Rocky Mountain Sam — page 209: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

200 ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. though making a most horrible din all around him, Once just before reaching the lowermost branches of the tree he was working upon, he encountered a worse customer than a catamount. An ominous growl, and the sudden gleaming of two terrible eyesin the foliage, apprised him of the pres- ence of apanther. He had just time to swing himself be- hind the trunk of the tree to avoid the animal’s spring, and the next iustant, with a yell, its body was launched across the tangled intervening space. But before it could recover the hunter reached from behind the tree trunk and finished its career with one blow of his heavy knife just behind the shoulder. He secured the body among the branches—as indeed he had carefully shelved all the branches he had lopped off—inasmuch as its crashing fall to the ground would have been an intimation to the enemy of his opera- tions. | So, working slowly and steadily, surrounded by wild beasts, and most of the time enveloped in more that semi- gloom, the hardy hunter at last found himself among the very lowermost branches, and enabled to scan the ground below. He found that the shrewd Indian girl’s judgment had been at fault a mere trifle, as he had come out a few yards from the lodges which he could plainly see, with now and then the form of an Indian squaw moving in and out. Now knowing how to communicate with the captives, he waited for a long time without getting any signof them, and in the meantime having his other line ready, with a noose at theend to drop at the needed moment. At length, to his great joy, hesaw Fayaway pass out of the lodge nearest to him. He gave a long, low whistle, or cat-call, like the whistle of a bird. She paused, listened, and was then passing on, when the whistle was repeated again and again with such persistency as to attract her at- tention to the tree occupied by the hunter. Lhen when she saw the looped line dangling from some- where up in its dark recesses, she seemed to take in the meaning of the situation at a glance, and running under, looked up. boo (@) Bre ee | com cS CO