The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-08-05

of a gasp after the yell was finished, as
the animal took a quick breath. The
moon had set and George was quite in
the dark till he came out into the circle
of freight, reused instantly from hA
sleep. | was struck by the CHASTITY pallor
of his face, as he no doubt was by mine,
If he took time TO notice it. He ran TO
get his ak, stuck il in a log close by. and
tOk I'D the gun and we both stood in
front of the fire and waited for something
to happen.
seemingly a little nearer, and / could en-
dure ii no longer. L stepped around be-
hind tree and fired both barrels of the
shotgun up into the air thinking in that
way to frlghten away our tOrmentOr. 1t
seemed to have contrary effect. Almost
simultaneously with the discharge of the
second barrel, with a short but awfully
piercing yell, the brute leaped toward the
place where 1 had stood before, thirty or
forty feet back in the bushes, and landed
so near me that ] actually felt on my face
some of the dirt he kicked up when he
landed. The leap was so sudden and I'M
expected that l was for the moment par
alyZed with fright and stood like a dunn
my waiting for him to seize me- as l full
" expected he would. I could see him
only very dimly by the light of the fire
behind me, for you know how one is both
cred when going away from a light and
looking at once into darkness beyond. In
a few seconds my wits returned, and |
made a break for the protection of the
OW back of our camp
Single Nails Ended Him.
"a sudden inspiration led me to think
of a little bundle of nails We had brought
to help build the shelter with. Hastily
turning a big charge of powder into the
right barrel, wadding it with a piece of
lining from my jacket, / then charged it
with q goOd-sized handful of those nails,
rammed home another bit OF cotton TO
hold them in place. and eelt ready for a
fight. The way that bh,I,e had jumped
right UP into our camp had made me mad
as son as L recovered from the first shock
of it, and | thirsted for his blood, fully
determined to put an end to mis- bowling
career for good and all if he gave me a
chance.
Telling George to back me with his ak,
! crept around the corner of the camp,
and. after lounging for two or three min
utes. was able to make out the animals
crouching in the partial shadow of a ma
pie tree. 1t was, of course, a foolish
thing to do. for a miss would have meant
a panther right on top of us in Jlffy,
but my blOd was up and l could not wait
another second, so, drawing up the gun, L
took god ann al tbe en tr,G 0genes IN lne
THE recOil of the heavy charge almost
knocked me over backwards, and at first
| could not tell what happened. But the
beast was still lying in the same place
when I looked, and, taking a burning stick
from the fire, we both approached him
with axes ready He was quite dead, and
that handful of nails had torn an ugly
hole in his neck.
80 know, as 1 said before, that there
have been pantherS in Maine. That one
was over seven feet from tip of his tail TO
his nos. and his jump. when we came to
look things over by daylight, must have
been over thirty feet
I'VE were too much excited to sleep any
more that night, and the next after skin
ming the panther, we had to go out TO
Madrid to tell the story and send the hide
to a taXidermist. 1t came out in the dis
cussiOn that followed our adventure mat
no nanthers had been seen in that vicinity
for more than fifteen years with the ex-
ception of one big one which had been
caught in a trap the preceding spring Dy
the farmer who lived the nearest TO the
scene of our night combat"