"I'll tell you," said Hugh, "let's go round a little bit and get above her and roll some rocks down, and perhaps she will walk off."
This suggestion was carried out, and the old goat at length was induced to leave her kid and slowly go off, finally disappearing over a ledge at some distance. Jack and Hugh went down to look at the panther. They found in his side, just back of the shoulder, four round perforations, and discovered that four of his ribs had been broken where the goat's head had struck him. After they had skinned him they found that the beast's lungs had been pierced three times by the goat's horns and the heart once. It was no wonder that the cat had died.
"I suppose," said Hugh, "that we might as well take that kid along with us. It's eatable, and the Indians probably will like it just as well as deer meat."
"All right," said Jack. "If you will take the skin, I will take the kid."
"Come on, then," said Hugh. "We had better hurry, it's getting on toward dark; and the road down this hill is a rough one."
By the time that they reached the trail below it was quite dark, but they met with no accident. When they reached camp again they had an interesting story for Fannin. The Indians, too, gathered around and asked the meaning of the holes in the panther's skin, remarking that they did not look like bullet holes, and there were no places where the balls had come out. Fannin explained to them what had taken place. The Indians nodded sagely, and Hamset said to Fannin: "Once before I've heard of a thing like this. I have also heard of a goat fighting a bear that had killed her kid, and driving it away. These white sheep are great fighters. I have seen them killed with many marks on their skins, showing where they had been cut by the horns of others they had been fighting with; and I have seen two which had in their hams the horns of other goats that had been broken off in the flesh. They fight a good deal. One of my relations once told me that he had crept up close to a goat, and rose up to shoot the animal. When it saw him, it put all its hair forward and rushed at him, but he killed it before it reached him."
Jack, Hugh, and Fannin spent some time that night over the panther skin, cleaned it and laced it over a frame where it might dry. Whether it would dry or spoil would, of course, depend upon the weather of the next few days. Bright, dry weather with some wind would surely cure the skin; but continued damp weather, which would keep it moist, would as surely spoil it.
The camp ground that they occupied to-night had been used by Indians as a stopping place, and lying on the beach were a number of bones. One of the most oddly shaped ones was picked up by Fannin, who asked Jimmie what animal it belonged to. The boy did not hesitate, but answered in Chinook, "Tuicecolecou" (porpoise neck). Jack and Hugh were mightily astonished at this identification, but Fannin pointed out to them that this bone, which is made up of all of the vertebræ of the neck grown together so as to form a single bone, is most characteristic, and could scarcely have escaped the observation of the Indians, who kill great numbers of these marine mammals.