“’"It’s a worse augoory,” says one, “than the hoots of a score of squinch owls.”

“’When this reign of terror is at its height, the local eye is rolled appealin’ly towards us Chevy Chasers.  We rises to the opportoonity.  Day after day we’re ridin’ the hills an’ vales, readin’ the milk white snow for tracks.  An’ we has success.  One mornin’ I comes up on two of the Brackenridge boys an’ five more of the Chevy Chasers settin’ on their hosses at the Skinner cross roads.  Bob Crittenden’s gone to turn me out, they says.  Then they p’ints down to a handful of close-wove bresh an’ stunted timber an’ allows that this maraudin’ cat-o-mount is hidin’ thar; they sees him go skulkin’ in.

“‘Gents, I ain’t above admittin’ that the news puts my heart to a canter.  I’m brave; but conflicts with wild an’ savage beasts is to me a novelty an’ while I faces my fate without a flutter, I’m yere to say I’d sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose grievous cap’bilities I can more ackerately stack up an’ in whose merry ways I’m better versed.  However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire mounts in my cheek; an’ as if the shade of that old Trojan is thar personal to su’gest it, I searches forth a flask an’ renoos my sperit; thus qualified for perils, come in what form they may, I resolootely stands my hand.

“’Thar’s forty dogs if thar’s one in our company as we pauses at the Skinner crossroads.  An’ when the Crittenden yooth returns, he brings with him the Rickett boys an’ forty added dogs.  Which it’s worth a ten-mile ride to get a glimpse of that outfit of canines!  Thar’s every sort onder the canopy:  thar’s the stolid hound, the alert fice, the sapient collie; that is thar’s individyool beasts wherein the hound, or fice, or collie seems to preedominate as a strain.  The trooth is thar’s not that dog a-whinin’ about our hosses’ fetlocks who ain’t proudly descended from fifteen different tribes, an’ they shorely makes a motley mass meetin’.  Still, they’re good, zealous dogs; an’ as they’re going to go for’ard an’ take most of the resks of that panther, it seems invidious to criticise ’em.

“‘One of the Twitty boys rides down an’ puts the eighty or more dogs into the bresh.  The rest of us lays back an’ strains our eyes.  Thar he is!  A shout goes up as we descries the panther stealin’ off by a far corner.  He’s headin’ along a hollow that’s full of bresh an’ baby timber an’ runs parallel with the pike.  Big an’ yaller he is; we can tell from the slight flash we gets of him as he darts into a second clump of bushes.  With a cry—­what young Crittenden calls a “view halloo,”—­we goes stampedin’ down the pike in pursoot.

“‘Our dogs is sta’nch; they shore does themse’fs proud.  Singin’ in twenty keys, reachin’ from growls to yelps an’ from yelps to shrillest screams, they pushes dauntlessly on the fresh trail of their terrified quarry.  Now an’ then we gets a squint of the panther as he skulks from one copse to another jest ahead.  Which he’s goin’ like a arrow; no mistake!  As for us Chevy Chasers, we parallels the hunt, an’ continyoos poundin’ the Skinner turnpike abreast of the pack, ever an’ anon givin’ a encouragin’ shout as we briefly sights our game.