And thus roused, his ideas took another road, and soon led him on to think of Jane; and once directed into this current he lost all recollection of every thing else, and sunk into one of those dreamy visions of love and hope and joy, which come sometimes in the still solitude of night, whether we lie in down-beds, or on the hard rock or grassy earth; with naught above us but the canopy of heaven.
At last Harvey fell asleep, but he did not sleep long, for when his eyes opened again, the fire burnt still brightly, and Harrod lay in so deep and heavy a slumber that he could scarcely have replenished it. Harvey sat up, lit a pipe, and his thoughts turning toward the young Indian, he began to feel extremely uneasy. What he had undertaken he knew to be perilous in the extreme—one of those Indian artifices, which succeed sometimes from their extreme boldness and audacity, but which are attended with an amount of danger and difficulty which make them rarely used, or only in extreme cases like the present, where the feelings of the actor impelled him even to the verge of rashness.
Harvey gazed at the sleeper with pity. He lay still now; his stormy passions, his fearful sorrows, his regrets, his anxieties, his burning desire for vengeance, all at rest; and perhaps—who can say?—some sweet and cheering dream of the dear ones, some soft vision of the night was his, giving to his soul some of that pleasant rest which the body derives from cessation from labor.
“He sleeps—poor fellow; I must not wake him,” said the artist, gently. He always liked that fearless spirit, that warm-hearted though wild hunter. “How hushed and still this place is! Ah, what is that?”
He leaned down carefully in the dark shadow of the rock, clutching his rifle, as a heavy body was clearly heard above, making its way through the bushes. On the opposite side of the gully the bank rose about twenty feet precipitously, and then sloped back—an inclined plane, covered by shrubs and trees. Through these some body of considerable weight had appeared to slide, and then stopped close to the edge of the cliff.
Harvey peered cautiously up—it was bright moonlight now—and raised his rifle, expecting every minute to see the glaring eyeballs of an Indian looking down upon them from that hight. The noise continued, the bushes parted, and the head of a panther, that had scented out, with his keen and horrid instinct, the presence of men, came looming out in the pale moonlight.
“My!” muttered Harvey, and then without a moment’s hesitation, he fired.
A roar, a yell, and then a bound, proclaimed that the savage beast had fallen, or made a spring at them. Harvey instinctively drew back to clutch his knife. The smoke of the gun prevented his seeing any thing at first, and then he beheld—the panther, which, wounded and bewildered for an instant, had missed its aim and fallen into the river, preparing for another spring.
The fierce, untamed brute, the only approach to lion or tiger on the American continent, glared wildly at Harvey, and hung out his horrid tongue, just as he prepared for the fatal spring. The artist shuddered, and dropping his gun stood with his back to the wall, his long, keen hunting-knife presented at the beast, the handle resting on his chest. The panther give a low whine, wagged its tail, and advanced its paws onto the edge of the niche.
This moment was fatal, for at the same instant a dark, shiny object swung in the air, and a huge and ponderous American ax came down with irresistible force on the cranium of the beast, which, stunned, its head split open, fell back with a savage cry and was carried away by the rushing stream.