This Saturday afternoon, in the fall of the year, I had gone hunting afoot. In hot pursuit after a deer, I penetrated a thicket deep in the forest, there to lose track of my game. But in making my way out, came full upon a panther's burrow, and so much admired the one striped and mottled cub curled therein, that the fancy seized me to carry it home and attempt to tame it. Hearing no sound of the parent beast, I put the sleeping cub into my game bag, and started homeward. Scarcely half a mile had been covered when there came from the thicket behind me that nerve-shaking cry of the panther, resembling nothing else so much as the scream of a child in mortal terror. My steady gait quickened into a run. A second screech came from the pursuing panther. Knowledge of my danger lent wings to my limbs, but the beast gained on me with long leaps of her agile body. Louder and louder sounded her oft repeated cries, and the cub in my bag answered with pitiable whines. I could hear her deep, swift panting, and the soft thud of her feet upon the leafy ground. The open field was gained but a few yards in advance of her, and turning to face my foe a sudden panic seized me. To my amazement she paused at the edge of the forest, and, after turning a scornful glance in my direction, fixed a meditative eye upon a sunset more gorgeous than usual. With that alertness of observation, and acuteness of consciousness which most persons experience in moments of high tension, I remember noting the rich coloring of the tan and brown rings on the creature's sleek and mottled skin, and of thinking what a fine, soft cover it would make for my mother's rocking chair.
Suddenly the panther turned toward me, uttering a still more blood-curdling cry, and crouched for a spring. My ball met her as she rose, but only to sting her, and make her the more furious. Her body came against mine with the force of a cannon ball, and I went down under it, my unloaded rifle being hurled from my hand. Fastened by the animal's claws, together we rolled over and over in the dry, matted grass of the meadow, struggling desperately.
The confused, doubtful struggle was presently over and not only was I alive and fully conscious, but could even move my mangled arm, and stand upon my feet. The hilt of my knife stuck straight upward in the long fur upon the creature's breast, and I pulled it out, wiped it upon the grass, and sheathed it, thinking I would not use it again, but keep it for remembrance.
Again I was struck by the thickness and beauty of the panther's skin, and wished to have it for my mother's chair. It was my custom to carry a leathern thong in the outer pouch of my game bag; one end of it I now fastened about the beast's body, the other about my own, and so dragged the carcass after me across the level field. Slow and painful was my progress, for my lacerated shoulder and arm smarted maddeningly, and every few yards I was forced to drop upon the ground to rest.
The full moon was two hours high, when, at last, I came to the barn yard stile, on which my father leaned, scanning the fields anxiously.
"Well, son, I'm glad you've come," said my father, "your mother is half dead with anxiety."
I showed my trophy and told my story.
"You did a foolish thing, Don, when you stole the cub, but your mother need have, I think, little further anxiety about you; you are as able to take care of yourself as any seasoned woodsman."
The glow of pride my father's words gave me changed to a feeling of remorse when I saw my mother's blanched face and trembling hands. She would not consent to let me tame the cub. "Our lives were already close enough to savagery," she said, "with Indians and wild beasts likely to fall upon us at any moment; we do not want the sweet peace of our home broken by any savage sight or sound." She kept the skin, though, used it on her winter rocking chair, and prized it highly. Indeed I have more than once overheard her tell how she came by it.
The second incident of my youth most vividly stamped upon my memory happened just ten months after I killed the panther.