Look! cried Tom excitedly. Her eyes quiver and her lips move. Bend yourself to the paddle, Tom! Pull for your life! Pull! We may save her yet!
The shore was soon reached, and the lifeless body of the mother was laid by the side of her child.
CHAPTER IV.
The Bear and Panther.
We left Walter Wallace asleep on the banks of the Callicoon. How long he would have slept, we cannot say, had it not been for an unlooked-for event. The day was just dawning. The silver streak of morning had lit up the eastern sky, when Walter, in a half-waking, and half-dozing condition, thought he felt Rolla by his side. He placed his paw on him and partially turned him over. Then he run his nose along and smelled his body. Then came a fierce growl. This brought Walter to his feet. A sight met his eye calculated to strike terror to the heart of an old hunter.
At his feet stood two young cubs, while at a distance of about twenty feet, perched on the limb of a large tree, was a large sized panther, and at the root of the tree, stood a large black bear, the mother of the cubs at his feet, looking intently at the panther. As Walter raised, the bear turned one quick glance at him, but instantly turned her eye on the panther. Walter did not know what to do. It was the panther that he was afraid of. He had been told that a bear would not molest a person unless they attempted to injure her cubs. It was evident that the bear was watching the actions of the panther, and caring but little for him. He therefore concluded to make friends with the bear by patting her cubs. Gently stooping down, he fondled the cubs. They seemed to have no fear of him, and played about him like two kittens. Now and then, the bear would cast a wistful eye at him, as much as to say “protect my young.” Just then the panther gave a spring and landed on the limb of the tree under which Walter and the cubs lay. The bear instantly jumped to the spot, but paid little or no attention to him.
It now occurred to Walter that he had his father’s gun with him.
Casting his eye to the ground he saw it. He immediately raised it to his shoulder, and taking steady aim across a small sapling, aiming directly between the panther’s eyes, fired. The panther fell. No sooner had it touched the ground, than the bear grasped it, and in an instant, its bowels were torn from its body.