, and all designs upon the deer were lost in my 
intention to take the hide of that panther back to camp 
with me. The panther is the prince of still-hunters, and 
it was with close attention that I watched this one as he 
followed the trail of the deer. He would pass over about 
100 yards of the trail, when he would stop, lift up his 
head and turn as if listening and scenting the breeze for 
a few seconds, and then he would bound along the trail for 
another hundred yards, when he would again stop to take 
observation, and this was repeated until he passed out of 
my sight in the ravine. 
Turning to take a position to head off the panther, I 
saw that there was a g-entle slope from the top to the bot- 
tom of the ravine from my feet, covered in places with 
high grass and small bushes, while there were a few alkali 
spots where the grass was short buffalo grass of the 
alkali plains and prairies, with a few scattered oak trees 
upon the surface of the slope. As I took a new position 
near the middle of the hillside where I could com- 
mand the entire slope with my rifle, with pleasure I 
found a good breeze blowing toward me from up the 
ravine, so that there was no danger of the .game scent- 
ing me. 
Standing quietly beneath an oak tree, I closely watched 
the ravine for the first sight of the deer and the panther, 
and to my great surprise I saw^ a large razor-back boar 
step out from a small brushy thicket, and with bristles 
erect face the wind as if awaiting the advent of the 
game, about 300 yards from me further up the ravine. 
I had time to carefully note the warlike appearance of the 
boar, when the buck came forth from the high grass not 
10 yards from the boar, and as the deer suddenly stopped 
at the right of the boar, the panther jumped upon the 
buck, striking it to the ground. As the panther fastened 
to the buck's throat and braced his feet upon the sward, 
the boar charged like a thunderbolt, and gave an upper 
side stroke at the panther, just as a struggle of the buck 
had almost lifted the panther from the ground. The tusk 
of the boar caught the hind leg of the panther with such 
force that it threw him a few feet and tore out the buck's 
throat where the panther's teeth had been fastened. The 
force of the boar's charge carried him over the body of 
the buck, and he was upon the panther before he could 
gather for a spring. As the boar made his charge the 
panther threw himself upon the ground upon his back, 
and as the boar was passing over him he fastened his 
teeth in the boar's jaw, and with strokes of lightning 
quickness clawed the face of the boar with his front 
claws, while he raked the boar's belly with his hind ones. 
By a quick jump sideways, the boar shook the panther 
loose, and with an upward stroke he threw him at least 
15 feet, where the panther, on striking the ground, rolled 
over a few times, and then, as he struggled to his feet, I 
saw a long rip from the boar's tusk in the panther's 
shoulder and one also in the thigh.; As the panther was 
gathering his bleeding legs beneath .him for a renewal of 
the fight, the buck struggled to hi a feet and made a few 
bounds with the blood pouring from his torn throat, and 
then tumbled down lifeless, while the boar, as if suddenly 
stricken with blindness, charged round in a circle, striking 
at the trees as he approached them, but unable to see the 
panther, who, with dauntless courage, was waiting for 
him. The fight continued for half an hour without 
serious injury to either combatant, although I could see 
that the panther was growing weak from the loss of 
blood from his wounded shoulder and thigh, until in a 
charge upon the boar he was met with a blow from the 
boar's tusk which finished him. I then drew near, and 
taking aim behind the boar's shield, dropped him with a 
iall frpm my Winchester. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
From a careful examination of the body of the boar 1 
could see that beyond being blinded in the first clinch, the 
boar had received no serious injury from the panther, 
whik' the panther's shoulder and thigh were cut to the 
bone in gashes 7 or 8 inches long, and his sides had_ 
many cuts where he had been struck by the tusks of 
the boar. Breaking out the tusks of the boar and taking 
the hide of the panther, after hanging up the body of 
the deer, I returned to camp with my trophies of the battle 
in which I had been a mere spectator, and a short time 
after 1 had reached the camp. King and the Judge 
came in, the Judge presenting a sadly demoralized ap- 
pearance. When I inquired the cause, the Judge said 
"Wait till I get washed up and have some supper, and 
then we can both tell our adventures to the whole 
camp and save telling them over the second time." 
When the pipes were all lighted after supper, the 
Judge said: "i-eaving camp after dinner, a short time 
after Son did. King and I went down in the heavy tim- 
ber by the river, and separated, he going up the river, 
while I started down the other way. f guess I had 
walked about half or three-quarters of a mile without 
seeing anything, when I came to a tree that had been 
blown over in a storm, and climbed up on its trunk and 
carefully looked around for something to shoot at. See- 
ing nothing from the trunk, I climbed up on the top of the 
upturned root and had just got straightened up when some 
root broke and down I went into the hole where the root 
had been, and went whack right into a nest of young 
razor-back pigs. Such a squealing as they made started 
me out of that hole as quick as I could go, and I had 
just got upon the ground when I saw the old sow coming 
for me like a she devil, and I opened fire upon her and 
dropped her at the third shot, and then turned just in 
time to see an old boar charging for me so close that 
I jumped up in the air just as he charged under me, and 
I came down on his back and was sent sprawling, my rifle 
flying out of my reach, and I ran around that root to 
climb up on the tree trunk. But before I could get on 
top of it the boar was so close on me that I went clear 
over the tree doAvn on the other side, and as the boar 
reared up on the tree trunk with his forefeet I turned 
loose on him with ray navy, and soon emptied it into his 
head and throat without stopping him. and then I dove 
down under the tree and drew my knife, and as his head 
came under the tree I struck at his throat, and there we 
had it. Whenever he shoved his snout under the tree I 
would stab at his throat with my knife. As there was 
no tree near that I could climb, I had to stay and fight it 
out Avith him with my knife. How the battle would have 
ended I don't know, as I could not kill him with the 
knife, and he could not hurt me as long as I kept the 
tree between us. After our battle had lasted three or 
four hours, as it seemed to me, I heard the crack of a 
rifle, and as the boar rolled over dead I jumped to my 
feet and saw King standing near the top of the tree, laugh- 
ing, but I was so mad at the whole race of hogs that I ran 
around the root of the tree and jumped down into the 
nest to cut the throat of every pig, but every last one 
had run off and hid, and I could not find one of them." 
After the laugh was over, King said that he had not 
been gone from the Judge over half an hour when he 
heard the three shots from his Winchester, followed soon 
by the shots from the revolver, and he hurried in the 
direction of the shots, and guided by the woofing of the 
boar, he soon arrived at the scene of the conflict, to 
find the Judge upon his knees on one side of the tree and 
the boar upon the other, and while the boar's head and 
throat was covered with froth and blood, he did not look 
half as mad or dangerous as the Judge did with his bloody 
knife, waiting for the boar to put his head under the 
tree, and he waited until he could get a shot behind the 
boar's shield, when he dropped him at the first shot. 
I then described the battle that I had witnessed be- 
tween the boar and panther, and produced my trophies, 
and as they were passed from hand to hand, Cap asked 
me if I was not afraid to tackle a panther alone, and on 
my saying that I should have done so if the boar had not 
saved me the trouble, he told a story of a hunt for a lion, 
as the panther is called in New Mexico, in which the as- 
sistant engineer of a surveying party was the hero, while 
Cap and two others watched him from a neighboring cliff. 
The story ran thus : The assistant was alone in camp 
and saw the mountain lion passing near the camp, when 
he took a rifle and a double-barreled shotgun and ran to a 
big rock out in the plain, which the lion Avould pass. As 
the lion came within gun shot, the assistant would take up 
one gun and sight it over the rock at the animal, and 
then put it down without firing, to take up the other and 
go through the same motions, until the lion was out of 
reach. Then turning to his assistant. Cap said, "We were 
ashamed to let the rest of the party knoAV about it, and 
said nothing; but will you tell us now why you did not 
shoot?" 
After the laugh was ended, the assistant said : "I never 
was much of a hunter, nor a very good shot, and took both 
guns with me ; but when that confounded lion was com- 
ing closer and closer to me, he kept groAving bigger and 
bigger, until he seemed to me to be as big as an elephant, 
and I was afraid to shoot at him with the shotgun for 
fear that I would, only wound him, and I did not dare 
shoot at him with the rifle for fear that I could not kill 
him with the first shot; and when I saw how big he 
was I made tip my mind tO' let him alone if he would 
only let me alone ; and I was most mighty glad when he 
passed on by and did not try to scrape a closer acquaint- 
ance." After Ave had finished laughing, he turned to 
Cap and said, "Tell us now how you shot the lion the 
Mexican smoked out for you?" 
Cap apologizingly said: "When we first Avent out on 
the survey in New' Mexico, I had just got me a Win- 
chester, then a new gun, and Avas very anxious to get a 
shot at a lion, and as one frequently came proAAding 
about our camp, as Ave could see by his tracks in the dust, 
I thought I could not be contented until I had killed that 
lion, i coaxed one of the partj^, our guide, an old half- 
breed Mexican hunter, to locate him. Avhere I could shoot 
him. In a day or so he told me he had the Hon located in 
a den in some rocks, and Avhen the wind came right he 
would smoke him out for me and give me a chance to 
shoot him. 
"A few days afterward Ave had a high south wind, and 
[July 21, 1900. 
the hunter said, 'Now we'll get that lion.' We went about 
a mile to an outjutting rocky spur of the mountain, where 
he stationed me to one side of a hole in the rocks and 
then went around the end of the spur to start his smoke. 
When I found myself alone I began thinking I was too 
close to the hole for safety, and moved off a short dis- 
tance, and got behind a big rock oA^er the top of which I 
could rest my gun and get a good aim. I had just got 
well settled when I saw a white thread of smoke creeping 
out through the hole. Carefully aiming my gun at the 
hole I waited the coming of the lion. In a few minutes 
out he came, coughing, and the maddest thing you ever 
saw as he stepped out of the smoke upon the rock. I was 
so scared I forgot that I had a gun, and watched him 
until he disappeared in a clump of trees, and then I re- 
membered what I had come up there for, and was just 
thinking how glad I Avas that I had not shot and wounded 
him, when the old hunter came around the rocks and 
asked where the lion was. When I told him, he wanted 
to know why I had not shot him, and when I tried to 
explain, he muttered something about a coward and 
started after the lion alone, while, utterly disgusted and 
ashamed of my cowardice, I went back to camp. In about 
tAvo hours the old hunter brought in the lion's skin. 
While I never wanted to hunt any more lions, yet the old 
man was sO' disgusted with me that he would ncA-er take 
me with him in any of his hunts from which he supplied 
the camp with fresh meat during that survey, and I 
don't know whether I could bring myself up to the. point 
of shooting at one now or not if I was alone." 
After a moment's quiet after Cap had ended his story. 
King said: "Boys, I run on to another big bear's track 
down iti the bottom just before I heard the Judge's 
shots this afternoon, and if you Avant another bear skin, 
we'll get him to-morrow." "Agreed," said Cap; "and 
we'll keep together till the dogs tree him, and then by 
going together we will all have the same chance." 
Next morning. King, Cap, the Judge and I, followed by 
King's dogs, went down to the timber by the river, and 
King soon found a fresh track in the sand, where the 
bear had come up from the river, which showed it to be 
even a larger one than the one that had treed me a few 
days before. The dogs having started upon the track, 
silently followed it up among the trees, and King said, 
"They'll run on to him eating acorns or pecans." We 
started after the dogs, which had passed from sight in 
the grass, along a game path which they followed in its 
windings through the high grass between the trees. After 
half an hour's rapid Avalk we heard the short yelping 
barks of the dogs that told us that they had caught up 
with the bear, and we hurriedly ran in the direction of 
the noise, to be met at a short distance by the dogs coming 
toward us, while the noise of the conflict seemed to grow 
louder. As we stopped on meeting the dogs. King said, 
"Boys, the dogs and bear have stirred up an old boar, and 
if we hurry up we'll see a fight that is a fight," and he 
then led us on a short distance, until we came in full view 
of the battle that was being fought as only a gaunt boar 
and an angry bear of the largest size could fight it. When 
we first caught sight of the fighters, the bear was standing 
erect upon his hind feet aAvaiting a charge of the boar. 
As the boar rushed at the bear and threw his head up and 
sideways to strike with his tusks, Avhack came the paw of 
the bear against the side of the boar's head, turning it 
aside, and their bodies came in collision, the bear upon 
the boar's back, biting and tearing the back and sides 
of the boar Avith his sharp teeth and claws, causing the 
blood to stream, but the boar's immense strength enabled 
him to throAV the bear off, and as the bear rose upon his 
hind feet, the boar charged again, to be met with a bloAV 
from the bear's paAV and to have the bear upon his back 
clawing and biting, to be again shaken off bj' the boar, 
this to be followed by another charge, Avith the same re- 
sult. As we watched the battle, the bear for a time 
seerned to be getting far the best of it, and the Judge said, 
"Boys, that bear Avill kill that boar and not get hurt," but 
King said, "The bear's too big and fat; the boar is tiring 
him out, and will get him yet. I'll bet on the boar," and 
the words had hardly been spoken when from some cause 
the bear missed the boar's head with his paAv and struck 
his paAv directly upon the boar's tusk, which went through 
the paw and tore its way out, throwing the bear down, and 
before he could rise, a tusk of the boar had been driven 
into the flank of the bear, ripping hide and flesh in a 
long gash. Completely Avhipped, the bear rushed to a 
tree and tried to climb out of reach of the boar, but he 
Avas hindered by his wounds, and before he got out of 
reach the boar again struck him in the loAver part of 
the other flank with a blow from one of his tusks, cutting 
another hole through the hide and flesh and knocking the 
laear from the tree and throAving him upon the ground, 
where he struck him bloAV after blow with his tusks, until 
King said, "He'll cut that bear's hide all to pieces if we 
don't shoot him; take him, Judge." As the boar turned 
his side toward us, the Judge fired, seemingly without 
other effect than to increase the anger of the boar at "the 
dying bear, and after the Judge had thrown in a fredi 
cartridge, he. Cap and I all fired together at the boar, witti 
no other effect than to cause him to leave the body of the 
bear and look around as if to discover his new enemy and 
to engage in battle Avith it, when King fired and dropped 
bim. struggling upon the ground. We then walked up 
near him. and the Judge killed him Avith a shot at the 
back of the head, while Cap fired at the head of the 
nearly dead bear, quieting him. An examination of the 
body of the boar showed that the balls fired by the 
Judge. Cap and me had all passed through his body just 
behind his ribs. Avhile King's had oassed in behind the 
shield and shoulder, and had given the Avound from Avhich 
he had fallen. The bear's hide and flesh were cut with 
deep gashes from the boar's tusks during the battle, yet 
the fat Avas so thick under the bear's hide that no mortal 
Avound had been given by the boar, as far as Ave could 
see, until after the mishap to the bear's paw. By the 
time Ave had the bear skinned and disjointed, one of the 
teamsters was heard approaching, and calling him we soon 
had the bear on the Avav to camp. Not being able to .start 
another bear, we soon folloAA^ed to camp. 
In the days that followed, the Judge and I found no 
larger game than deer, turkey, grouse, prairie chickens 
and quail, and they Avere so plenty that we only hunted 
them whenever Ave wished a change in the meat supply of 
