The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1888-03-22
THE PANTHER SLAYER.
The Greatest One of All His Great
Exploits.


seen, but more frequently heard with
out being seen, prowling about the
lumber camps of the Susquehanna
basin, and making its presence appar-
.ent by raids on sheep and even cattle
among the sparsely settled farm local
titles of Sullivan and adjacent counties.
The advance of civilization has not
been so rapid among these dense pine
and hemlock wildernesses to have
alone caused the panther to abandon
its haunts in those forests, for there are
still inaccessible jungles and wild,
rocky retreats. so well loved by this
bOldes: and fiercest of the great cat
family, where it might hide itself with
almost. if not quite. as much security as
it did in earlier years; but civilization
was aided by band of inveterate and
cunning woOdsmen who passed their
lives almost solely in carrying on an
offensive warfare against the panther,
following it even to its remotcst and
most dangerous haunts, and engaging
1T there fearlessly. and with tactics
which they had reduced to an exact
science. 1t was the perpetual and I'M
relenting crusade of this band of woods
men that gradually reduced the once
numerous race of panthers in these
woods to condition of almost absO-
lutte extinction, so that to-day, with
conditions favorable not only to its 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 its 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 Greek, near
what is now the mountain village of
louisville. Sullivan County. where he
put up cabin and spent his time in
hunting. He was the panther scourge
of a wide region, and his cabin was the
first place that was visited by the set
tiers whereabouts when a panther had
bereft some one of them of 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
~ot tales of daring and persistence mani
Tested by the great pioneer hunter one
is recounted with especial pride by de-
scendants of his.
Among the first to seek the then I'M
known and unbroken region about the
forks of the LoyaIsock WAS settler
named Samuel Rogers. One morning
Rogers appeared in great trepidation
at Captain Browns cabin, just as that
hunter was rigging himself up for a
days tramp among the panther haunts.
Rogers said that big panther had
broken into his sheepfold the night be-
fore and had carried off his most highly
priced ram. Rogers was Il good panther
hunter himself, bui he impiored Brown
to accompany him in the chase 1t was
one of Browns eccentricities that he
never hunted in company with any
body, and he refused to go with Rogers.
But he said:
Nov, you 90 home, Rogers, and
keep cool I won't go with you after
that big panther, but I'll go out myself
and kill it Tor you, and hope I'll have
chance to get it's mate, too"
That was satisfactory to Rogers, and
Captain Brown took his gun and went
at once to the woods on the flats at the
forks of the creek.
II 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 unusual 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 that
he had located the big sheep-stealer
which had been in Settler Rogers fold.
1t is the habit of panthers, like all of
the cat family, to bury what is left from
a feast. TO be exhumed and eaten on
some future occasion. Brown knew
that by following the trail, if he
did not overtake the panther itself, he !
would come to the spot where it had
buried the remains of the sheep. and
that by waiting near that spot he would
be sure to get a shot, not only at the
one panther, but more than likely at
its mate, which the former would fetch
along 10 join in devouring the mutton.
The hunter followed the trail for a long
distance, and finally, on the edge of a
dense laurel thicket, found where the
panther had buried the sheep Before
preparing himself to hide for the COM
ing of the game, he instintictively
glanced up among the tops of the tall
trees bordering the swamp, and discov-
cred the panther, his huge length
stretched along limb near the top of
one of the trees. ana his eyes fixed on
the hunter below. Brown raised his
rifle to fire, but the agile animal sprang
to another tree top. and so swift were
his movements that he escaped from
the sight of the hunter, who could only
follow the line of the beasts retreat by
the swaying of the tree tops as the
panther leaped from one to another.