Dodge City times., 1888-04-12
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
tiles 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
boldest 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 Il 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 renotest 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 un-
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
Forksville, Sullivan County, where he
put up 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 set
tiers thereabouts when a panther had
bereft some one of them of much
treasured sheep or COW, the visit being 2
to be- Captain Brown to come and rid
their particular locality of the ma
rauding beast. Among the hundreds
OF 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 un-
known and unbroken region about the
forks of the Loyalsock was a settler
named Samuel Rogers. One morning
Rogers appeared in great trepidalion
at Captain Browns cabin, just As that
hunter was rigging himself up for a
days tramp among the panther haunts.
Rogers said that a big panther had
broken into his sheepfold the night be-
fore and had carried off his most highly
prized ram. Rogers was Il good panther
hunter himself. bu; 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 60 with Rogers.
But he said:
Now. you go home, Rogers. and
keep cool. won't 90 with you after
that big panther, but I'll 90 out myself
and kill it for you, and hope I'll have a
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.
Il was late in the fall, and there wa:
light snow on the ground. At the
edge of the creek he struck the fresh
track of panther in the snow. From
the unusual size of the ootprints ant
drops of blood here and there along the
trail, the blood having cone from SONS
animal the panther had secured and
was carving away. Brown knew tha,
he had located the bio sheep-stealel
which had been in Settler Rogers fold
1t is the habit of pantherS. like all o
the cat family, to bury what is left from
feast. to be exhumed and eaten OF
some future occasion. Brown knew
that by following the trail, if h,
did not oyei lake the panther itself, b,
would come to the spot where it ha,
buried the remains of the sheep. an,
that by waiting near that spot he woult
be sure to get shot. not only at tn,
one panther, but more than likely a
its mate, which the former would fetcl
along TO join in devouring the mutton
The hunter followed the trail for lon:
distance, and finally, on the edge of
dense laurel thicket. found where tn
panther had buried the sheep. Befor
preparing himself to hide for the com
ing of the game. he instintictivel
glanced up among the tops of the tal
trees bordering the swamp. and discoy
cred the panther. his huge lengt
stretched along a limb near the top @
one of the trees, ana his eyes fixed o.
the hunter below. Brown raised hi
~ie to fire. but the agile animal spran
t.. another tree top. and so swift wer
his movements that he escaped frol
the sight of the hunter. who could onl
follow the line of the beasts retreat b
the swaying of the tree tops as tn
pantAer lespeI from one to anOthe