The members of the Club had one and all made up their minds that the panther should be killed in the morning if he could be found, and they had resolved, too, that Mr. Gaylord and Uncle Dick should have no hand in the business. They had won glory enough already. Mr. Gaylord had lived in the country from early boyhood, and had trapped and shot scores of panthers, while Uncle Dick had more than once tried his skill on lions, tigers and elephants. The Club, however, could not boast of any such exploits. They had shot any number of turkeys, had eaten many a dinner of venison that they had brought home from the woods, and had been in at the death of more than one bear; but not one of them, before that night, had even levelled his gun at a panther. Now they had a capital opportunity to exhibit themselves, and they were determined to show the old Nimrods[46] in the village that some folks could do things as well as others. “We’ll never have another chance like this,” whispered Bab, excitedly, “and we must improve it. I know that panther has some of our bullets in him, and that he can’t travel far to-night. Go and put your alarm-clock in the stable, Walter.”
“What for? Don’t we want to get up early in the morning?”
“Certainly. But if the horse awakens us by neighing under our window, won’t he arouse your father and Uncle Dick also? If they know when we go out they will want to go with us, and that will knock all our fun in the head. Trust me—I will have you out of bed at four o’clock.”
Walter whistled for his horse, and the rest of the Club went up stairs. Tom followed his master to the barn like a dog, and after Walter had put him in his stall, he returned to his room and tumbled into bed. He did not intend to go to sleep at all that night, but before he knew it he was dreaming of panthers, wild-cats, and all sorts of savage animals. It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when some one seized him by the shoulder. He glanced at the clock and saw that[47] Bab had been true to his promise, for the hands pointed to five minutes past four. While the boys were dressing they stepped about the room very carefully, for fear of awaking Mr. Gaylord, who always slept with one eye and both ears open; and taking their boots in their hands they crept cautiously down the stairs, followed by Rex, who seemed to know what was going on and to understand the necessity of making as little noise as possible. As they stepped upon the porch their hounds came up; and if some one had told them what their masters’ arrangements were, and why they were leaving the house in so stealthy a manner, they could not have behaved more sensibly.
It did not take them long to walk to the barn and saddle their horses; and in ten minutes more they were sitting around the fire, which was still burning brightly near the stump of the oak, comparing notes and waiting impatiently for daylight. It came at last, and as soon as they could see to ride through the woods, they led their hounds to the tree and showed them the limb on which the panther had been sitting. They did this so that the dogs might know what game they were expected to follow. If their masters had simply ordered[48] them into the woods, they would have opened on the first trail they found, and it might have been that of a rabbit or coon. But now they understood that the boys wanted them to follow the panther; and they were so well trained that if a bear or deer had run through the woods in plain sight, they would not have paid the least attention to it. They smelt at the limb and began circling about the tree in search of the trail. They worked faithfully for a quarter of an hour, and then a long, deep-toned bay echoed through the woods, telling the young hunters that their efforts had been successful.
“Hurrah!” shouted Eugene. “To horse, my brave boys, and away! Hi! hi! Hunt ’em up, there!”
If you have never followed the hounds we cannot convey to you even the slightest idea of the melody that filled the forest when that pack of high-flyers opened in full chorus on the trail, or the excitement that thrilled the hunters as they flew over the ground, leaping fences, ditches and logs, each boy urging his horse forward at the top of his speed, in the hope of distancing his companions, and being the first to come up with the hounds when they brought the panther to bay. Walter’s nag took[49] the lead at once, and with a few of his long bounds brought his rider to the place where the dogs had struck the trail. He saw the prints of the panther’s great feet in the snow, and every track was marked with blood.
“The chase will not be a long one,” exclaimed Featherweight, dashing up beside Walter and reining in his horse for a moment to glance at the trail, “for he is too badly wounded to travel far. Now, every man for himself, and three cheers and a tiger for the winner.”
Once more the boys put spurs to their horses and went galloping through the woods at break-neck speed.
If you have ever ridden with experienced hunters, you will, perhaps, have some idea of the manner in which Walter and his party intended to conduct the chase; if you have not, a word of explanation may be necessary. To begin with, they had no intention of following directly after the dogs, or attempting to keep up with them, for that would have been useless. They settled it in their minds beforehand which point in the woods the game would run for, and then “cut across lots,” and tried to reach that point before him.
[50]
Wild animals have ways and habits of their own that a man who has often hunted them understands. If he knows the country he can tell within fifty yards where a deer or a bear will run when pursued by the dogs, and each of the Club thought he knew just the place the panther would make for when their hounds opened on his trail. While they were sitting beside the fire waiting for daylight, Eugene said that if the trail ran toward the swamps, he would ride for a certain ford in the bayou. That was the point at which deer always crossed in going to and from the swamp, and he thought it very probable that the panther would cross there also. Walter did not agree with his brother, and intended to look elsewhere for the game. There was a huge poplar tree about two miles from the plantation, that went by the name of “the panther’s den;” and he was sure he would find him there. Featherweight thought the animal would make the best of his way to a certain canebrake where Uncle Dick had killed three or panthers during the previous winter, and the others thought he would go somewhere else. In short, they had all made up their minds what they were going to do, and each fellow thought his place was the best. They agreed that[51] the first one who discovered the panther should announce the fact to the others by blowing four long blasts on his hunting-horn.
In less than two minutes after the hounds opened on the trail, the hunters had scattered in all directions, and each boy was drawing a bee-line for the place where he expected to find the panther. For a long time Walter thought he was right in his calculations, for the music of the hounds told him that they were running in the same direction in which he was going; but presently the baying began to grow fainter and fainter, and finally died away in the distance. Then Walter knew that he was wrong, but still he kept on, determined to visit and examine the “old panther’s den,” when suddenly he heard the notes of a horn away off in the swamp. He listened and counted four long blasts. It was Bab’s horn, and judging by the way that young gentleman rolled out the signals, he was very much excited about something. Walter faced about at once, and, guided by the music of the horn which continued to ring out at short intervals, finally came within sight of a dense brier thicket in the lower end of his father’s cornfield. There were several trees in the thicket, and the hounds were[52] running about among them, gazing up into the branches and baying loudly. Bab was the only one of the Club in sight. He sat on his horse just outside the fence, looking up at a cottonwood that stood a little apart from the others, and following the direction of his gaze, what was Walter’s amazement to see two immense panthers crouching among the branches!
“Are we not in luck?” exclaimed Bab—“two panther-skins to show as trophies of our skill, and fifty dollars to put into our pockets? This is grand sport. I never was more excited in my life.”
Walter thought it very likely. He did not see how any boy could possibly be more excited than his friend was at that moment. There was not a particle of color in his face; his voice trembled when he spoke, and the hand in which he held his rifle shook like a leaf.
“Humph!” said Walter; “are you not counting your young poultry a little too early in the season? Those skins, that you intend to exhibit with so much pride, are very animated skins just now, and the bone and muscle in them may carry them safely out of our reach in spite of all our efforts to prevent[53] it. Have you never heard old Coulte talk about panther-hunting?” (Coulte was a Creole who lived away off in the swamp. He was a famous hunter, and had killed more panthers, bears, and deer than any two other men in the parish.) “He says,” continued Walter, “that ‘ven ze Frenchman hunts ze paintare ze shport is fine, magnifique; but when ze paintare hunts the Frenchman, Ah! oui! zare is ze very mischief to pay!’ Suppose those panthers should show a disposition to jump down from that tree and come at us; what then?”
“Ah! oui!” said Bab, with a regular French shrug of his shoulders. “By the time they touched the ground I would be a long way from here. That’s our fellow,” he said, pointing to the nearest panther. “I caught sight of him just now as he was ascending the tree, and noticed that he could scarcely raise his fore-legs. He is badly wounded.”
“Where did the other come from?”
“I don’t know; he was in the tree when I came here. No doubt the dogs started him up in the woods, and he ran with the other to keep him company. Now, we don’t want to take any unfair advantage[54] of the rest of the Club, and I propose that we wait until they come up.”
Of course Walter agreed to this—not simply for the reason Bab had given, but because he thought it best to have a strong force at hand before troubling those panthers. The other hunters were not a great way off. Led by the sound of Bab’s horn, they came up one after the other; and when Eugene, who was the last, made his appearance, they gathered around Walter to hold a council of war. Their arrangements were all made in a few minutes, and after throwing down a portion of the fence, they leaped their horses into the cornfield, and rode toward the thicket. They surrounded the cottonwood, and at a word from Walter, five guns were pointed toward its branches, the sights covering the wounded panther’s head.
“One—two—three!” counted Walter, slowly.
The guns belched forth their contents at the same instant, and through the smoke that wreathed above their heads the hunters caught just one glimpse of a limp, lifeless body falling to the ground. One enemy was disposed of, and the fate of the other was sealed a moment afterward, for Perk fired the second barrel of his deer-killer, and fifteen buckshot[55] found a lodgment in the panther’s head. Two more guns cracked while he was falling through the air, and if he was not dead when he left the branch on which he had been crouching, he certainly was before he touched the ground. The work was easily done, but there was not one of the young hunters who did not draw a long breath of relief when he saw that it was over. They knew that panther-hunters do not often bag their game with as little trouble and danger as they had in securing theirs.
“Well, Walter, we’ve done it after all, haven’t we?” exclaimed Bab, highly elated and excited. “Three cheers for the Sportsman’s Club one and all!”
When the cheer had been given, the boys dismounted to examine their prizes. The one they had cut out of the tree the night before was an immense animal for one of its species, and his teeth and claws were frightful to see. The other, although not nearly as large, was still an ugly-looking fellow, and, no doubt, before he received their bullets and buckshot in his head, would have whipped them all in a fair fight, if he had seen fit to descend from his tree and give them battle.
[56]
“Now, the next thing to be done,” said Eugene, “is to go to the house for a wagon.”
“One of us can do that,” replied Walter, “and the rest had better stay here and watch the game.”
“Do you think there is any danger of their running away?” asked Perk.
“No; but there may be danger that some one will run away with them if we don’t keep our eyes open,” returned Walter, who was gazing intently toward the woods. “There are other hunters coming, if my ears do not deceive me.”
After listening a moment, the boys all heard the noise that had attracted Walter’s attention. It was the baying of hounds. The sound came faintly to their ears at first, but grew louder and louder every moment, indicating that the chase was tending toward the cornfield.
“Now isn’t that provoking?” cried Eugene. “Pull off your coats, boys, and get ready for a fight; for if we don’t have one in less than ten minutes, I shall miss my guess.”
“We can tell more about that when we see the hunters,” said Featherweight.
“O, I know who they are,” replied Eugene. “I have heard those hounds before, and I am[57] certain that they belong to Bayard Bell and his crowd.”
The other members of the Club thought so too, and they wished that Bayard had stayed away half an hour longer, and given them time to remove their game to a place of safety.
Every section has some laws of its own that are not written in books; and this is especially true of a new country, concerning the sharing of the proceeds of a hunt. For example, a hunter sets out on the trail of a deer that has travelled all night. A second hunter strikes the trail in advance of him, and follows up the game and kills it. The first man, if he comes up before the game is removed, and can prove that he was on the trail at an earlier hour than his rival, can claim half the deer, although he may have been miles away when it was killed. Game was so abundant at the time of which we write, that there was seldom any difficulty in regard to the division of the spoils. If the successful hunter was generous, the other let him off very easily, perhaps taking only a few steaks for his next morning’s breakfast; but if he showed a disposition to be stingy, his rival always insisted on his rights, and got them, too. In this case the[58] Club thought they saw a chance for trouble. Every one in that region knew that there was a standing reward of twenty-five dollars offered for the scalp of every panther killed in the parish, and they were afraid that the hunters who were then approaching might endeavor to establish a claim to a portion of the money. That was something they did not intend to allow. They found the trail first, followed up the panther, and finding him in company with another, killed them both, before any one, except Mr. Gaylord, knew that they were in the neighborhood. They hurriedly discussed the matter while they were awaiting the approach of the rival hunters, and resolved that they would stand up for their rights.
The noise of the chase continued to grow louder every moment, and presently a pack of hounds, perhaps a dozen of them in all, emerged from the woods, and leaping the fence came close upon the young hunters before they discovered them. Then they ceased their baying, smelt of the panthers, and tried to scrape an acquaintance with Rex and the rest of the Club’s hounds; but their advances not being very graciously received, they ran back to the fence to await the arrival of their masters.[59] They came at length, and when the foremost horseman appeared in sight, our heroes exchanged significant glances and drew a little closer together, while Eugene rested his gun against the nearest tree and began to pull off his overcoat. “It is just as I expected,” said he, in great disgust. “We’ll see fun now, for Bayard and his crowd are mean enough for anything.”
As Eugene spoke, a magnificent coal-black charger arose in the air, and, sailing over the fence like a bird, came toward the thicket at a rapid gallop. He carried on his back a dark sullen-looking boy about seventeen years of age, who wore a military cloak and cap, heavy horseman’s boots and gauntlet gloves, and carried a light rifle slung over his shoulder by a broad strap. This was Bayard Bell, Walter’s rival in everything except his studies. Close behind him came four other boys—Will and Seth Bell, Henry Chase and Leonard Wilson—all finely mounted, neatly dressed, and armed with shot-guns and rifles. These five boys had a society of their own, something like the Sportman’s Club, and somehow they were always opposing the members of the Club, and were invariably worsted by them. They had claimed to[60] be the champion oarsmen of the Academy, and in the attempt to establish that claim, had been so badly beaten that their friends were ashamed of them. Bayard and Henry Chase had been candidates for the position of Commodore and Vice-Commodore of the Academy squadron; but Walter and Featherweight had carried off the honors. Bayard also wanted to be president of one of the literary societies of the institution, and had worked hard for certain academic honors that he thought he ought to have; but rattle-brained Eugene Gaylord had snatched one of the prizes from his grasp, and the studious little Featherweight had walked off with the other. As Bayard and his friends had been confident of success in every one of these instances, their failures were sore disappointments to them. They looked upon their defeats as direct insults, and declared that they would never forget them. They had generally tried to treat the Club with civility as long as they remained at the Academy, but now that they were out from under the eyes of their professors and away from the rest of the students, they thought they had no reason to conceal the real state of their feelings.
The attention of the new-comers was so fully[61] occupied in guiding their horses through the thicket and over the rough, uneven ground, that they did not discover the members of the Club until they had dashed into the very midst of them; and then they checked their horses so suddenly that every one of them was thrown back upon his haunches. The encounter was plainly unexpected, and very much of a surprise to them. They gazed first at our heroes and then at the panthers, and taking in the position of affairs at a glance, looked inquiringly at one another, as if to ask: “What shall we do about it?” Bayard must have been able to read the thoughts that were passing in the minds of his friends, or else he received some sign from them indicative of their desires, for he immediately assumed a swaggering, bullying air, which told the Club plainly enough what was coming.
“Well,” he snarled (he always talked in a snappish sort of way, as if he were angry about something), “Who’s work is this? Who killed these panthers?”
“We did,” replied Eugene.
“You!” echoed Bayard. He looked at the young hunters in amazement, and then smiled derisively. “You can’t crowd any such story as[62] that down our throats,” said he, at length. “Your father and your uncle Dick killed them, and you’re watching them while they go after a wagon to haul them home. That’s the way the thing stands.”
“You are nice-looking fellows to kill two panthers, are you not?” said Seth, with a sneer. “You would run crying home to your mammas if you saw the track of one.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Walter, good-naturedly. “We killed them without help from anybody, but there’s no law that I know of that compels you to believe it.”
“They’re done for, anyhow,” said Bayard, “and we are saved considerable trouble and hard riding. We’ve been following them for more than an hour—we found their trail down there on the banks of the bayou—and we would have got them if we’d had to follow them clear to New York. If you can prove that you shot them you will take a few dollars out of our pockets.”
Bayard and his men dismounted and proceeded to examine the animals very closely. They looked at their teeth, lifted their paws, guessed at their weight, and finally Bayard drew a hunting-knife from his boot, and after trying the edge on his[63] thumb, walked up to one of the panthers and took hold of his ear.
“Hold on, there!” exclaimed Eugene. “What are you about?”
“What am I about?” repeated Bayard, as though he regarded the question as a very strange one; “I am going to take this animal’s scalp—that’s all. It is worth twenty-five dollars to us. We don’t care for the money, but we have rights here, and we intend to enforce them. You can take the other scalp—it belongs to you, or to whoever killed the panthers—and, as we are not disposed to be mean, we will give you both the skins.”
“Now, let me tell you something,” said Perk. “Keep away from there.”
“Eh!” ejaculated Bayard, opening his eyes to their widest extent. “Doesn’t half the fifty dollars these scalps are worth belong to us? It does, and we’re going to have it.”
Perk very deliberately pulled off his overcoat and threw it across his saddle, and Bayard put up his knife and stepped back. Perk coolly seated himself on the head of the largest panther, crossed his legs over the other, and placed his hat beside him[64] on the ground. When the Club witnessed these movements, they told themselves that if they had belonged to Bayard’s party, knowing their friend as well as they did, the offer of double the value of the panthers’ scalps would not have induced them to interfere with him then.