“‘Then I heard Dan come tearing through the brush. I lunged again, blindly of course; and this time the blade went through the panther’s jaw and into my own flesh. The brute let go; and I rolled to the foot of the gully, a distance of some five or six feet. Even as I fell I heard Dan’s vindictive cough as he sank his teeth into his adversary’s throat. There was a mad snarl from the big cat, a struggle—and the two rolled down on top of me.
“‘I got out of the way in a great hurry. At first it was too dark down there to distinguish the combatants. In a moment, however, my eyes got used to the gloom. The two animals were almost inextricably mixed up. Dan’s grip was right under the panther’s jaw, so that he could not make any use of his teeth. The wary old dog had drawn himself up into a tight ball, so as to expose as little of himself as possible to the attack of his enemy’s claws. But his back and haunches were getting terribly mangled.
“‘Dan fought in silence; but the Indian devil made noise enough for both, and the yelling down in that little hole was fiendish. I felt my left arm, and found it was not broken. Then I sprang on the Indian devil, seized him by the tail, and tried to jerk his hind legs clear of Dan.
“‘His back was bowed up into a half-circle, and there was no unbending that arch of steel.
“‘I dug the knife twice into his side, and he paid no attention to it, so absorbed was he in the life-and-death struggle with Dan. If left to themselves I saw that the fight would end with the death of both. Dan was inexorably working through the throat of his foe, but was in a fair way to be torn to pieces before he could get this accomplished.
“‘I threw myself on the panther’s hindquarters, twining my left arm around his supple loins, and with my right hand I reached for his heart.
“‘See the length of this blade? I drove it in to the hilt three times behind that brute’s fore shoulder before I fetched him. Then he straightened out and fell over.
“‘It was some time before I could persuade Dan to drop him. The poor old fellow was so torn he could hardly walk. I picked him up in my arms,—though it’s no joke to carry a dog of his weight,—and lugged him back to the camp.
“‘We were a sight to see when we got there, a mass of blood from head to foot.
“‘I stayed at that camp four days, nursing Dan and myself, before we were able to start for home; and then we had to go, for fear we’d be starved out. I thanked my stars and your old-time injunctions that I had taken the little medicine-case along with me. It might have gone hard with us but for that.’