“I assured him that so long as the Indian devil kept up his serenading we had little need to be troubled; but should the scent of our fried trout be blown to his nostrils, and divert his mind from thoughts of love to war, then would it behoove us to be circumspect.
“As we talked on thus in an undertone which was half-drowned by the washing of the waves, the panther’s cry was heard much nearer than before; and it was not again repeated. This put us sharply on our guard.
“Hour after hour passed, till we began to find it hard to keep awake. Only the weirdness of the place, the strange noises which stole towards us from the depths of the forest, dying out within a radius of a couple of hundred yards from the firelight, together with our anxiety concerning the movements of the panther, kept us from falling asleep.
“The professor told some stories of the skill of Western Indians in creeping upon guarded posts, and I retorted with examples of the cunning and ferocity of these Northern Indian devils.
“Once we were started into renewed vigilance by what seemed like a scratching or clawing on the bark of some tree near at hand; but we heard no more of it. When, as near as we could guess, it must have been well past midnight, we began to be concerned at the lowness of our fire. It had fallen to a mere red glow, lighting up a circle of not more than twenty yards around the camp. As for our covert, it was now sunk in the outer darkness.
“We considered the needs and risks of replenishing the fire, and concluded that the risks were so far greater than the needs, that our better plan was to stay where we were till morning.
“If our enemies were upon our tracks, then for either of us to approach the light would be to betray our stratagem, besides furnishing a fair and convenient target; while we felt tolerably sure that the panther was in some not distant tree, waiting to drop, according to his pleasant custom, upon any one that should come within his reach. These considerations made us once more satisfactorily wakeful, and with straining our sight through the blackness our nerves got painfully on the stretch.
“A bird stirred in the twigs above us, and the professor whispered, ‘What’s that?’
“Then there was a trailing rustle of the dry leaves near our feet; and, with a sharp click and a jump of the pulse, I brought my gun to full cock.
“But two little points of green light close together, which met my eyes for an instant, told me that it was only a wood-mouse which we heard scurrying away.