“What a silly question,” broke in Roland Van Amburg. “Just take a look at Jim Scanlan over there by the tree-trunk. I’d say an Irishman has whiskers.” Jim Scanlan was section foreman here. There could be no mistaking his nationality.
Said Thuse, “I just wanted to be sure of that.” He went about replenishing the waning fire. This done, he said, “That Indian was half Irish.”
One story led to another, and finally my father told of hunting panthers in Tennessee. He said it was claimed by old woodsmen that the panther made a noise like the cry of a woman, but he had never heard a panther scream, and he didn’t believe it.
“Do you suppose, Bill that there ever was a panther seen in this country?” This inquiry was made by Mr. Scanlan.
“Maybe,” said Dad, “I once tracked a varmint that might have been a panther through these very woods.”
Van chimed in, “Did they ever learn what killed the farmer’s stock over on Elk creek? That was believed to have been the work of a panther. And what about that varmint on the Rudy place?” Van was, as I knew stating facts.
It was generally known here that a prowler of some kind had killed a calf on the Bill Rudy farm, and had dragged it several hundred yards to a hazel thicket—and after eating its fill, buried the remaining carcass under leaves, after the habits of the panther. Bill Rudy owned the land where Joe Pfrang now lives.
The storm grew in intensity. It had filled the woods with voices. If you turned your imagination loose you could hear a cry, a laugh—anything you chose. Then suddenly, astonishingly, there it was. A woman’s scream. Or was it?
Thuse said, “It’s Bill’s panther.” Bill was my Dad. Old Drum raised his voice. He made sound enough, in the tree-walled confines of that hunters’ paradise, to raise the dead.
Bob Graham said, “I feel spooky. Think I need a bracer.” He uncorked his bottle and took a good one.