“Gorry!--I can’t hit him, much less hurt him--but I can at least start something!” thought Sid, as he held steady and pulled the trigger. The sharp spiteful report of the little .32-20 rang out. It was followed by as tremendous an exhibition of strength and agility as Sid had ever hoped to witness. The fright of his own cave man within was as nothing compared to the wildly ungovernable scare that his sudden shot had given the Black Panther. In one mighty leap he jumped to the top of a gaunt bare cedar that jutted out behind the pinnacle; in the next he had flashed down the tree, striking right and left with flail-like blows of his paws, jumped a chasm twenty feet across, and sprang up another tree, leaped down again and spun around in circles--simply demented with terror! Sid laughed grimly. Not a sound did the great cat make. It was all done in less than three seconds, out under the placid beams of the moonlight, and then with a last bound the panther disappeared, and Sid could hear the underbrush up on the plateau cracking and snapping in his wild dash for safety. Sid turned and looked down at his browse bed, mechanically. A grim sense of mastery, of himself and all things around him pervaded him as he took a few steps fearlessly up the ravine. He owned that whole canyon and everything in it, in his present mood! “I must have hit him _some_where, to make him carry on like that,” he muttered, breaking the revolver open to slip in a fresh shell. All desire for further sleep had now gone from him. He was wide awake, now, full of a conquering desire to take hold of this situation and master it, so that he would have some plan of action ready by dawn. Spying a dead fir lying in the underbrush, he dragged it out and hauled it to the fire, where the flames soon reached up to envelop it in a cheerful blaze. He sat down to think things out clearly. His mind was keen and active, now, untroubled by any more nervous and superstitious fears. Realities were plenty enough for him! reflected Sid, joyously. And he had faced one of them,--the worst--and had come off easily victor!