especially in the direction the creature had gone. Here in the crotch
of the tree he stood, with his gun resting across a limb, in the
direction of the place where he had been left by the panther, looking
sharply as far among the woods as possible, in the direction he
expected the creature's return. But he had remained in this condition
but a short time, and had barely thrust the ram-rod down the barrel of
his piece, to be sure the charge was in her, and to examine her
priming, and to shut down the pan slowly, so that it should not snap,
and thus make a noise, when his keen Indian eye, for such he had,
caught a glimpse of a monstrous panther, leading warily two panther
kittens toward her intended supper.

"Now matters were hastening to a climax rapidly, when Wheaton or the
panther must finish their hunting on the mountains of the Susquehanna,
for if old smooth-bore should flash in the pan, or miss her aim, the
die would be cast, as a second load would be impossible ere her claws
would have sundered his heart strings in the tree where he was, or if
he should but partially wound her the same must have been his fate.
During these thoughts the panther had hid her young under some brush,
and had come within some thirty feet of the spot where she supposed
her victim was still sleeping; and seeing all as she left it, she
dropped down to a crouching position, precisely as a cat, when about
to spring on its prey. Now was seen the soul of the panther in its
perfection, merging from the recesses of nature where hidden by the
creator, along the whole nervous system, but resting chiefly in the
brain, whence it glared, in bright horror, from the burning eyes,
curled in the strong and vibrating tail, pushed out the sharp, white
and elliptical fangs from the broad and powerful paws, ready for
rending, glittered on the points of its uncovered teeth, and smoked in
rapid tissues of steam from its red and open jaws, while every hair of