Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-07-23
Greek ROYALTY.

i Greek Royalty.
ATHENS, July 22.-King George ha
started for st. Petersburg. After her &C
couchement the Queen proposes to visi
Berlin and Copenhagen.
A Panther Hunt.
There is still an occasional panthe
seen, but more frequently heard withou
being seen, prowling about the Iumbe,
camps of the Susquehanna basin, anC
making its presence apparent by raid,
on sheep and even cattle, among the
sparsely settled farm localities of Sulli
van and adjacent counties. The advance
of civilization has not been so rapid
among these dense pine and hemlocb
wildernesses to have alone caused the
panther to abandon it's haunts in those
forests, for there are still inaccessible
jungles and wild, rocky retreats, so well
loved by this boldest and fiercest of the
great cat family, where it might hide it.
self with almost, if not as much security
as it did in earlier years; but civ
ilization was aided by a, band of invet-
crate and cunning woodsmen who passed
their lives almost solely in carrying on
an offensive warfare against the panther,
following it even to its remotest and most
dangerous haunts, and engaging it there
fearlessly, and with tactics which they
had reduced to an exact science. 1t was
the perpetual and unrelenting crusade Of
| this band of woodsmen that gradually
reduced the once numerous race of PAN
theirs in these woods to condition of al
most absolute extinction, SO that to-day,
with conditions favorable not only to ex-
istence, but to its increase, it is only at
rare intervals that the blood-curdling cry
of this once monarch OF the woods is
heard among it's old haunts, and rarer
still, that the dreaded possessor of the
voice is seen.
Captain Brown was probably the most
famous of the old time panther slayers.
He was an early settler at the Forks of
the Loyalsock creek, near what is now
the mountain village of Forksville, Sulli-
van county, where he put up a cabin and
spent his time in hunting. He was the
panther scourge of wide region, and his
cabin was the first place that was visited
by the settlers thereabouts when pan
ther had bereft some one of them of q
much treasured sheep or COW, the visit
being to beg Captain Brown to come and
rid their particular locality of the ma
rauding beast. Among the hundreds of
tales of daring and persistence manifested
by the great pioneer hunter one is re-
counted with especial pride by descend
ants OF his.
Among the first to seek the then un-
known and unbroken region about the
forks of the Loyalsock was settler
named Samuel Rogers. One morning
Rogers appeared in great trepidation at
Captain Brown s cabin just as that hunter
was rigging himself up for days tramp
among the panther haunts. Rogers
said that big panther had broken into
his sheepfold the night before and had
carried off his most highly priced ram.
Rogers was good panther hunter him
self, but he implored Brown to accom-
pany him in the chase. 1t was one Of
Browns eccentricities that he never
hunted in company with anybody, and
he refused to 60 with Rogers. But he
said:
"Now, you go home, Rogers, and keep
cool. 1 won't go with you after that big
panther, but III go out myself and kill
it for you, and hope I'll have chance to
get its mate, too"
That was satisfactory to Rogers, and
Capt. Brown took his gun and went at
once to the woods on the flats at the
forks of the creek.
1t was late in the fall, and there was
light snow on the ground. At the edge
of the creek he struck the fresh track of
a panther in the snow. From the un-
usual size of the footprints and drops OF
blood here and there along the trail, the
blood having come from some animal the
panther had secured and was carrying
away, Brown knew he had located the
big sheep stealer that had been in Settler
Rogers fold.
It is the habit of panthers, like all Of
the cat family, to bury what is left from
feast, to be exhumed and eaten on
some future occasion. Brown knew that
by following the trail, if he did not over
take the panther itself, he would come to
the spot where it had buried the remains
of the sheep, and by waiting near that
spot he would be sure to get shot not
only at one panther, but more than likely
at its mate, which the former would fetch
along to join in devouring the mutton.
The hunter followed the trail for long
distance, and finally, on the edge
Of dense laurel thicket, found
where the panther had buried the
sheep. Before preparing himself
to hide for the coming of his game
| he instinctively glanced up among
the tops of the tall trees bordering the
swamp, and discovered the panther, his
huge length stretched along limb neal
the top OF one of the trees, and his eyes
fixed on the hunter below. Brown RAISED
his rifle to fire, but the agile anima
sprang to another tree top, and 80 swift
were his movements that he escaped
from the sight of the hunter, who could
only follow the line of the great beasts
retreat by the swaying of the tree tops al
the phanther leaped from one to an
other. The course the panther took was
toward Doubling Run, and Brown made
his way as rapidly as he could through
the intervening thicket, and when h'
reached the run he found that th'
panther had come down from the trees
and had taken a course through tn
snow toward Lewis lake now the noun
tain summer resort of Eagles Mere.
The tireless hunter followed the trai
through the dense forest, and it led hin
!: straight to the lake, distance Of fiv
miles, and around the southern shore TO
two miles more, when Brown discovers
his game drinking from the lake. Th
present site of the Eagle's Mere steam
boat landing is pointed out as the spo
where the great panther stood and re
ceiyed Capt Browns first bullet. Tn
shot did not disable the panther, and
sprang into the laurels and again disaE