St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-11-20

panther hunters follow their dogs through
this thicket with apparent ease. Tht
hunter carries rife, stout rope or raw
hide lasso. small axe. and keen. long
bladed hunting knife. With the latter
grasped in his right hand the horsemar
cuts his way with sweeping slasheS of the
blade through the lOw-hanging creepers
making an opening so quickly and surely
| that the horse is rarely delayed in hi:
course. The dogs guide the hunter by theil
loud baying as soon as panthers trail |;
scented, and so well are these dogs trained
that the crossing of a bear or deer on the
panthers track, which is frequent occur
renee. never leads the dog away from tine
game he has been sent to follow.
| A panther soon trees after it finds that
the dogs are on its TRAIL and always selects
some large tree as refuge. When the dogs
reach the tree their bayings change to a
peculiar bark, which announces to the
hunter that the game is brought to bay
Usually rife ball dislodges the panther,
and he leaps or falls to the ground. where
the dogs at once attack him. Unless the
animal is so badly wounded as to render il
helpless. the fight between 1t and the dog:
rarely ends without one or two of the latter
being torn to pieces, and this fierce fight to
the death is the exciting part of the hunt.
! Sometimes, however, a panther hunt is at
! tended by circumstances that give it spice
of danger to the sportsman that makes the
fight with the dogs at the foot of the tree
child's play i'll comparison.
Bruce Weston, an old-time Arkansas
hunter, followed his dogs once Oh panther's
trail. and came up with them where they
had freed the game in big oak tree. The
fol co cho
deep in the timber that it was some time
before Weston discovered the panther. 1t
| lay between two branches forty feet from
the ground, and chung so closely to the
| boughs that none but the practiced eye of
the hunter would have detected its pres
ence. Weston at once recognized in the
crouching figure panther's cub, and was
on the point of sending rifle ball through
its body when he remembered an offer of
$50 that some one in the settlement had
made for live panther. and he resolved to
capture this one and secure the $40. TAX
ing his lasso from his pony's saddle, and
with his long knife in his belt for
use in an emergency, he climbed
! the tree. He reached the lower branches of
the tree, and, swinging himself from Dough
to bough, stood just below the cub, which
! had raised to its feet and stood with arched
back looking down at the hunter. Weston
removed his laSso from his shoulder, and
was about to toss it easily over the young
panther'S head, when, as he raised his eyes.
he saw, crOuching in the dead branches of
a tree which grew near the Oak-So near
that the limbs were interlaced-an enor-
nous panther, the mother of the cub, ready
for a spring. She was hardly three PAGES
away. Without seconds delay Weston
stepped from the branch he waS standing
on to one which brought him with the trunk
of the tree between him and the old pan
Their. He was just i'll time, for at that in
slant the mother of the cub leaped OIL the
SPOT he had left. and stood gaz-
ing with fiery eyes on the
hunter, who, with one arm clasped
around branch. held in his right hand his
bare knife, as with every breath he drew he
expected to see the enraged animal spring
down upon him. Standing thus forty feet
above the ground with only the treacher-
Gus footing of limb few inches thick,
Weston knew that he was lost unless by
tact and skill he was able to gradually make
his way back to the foot of the tree without
! irritating the fierce beast into precpitatlng
an attack upon him. Fortunately the cub
left its place higher up and leaped down to
] tllO VII WHICH us UiOiiltI SIOOu,
! glazing at Weston. who was almost neal
enough to her TO feel her hot breath. This
movement of the cubs distracted the at
tention of the old panther. and Weston,
/ sheathng his knife in his belt, dropped to
a lower limb. The panther noticed the move
ment and Sprang to the limb below. where
she stood, and prevented Weston from re-
treating further.
The dogs all this time were crazy with
excitement at the foot of the tree, and
! gnawed at the trunk and tore up the ground
in their frantic anxiety to get at the game 81
far above their reach. Weston. seeing that
his retreat was cut off, and not daring to
! risk a struggle with the panther where the
| slightest miSStep would dash him headlong
| to death, returned to his old position IN the
tree. and the panther followed him. Keep
| ing, by great effort, his body covered by
the trunk of tile tree, Weston climbed still
higher, hoping to reach strong creepel
that extended from the upper part of the
oak to tree few feet away, believing
that he might let himself by his hands along
the vine 10 the other tree by which he could
easily reach the ground. The creepel
was strongly fastened on the oak, and
he supposed it was as secure as the Other
tree. Weston got as far as the creepel
without the panther showing any DISPOSE
ton to follow him, but he had just seized it
and was trying his weight carefully upon
it, keeping his eyes on the animal below,
when the mother of the cub seemed to bt
moved with renewed fury, for she sprang
to branch above, and SO made her way tt
the outer edge of the branches, toward the
top of the tree. evidently intending TO heaC
the hunter off and spring down upon him
Weston saw what she was intending to dc
and he knew the struggle, which could have
but one result. was inevitable unless ht
could reach the thick branches O
the neghbOring tree by means of
the connecting vine by the tim,
above him. He grasped the creeper ant
swung himself off of the branch. The win,
gave way at its fastenings on the other tree
and Weston, keeping his hold was swun!
back into the oak and brought down to thu
very branch on which the panthers cul
was crouching. Instantly, with yell tina
resounded through the woods far above tn
turmoil of the dogs below, the mothe
panther came bounding down from the tol
of the tree to the protection of her young
Weston knew there was no escape nov
unless desperate plan that flashed through
his mind should succeed in giving new
turn TO the peril0us situation. DRAWN:
his knife from his belt, he plunged 1t int
the whining cub at ms feet and at tn
same time kicked it loosesfrom the limb. l
fell in the midst of the dogs below just a.
its mother sprang on the branch above
tine hunters head. The sight of her cul
being torn by the dogs. and the cries i
gave. turned her attention entirely from
West)n. and. with blood-curdlilg cry