its long dun back stood erect in savage joy, denoting that the fatal
and decisive moment of its leap had come.

"Now the horrid nestling of its hinder claws, drawn under its belly
was heard, and the bent ham strings were seen but a half instant by
Wheaton, from where he sat in his tree, when the tremendous leap was
made. It rose on a long curve into the air, of about ten feet in the
highest place, and from thence descending, it struck exactly where the
breast, head and bowels of its prey had lain, with a scream too
horrible for description, when it tore to atoms the rotten wood,
filling for several feet above it, the air with the leaves and light
brush, the covering of the deception. But instantly the panther found
herself cheated, and seemed to droop a little with disappointment,
when however she resumed an erect posture, and surveyed quite around
on every side on a horizontal line, in search of her prey, but not
discovering it, she cast a furious look aloft among the tops of the
trees, when in a moment or two the eyes of Wheaton and the panther
met. Now for another leap, when she dropped for that purpose; but the
bullet and two buck shot of old smooth bore were too quick, as he
lodged them all exactly in the brain of the savage monster, and
stretched her dead on the spot where the hunter had slept but a short
time before, in the soundness, of a mountain dream.

"Wheaton had marked the spot where her young were hidden, which, at
the report of the gun, were frightened and ran up a tree. He now came
down and found the panther to measure, from the end of its nose to the
point of its tail, eight feet six inches in length; a creature
sufficiently strong to have carried him off on a full run, had he
fallen into its power. He now reloaded and went to the tree where her
kittens, or the young panthers were, and soon brought them down from