prompt raven drops down over where this Silver Phil is layin'. Then
another raven an' another--black an' wide of wing--comes floatin' down.
A coyote yells--first with the short, sharp yelp, an' then with that
multiplied patter of laughter like forty wolves at once. That daylight
howl of the coyote alters tells of a death. Shore raven an' wolf is
gatherin'. As Enright says: 'This yere Silver Phil ain't likely to be
lonesome none to-night.'

"'Did you kill him, Dan?' asks Faro Nell.

"'Why, no, Nellie,' replies Dan, as he steps outen the stirrups an'
beams on Faro Nell. She's still a bit onstrung, bein' only a little
girl when all is said. 'Why, no, Nellie; I don't kill him speecific as
Wolfville onderstands the word; but I dismisses him so effectual the
kyard shore falls the same for Silver Phil.'"




CHAPTER II.

Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt,

"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old
Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped
of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to
skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while
pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him,
an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws.
Which it's to be urged in favour of mountain lions that they never