e; still Wheaton
continued his silent position, knowing his safety depended much on
this. Soon the tread was again heard, farther and farther off, till it
entirely died away in the distance--but he still lay motionless a few
minutes longer, when he ventured gently and cautiously to raise his
head and cast an eye in the direction the creature, whatever it was,
had gone, but could see nothing. He now rose up with a spring, for his
blood had been running from his heart to his extremities, and back
again, with uncommon velocity; all the while his ears had listened to
the steps of the animal on the leaves and brush. He now saw plainly
the marks of design among the leaves, and that he had been covered
over, and that the paws of some creature had done it.

"And as he suspected the panther was the animal, he knew it would soon
return to kill him, on which account he made haste to deceive it, and
to put himself in a situation to give it a taste of the contents of
old smooth-bore. He now seized upon some pieces of old wood which lay
all about, and placed as much as was equal to his own bulk, exactly
where he had slept, and covered it over with leaves in the same manner
the panther had done, and then sprang to a tree near by, into which he
ascended, from whence he had a view a good distance about him, and
especially in the direction the creature had gone. Here in the crotch
of the tree he stood, with his gun resting across a limb, in the
direction of the place where he had been left by the panther, looking
sharply as far among the woods as possible, in the direction he
expected the creature's return. But he had remained in this condition
but a short time, and had barely thrust the ram-rod down the barrel of
his piece, to be sure the charge was in her, and to examine her
priming, and to shut down the pan slowly, so that it should not snap,
and thus make a noise, when his keen Indian eye, for such he had,
caught a glimpse of a monstrous panther, leading warily two panther
kittens toward her intended supper.

"Now matters were hastening to a climax rapidly, when Wheaton or the
panther must finish their hunting on the mountains of the Susquehanna,
for if old smooth-bore should flash in the pan, or miss her aim, the
die would be cast, as a second load would be impossible ere her claws
would have sundered his heart strings in the tree where he was, or if
he should but partially wound her the same must have been his fate.
During these