The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-02-29
MARK AND THE PANTHER.
Sketch Of Old Days in a Wilder
ness in the Pearl River
Country.
Truthfully Related by Ono Who
Had It From His Grand
father.
Young Hardy, Looking for Wild Tur-
keys, Faces = Tavenous Panther
How He Escaped Alive.

Written for The HELENA INDEPENDENT
-HE STORY OF MARK HARDY AMI
Nh the panther is trur. / toll il as | hae
e)l9it from my own grandfather when
was a boy.
In 1914 my grandfather found himself II
lower Mississippi, in the almost uninhab'
tied wilderness Of the Pearl river region,
whittier he had gone in search of his sister
whose husband had died and left her PEN
niless among lawless strangers. He stayed
al night at a cabin where a man and his
wife and one child were living comforta-
bly,, but roughly. by tending a little farm
and hunting and trapping in the surround
ing forest.
Issac Hardy was n stalwart man of 10,
and his wife looked stronger shan he; but
their only child, a son of II, WAS strangely
deformed.
NV grandfather found this boy, Mark
Hardy. to be an uncommonly interesting
youth. despite his drawn limbs and scared
face. and whom his strange story was
told he seemed a genuine hero even in that
time when heroism on our frontiers was ut
its best.
Ono day, two years before. Mark then
Is years old. took his rife and went into the
woods to look for q wild turkey.
He had not gone a quarter Of a mile from
homo when he met n huge panther fhce to
face. This was at a place where & little
spring stream ran through q deep, narrow
,avine in which large trees grew here and
there with dense underground around thor
buttressed roots. AS Mark stood, when the
animal appeared, there was no chance for
him to retreat; the thicket Of undsrbrush
through which he had just crawlad was 30
dense that it was like a wall, and on either
hand rose an almost perpendicular jaw OF
the ravine. IA
The panther was no more than twenty
five or thirty feet distant, and already it
was erouching; its eyes glarsd and ita tail
writhed like the body of 3 snake. Mark
had never before seen a panther alive and
free, and the stories he had heard Of pan
Tiers had not fortified him against such a
deadly encounter rs was apparently In
eyitable within the next mute.
But, having been reared to the use of the
rifle. Marks first impulse was to raise his
gun and fire. This was as natural to q
frontier boy as for you to fling up your arm
to ward off a blow. The panther saw the
movement and possibly 1t knew what it
JuCHlU y DAOu Ab - ooAAO
similar occasion. Quick as lightning, al
most, it bounded orwar "
Marks aim could not be very steady
under such conditions, but his rifle rang
out keen and clear. He was scared almost
to death. yet the Instinct Of fight was SO
strong in him that as the savage animal
charged he dubbed his gun and struck out
as hard as he could. He hit, the heavy
stock breaking under the force of the blow.
Doubtless this caused the panther to
swcrve; at all events, it rushed FAST Mark
instead of leaping upon him, and so great
was its momentum that il broke into the
bushes beyond to some distance before it
could check itself and turn about to renew
the attack.
The energy, or I might say the ecstasy, Of
absolute fright now gave Mark the quick
nesH end agility of q cat. Selling the
beugh of & tree he swung himself up and
climbed like a monkey.
Maddened and s~narling wickedly, the
panther went scramhling up, too. The body
of the tree, fortunately. was covered with
growth of loose bark, and this slipped