“In order to release the panther’s body we had to cut down the sliver, the blood-stained top of which, with its point sharp and spear-like, as if fashioned by the hand of man, now hangs as a treasured relic upon my library wall. Right beneath, as a foot-rug to my writing-table, and a favorite napping-place for Jeff, is the panther-skin with two holes in it, where the sliver went through. The other skin I gave to old Jake as a memorial of the adventure; but it is probable he sold it at the earliest fair opportunity, for it was a comely and valuable skin.”
“Stranion,” said I when he concluded, “your Jeff is one of the dogs whom I am proud to have known. I have only met, in all my career, one better dog, and that was my brave old Dan, of blessed and many-scarred memory.”
“Bigger, not better, dog,” interrupted Stranion sternly.
“Well, we won’t argue over it. They were both of the same stock, anyway; and I fear we will not look upon their like again, eh, Stranion?”
“Now you are talking, O. M.,” responded Stranion warmly. “But tell us that great yarn about Dan’s battle!”
“No, not to-night,” was my answer. “It would seem like making rivals of Dan and Jeff, which they never were, but always sworn chums. Jeff is enough for one night. Dan shall be commemorated on another. Let Sam give us a bear story now.”
“All right,” said Sam. “Here’s one in which Stranion and I were both concerned. Note it down by the name of—
‘SKIDDED LANDING.’
“Three winters ago, as some of you will remember, Stranion and I took a month in the lumber-woods. It was drawing on toward spring. As we were both good snow-shoers, we managed to visit several widely scattered camps. At all we were received hospitably, with unlimited pork and beans, hot bread and tea; and at each we made a stay of several days.
“For our climax we selected that camp which promised us the most picturesque and exciting experiences at the breaking up of the ice. This was Evans’s Camp on Green River, where the logs were gathered in what is known as a ‘rough-and-tumble landing,’—a form which entails much excitement and often grave peril to the axeman whose work is to cut the ‘brow’ loose.