“I had my rifle to my shoulder: it was a fair shot, but still I hesitated about firing. My experience with catamounts, which, though of the same nature, are yet no more to be compared with a real panther, like this, than a common cur to a stout bulldog, had taught me the danger of wounding without killing them outright. If _those_ were so dangerous under ordinary circumstances, what would this be, already bent on destroying me? And should I stand, at that distance, an even chance to finish him, which could only be done by putting a ball through his brain, or spine, or directly through his heart? I thought not. The distance was too great to be sure of any thing like that; and besides, my nerves, I felt, were getting a little unsteady, and I also found I was losing my faith, which is just the worst thing in the world for a hunter to lose. While I was thinking of all this, the creature leaped down, and, the next instant, I saw his head rise above the bushes, in his prodigious bounds towards me. With that glance, I turned and ran; ran as I never did before; leaping over logs, and smashing headlong through brush and bushes, but still distinctly hearing, above all the noise I made, the louder crash of the creature’s footfalls, striking closer and closer behind me. All at once, however, those crashing sounds ceased to fall on my ear, and the thought that my pursuer had sprung one side into an ambush, from whence he would pounce on me before I could see him, flashing over my mind, I suddenly came to a stand, and peered eagerly but vainly among the bushes around me for the crouching form of my foe. While thus engaged, a seeming shadow passing over the open space above caused me to glance upward, when, to my horror, I saw the monster coming down from a tree-top, with glaring eyes, open mouth, and outspread claws, directly upon me! With a bound, which at any other time I should have been utterly incapable of making, I threw myself aside into the bushes just in time to escape his terrible embrace; and, before he had rallied from the confusion caused by striking the ground and missing his prey, I had gained the distance of a dozen rods, and thrown myself behind a large tree. But what was now to be done? I knew, from his trotting about and snuffing to regain the sight and scent of me, which I could now distinctly hear, that he would soon be upon me. If I distrusted the certainty of my aim before this last fright, should I not do it much more now? I felt so; and, as I was now within a mile of the river,--where, if I could reach it, I thought it possible to find a way to baffle, at least, if I did not kill, my ruthless pursuer,--I concluded that my best chance for life was to run for the place. But, in peering out to ascertain the exact whereabouts of the painter before I started, my ear caught the sound of other and different footsteps; and the next moment I had a glimpse of a bear’s head, bobbing up and down in his rapid course through the