She's still a bit onstrung, bein' only a little
girl when all is said. 'Why, no, Nellie; I don't kill him speecific as
Wolfville onderstands the word; but I dismisses him so effectual the
kyard shore falls the same for Silver Phil.'"

CHAPTER II.

Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt,

"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old
Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped
of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to
skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while
pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him,
an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws.
Which it's to be urged in favour of mountain lions that they never
forces themse'fs on no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an'
speshul of themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a
accident. However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives
of no mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to
me complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if
mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle
an' calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces
any anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer.
I'm ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the
bushes on the bluff above--two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer
as the walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied
mare an' colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the
precipice an' lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius
Caesar when I rides onto 'em, while a brace of mountain lions is
skirtin' up an' down the aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an'
lashin' their long tails in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been
chasin' the mare an' foal, an' they locoes 'em to that extent they
don't know where they're headin' an' makes the death jump I relates. I
bangs away with my six-shooter, but beyond givin' the mountain lions a
convulsive start I can't say I does any execootion. They turns an'
goes streakin' it through the pine woods like a drunkard to a barn
raisin'.

"Timid? Shore! They're that timid seminary girls compared to 'em is
as sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's
canyon a couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain
lion and her two kittens