“The horses are safe!” came in reply from Joseph Morris. “Where is the deer?”
“This way! I’m going to shoot the other beast.”
“No! wait! I am coming.”
Dave had raised his gun, but at the latter words he lowered his weapon. In less than a minute his uncle was at his side.
“A painter!” ejaculated Joseph Morris. “And a big fellow at that. This is a fight to the death. Let them have it out.”
“Do you suppose there are others around?”
“No. There might have been more deer, but they have taken to their heels long ago. So far as I know, painters never travel together.”
“I suppose the painter has the best of it.”
“He hoped to have, or he wouldn’t have tackled the deer. But he may get more than he bargained for.”
All this time the battle was going on furiously. In the semi-darkness they could see little more than a turning over of first one body and then another. Suddenly the panther shifted its hold from the deer’s shoulder to its throat. But the movement, quick as it was, gave the deer time to shift also and one of its sharp prongs was caught under the panther’s hind legs, piercing the flesh for several inches and causing the blood to flow freely.