"Now the horrid nestling of its hinder claws, drawn under its belly was heard, and the bent ham strings were seen but a half instant by Wheaton, from where he sat in his tree, when the tremendous leap was made. It rose on a long curve into the air, of about ten feet in the highest place, and from thence descending, it struck exactly where the breast, head and bowels of its prey had lain, with a scream too horrible for description, when it tore to atoms the rotten wood, filling for several feet above it, the air with the leaves and light brush, the covering of the deception. But instantly the panther found herself cheated, and seemed to droop a little with disappointment, when however she resumed an erect posture, and surveyed quite around on every side on a horizontal line, in search of her prey, but not discovering it, she cast a furious look aloft among the tops of the trees, when in a moment or two the eyes of Wheaton and the panther met. Now for another leap, when she dropped for that purpose; but the bullet and two buck shot of old smooth bore were too quick, as he lodged them all exactly in the brain of the savage monster, and stretched her dead on the spot where the hunter had slept but a short time before, in the soundness, of a mountain dream. "Wheaton had marked the spot where her young were hidden, which, at the report of the gun, were frightened and ran up a tree. He now came down and found the panther to measure, from the end of its nose to the point of its tail, eight feet six inches in length; a creature sufficiently strong to have carried him off on a full run, had he fallen into its power. He now reloaded and went to the tree where her kittens, or the young panthers were, and soon brought them down from their grapple among the limbs, companions for their conquered and slain parent. "Wheaton dismantled them of their hides, and hastened away before the night should set in, lest some other encounter might overtake him of a similar character, when the disadvantage of darkness might decide the victory in a way more advantageous to the roamers of the forest. Of this feat Ben Wheaton never ceased to boast; reciting it as the most appalling passage of his hunting life. The animal had found him while asleep, and had him concealed, as he supposed, intending to give her young a specimen of the manner of their future life; or if this is too much for the mind of a dumb animal, she intended at least to give them a supper.