k of hers? The
settlements of late had been making great inroads on the world of
ancient forest, driving before them the deer and smaller game. Hence the
sharp hunger of the panther parents, and hence it came that on this
night they hunted together. They purposed to steal upon the settlements
in their sleep, and take tribute of the enemies' flocks.

Through the dark of the thick woods, here and there pierced by the
moonlight, they moved swiftly and silently. Now and again a dry twig
would snap beneath the discreet and padded footfalls. Now and again, as
they rustled some low tree, a pewee or a nuthatch would give a startled
chirp. For an hour the noiseless journeying continued, and ever and anon
the two gray, sinuous shapes would come for a moment into the view of
the now well-risen moon. Suddenly there fell upon their ears, far off
and faint, but clearly defined against the vast stillness of the
Northern forest, a sound which made those stealthy hunters pause and
lift their heads. It was the voice of a child crying,--crying long and
loud, hopelessly, as if there were no one by to comfort it. The panthers
turned aside from their former course and glided toward the sound. They
were not yet come to the outskirts of the settlement, but they knew of a
solitary cabin lying in the thick of the woods a mile and more from the
nearest neighbor. Thither they bent their way, fired with fierce hope.
Soon would they break their bitter fast.

Up to noon of the previous day the lonely cabin had been occupied. Then
its owner, a shiftless fellow, who spent his days for the most part at
the corner tavern three miles distant, had suddenly grown disgusted with
a land wherein one must work to live, and had betaken himself with his
seven-year-old boy to seek some more indolent clime. During the long
lonely days when his father was away at the tavern the little boy had
been wont to visit the house of the next neighbor, to play with a child
of some five summers, who had no other playmate. The next neighbor was a
prosperous pioneer, being master of a substantial frame-house in the
midst of a large and well-tilled clearing. At times, though rarely,
because it was forbidden, the younger child would make his way by a
rough wood road to visit his poor little disreputable playmate. At
length it had appeared that the five-year-old was learning unsavory
language from the elder boy, who rarely had an opportunity of hearing
speech more desirable. To th