"Sometimes they will follow after anybody for a long ways," said Thomas. "Father told me that, when he was a boy, the mill stream at the village got so low one fall that they could not grind wheat or corn there. So grandpa sent him over to Pride's grist mill, in Willowford, with the horse and wagon and a load of corn. There were a lot of grists in ahead of him; and before the miller got around to grind out father's corn, it was dark, and he had to drive home, thirteen miles, in the evening. It was woods nearly all the way then; and after he had gone a mile, or two, and it had come on very dark, so dark he could hardly see his hand before him, he heard a snarling noise behind him. Turning round, he saw two bright spots just behind the wagon. It scared him; he started the horse up, but those spots came right close along after him. Every time he looked around, he would see them, and he could hear the creature's feet _pat_ in the road, too, as it ran after the wagon. He kept the horse trotting along pretty fast and held the butt of his whip all ready to strike, if the creature jumped into the wagon. It didn't jump in, but kept near the hind end of the wagon; and it followed father for as much as two miles, till he met a man with an ox team. He was so taken up watching for those eyes, back there in the dark, that he came near running into the ox team; but the man shouted to him to pull up. He told the man that something had been chasing him; but the eyes had disappeared; and he saw nothing more of them. Father thinks now that it was a 'screamer,' though it might have been a panther. There were lots of panthers in the woods, in those days." "Are there any now?" asked Theodora, looking a little uncomfortable. "No," said Addison. "I don't think there are." "Well, I'm not so sure of that," said Thomas. "There may be one passing through here, once in a while. Did you ever hear the Old Squire tell the story of the panther that he and my grandfather killed, when they were boys?" "No," said Addison. "The old gentleman never talks much of his early exploits." Ellen said that she had heard Gram speak of it once. "Tell the story, Tom," said I. "Oh, you get the old gentleman to tell it to you, sometime," replied Tom. "I can't tell it good. But 'twas real _scarey_ and interesting. Something about a cow. The panther killed my grandfather's father's cow, I believe. The men were all away. It was in the winter time; and those two boys followed the panther's track away up into the great woods here somewheres and shot it. It's a real interesting story. You get the old gentleman to tell it to you some evening." "We will," said Theodora. "I'll ask him the first night after we go home." "My! Did you hear what an awful noise _that_ was, just now?" exclaimed Kate. We had all heard it--a singular yell, not wholly unlike the human voice, yet of ugly, wild intonation. Addison and Thomas exchanged glances.