Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

“The pantheress strolled from the path,” so the story went, "and came and laid herself down at the roots of the tupelo trees, while the panther remained in the path, and seemed to be listening to some noise as yet inaudible to the hunter.

"Daniel soon heard a distant roaring; it seemed to come from the very summit of the Brush Mountain, and immediately the pantheress answered it. The the panther on the path, his jealousy aroused, commenced to roar with a voice so loud that the frightened hunter almost let go his trusty rifle and held tighter to the railing of his blind, lest he might tumble to the earth. As the voice of the animal that he had heard in the distance gradually approached, the pantheress welcomed him with renewed roarings, and the panther, restless, went and came from the path to his flirtatious flame, as though he wished her to keep silence, as though to say, ‘Let him come if he dares; he will find his match’.

"In about an hour a panther, with mouse-color, or grey coat, stepped out of the forest, and stood in the full moonlight on the other side of the cleared place, the moonbeams illuminating his form with a glow like phosphorescence. The pantheress, eyeing him with admiration, raised herself to go to him, but the panther, divining her intent, rushed before her and marched right at his adversary. With measured step and slow, they approached to within a dozen paces of each other, their smooth, round heads high in the air, their bulging yellow eyes gleaming, their long, tufted tails slowly sweeping down the brittle asters that grew about them. They crouched to the earth–a moment’s pause–and then they bounded with a hellish scream high in the air and rolled on the ground, locked in their last embrace.

"The battle was long and fearful, to the amazed and spellbound witness of this midnight duel. Even if he had so wished, he could not have taken steady enough aim to fire. But he preferred to watch the combat, while the moonlight lasted. The bones of the two combatants cracked under their powerful jaws, their talons painted the frosty ground with blood, and their outcries, now gutteral[gutteral], now sharp and loud, told their rage and agony.

"At the beginning of the contest the pantheress crouched herself on her belly, with her eyes fixed upon the gladiators, and all the while the battle raged, manifested by the slow, catlike motion of her tail, the pleasure she felt at the spectacle. When the scene closed, and all was quiet and silent and deathlike on the lick, and the moon had commenced to wane, she cautiously approached the battle-ground[battle-ground] and, sniffing the lifeless bodies of her two lovers, walked leisurely to a nearby oak, where she stood on her hind feet, sharpening her fore claws on the bark.

"She glared up ferociously at the hunter in the blind, as if she meant to vent her anger by climbing after him. In the moonlight her golden eyes appeared so terrifying that Daniel dropped his rifle, and it fell to the earth with a sickening thud. As he reached after it, the flimsy railing gave way and he fell, literally into the arms of the pantheress. At that moment the rumble of horses’ hoofs, like thunder on some distant mountain, was heard. Just as the panther was about to rend the helpless Nimrod to bits, the unknown rider came into view. Scowling at the intruder, mounted on his huge black horse, the brute abandoned its prey and ambled off up the hill in the direction of the dry cave.

"Daniel seized his firearm and sent a bullet after her retreating form, but it apparently went wild of its mark. Meanwhile, before he had time to express his gratitude to the strange deliverer, he had vanished.

"Daniel was dumbfounded. As soon as he had recovered from the blood-curdling episodes, he built[he built] a small fire near the mammoth carcasses, where he warmed his much benumbed hands. Then he examined the dead panthers, but found that their hides were too badly torn to warrant skinning.

"Disgusted at not getting his deer, and being even cheated out of the panther pelts, he dragged the ghastly remains of the erstwhile kings of the forest by their tails to the edge of the entrance to the dry cave. There he cut off the long ears in order to collect the bounty, and then shoved the carcasses into the opening. They fell with sickening thuds into the chamber beneath, to the evident horror of the pantheress, which uttered a couple of piercing screams as the horrid remnants of the recent battle royal landed in her vicinity.

“Then Jacob shouldered his rifle and started out in search of small game for breakfast. That night he went to another of his licks on Elk Creek, near Fulmer’s Sink, where he killed four superb stags,” so the story concludes.