here seemed to be no time for discussion on questions of precedent, so
we began to climb together, reaching a great branch about twenty feet
from the ground, no easy task for me, encumbered as I was by the gun.

"Ha ha!" cried Pomp, who seemed to have recovered his courage as soon as
he was up in the tree; "no 'gator catch um up here, Mass' George.
Nebber see 'gator, no, not eben lil 'gator, climb up tree."

"No," I said in a low tone, which impressed the boy so that he sat
speechless for some time; "no, but the panthers can, more easily than we
do, Pomp."

I don't know what sort of a shot I should have made; probably I should
have been too nervous to take good aim up there in the dark; but for
what seemed a terrible length of time I sat there gun in hand, ready to
fire at the first savage creature I could see, and a dozen times over I
conjured up something stealthily approaching. But it was not until we
had been up there about an hour that I felt quite certain of some great
cat-like creature being beneath the tree.

It was not creeping forward, but crouched down as if watching us, ready
at our first movement to change its waiting attitude into one of
offence.

Pomp made no sign, but he was so still that I felt sure he could see it
too, and I was afraid to call his attention to it, lest it should bring
the creature on me so suddenly that it might disorder my aim. So I sat
on with the piece directed at the object, my finger on the trigger,
hesitating, then determined to fire, when all at once it seemed to me
that the animal had grown plainer.

This, though I had not detected the movement, must mean that it was
getting nearer and about to spring, so casting all hesitancy to the
winds, I raised the gun to my shoulder, and then quite started, for Pomp
said aloud--

"Mass' George going shoot?"

"Yes," I said, in a husky whisper. "Keep still; do you see it?"

"No. Where be um?"

"There, there," I whispered; "down straight before us."

"What, dat?"

"Yes. Be still, or you'll make it leap at us."

"Why, dat lil tree."

There was a tone of such astonishment in the boy's voice that I bent
lower and lower down, knowing how much better Pomp's eyes were than
mine; and as I looked, I saw that the object was clear, and that it was
indeed a low patch of shrub getting plainer and plainer rapidly now, for
it was morning once more.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

"Now, Mass' George," said Pomp, as we stood at the foot