As they neared the house, the setting sun tinted to the brilliancy of the stained glass of some mediaeval cathedral the vari-coloured lights above the classic portal. They noticed that the door stood open. From an upper room came the doleful groans and lamentations.
“What’s those tracks?” said the keen-eyed young Vallon, who had run on ahead with the dogs.
Coming up the bank from the ice-bound Sinnemahoning, crossing the trail, and entering the mansion by the front door, were huge round footmarks like those of some mammoth cat. “Painter, painter” they all cried, as they looked at them, while the dogs, knowing well the ferocity of the Pennsylvania Lion, slunk about their master’s feet.
All wanted to go indoors, and no one cared to mind the horses. They tied the jaded beasts to the red maple trees, on either side of Major Stewardson’s one-time favorite resting place. Gakle had an old-time, flint-lock horse pistol that had been carried by David Lewis, the Robber, when he was wounded on the First Fork; Stewardson had his army pistol, while the two hunters had their flint-lock Lancaster rifles.
They followed the tracks into the lobby, and by the snow and mud left on the floor, to the staircase, which they ascended. Stewardson’s eyes fell on the green-painted door of the little room once occupied by his beloved, which was ajar. He rushed forward, pistol in hand, and pushed it wide open.
On the bed, a small affair of the four poster type which he had never viewed before, the scene of the fair Asterie’s vigils, stood a great lithe, lean pantheress, clawing the counterpane and mattress with all four feet, and beating her fluffy tail with a regular rhythm against the headboard. In her mouth was a huge rat, bleeding, which she had lately captured.
Before he could recover from his amazement and shoot, the greycoated monster sprang over the foot-board, and through the window, carrying the sash with her. The other men appeared just in time to see the brute’s long tail disappearing through the casement.
Quickly turning, they seized the dogs by their collars and pushed them down the narrow winding stairs. Outside, in the fading light, the spoor could be seen at the side of the house where the lioness bounded over the lawn, and down the bank, and crossed the stream on the ice.
The dogs took up the scent, and were away, the hunters following gamely. The baying of the hounds echoed and re-echoed through the narrow valley; by their volume the quarry was not far ahead. The snow was deep and very soft in the woods, and it was getting very dark. Perhaps the chase would have to be abandoned, and the panther or spook, whichever it was, got away after all.
Soon the barking of the dogs indicated that the beast had been run to cover. It was just at dark when the hunters saw the pantheress crouched in a rock oak at the forks, on the steep, stony face of the Keating Mountain, with the dogs leaping up frantically, the monster feline hissing and growling savagely.