One bright morning, he, with two young companions, started up the Cullasaja. As a matter of course, they had excellent sport, and met with no adventure, until, in the ravines of Lamb mountain, a magnificent, antlered buck, startled by their sudden appearance, leaped up from behind a cliff and started up the stream. There was no outlet for him on either side, for the walls of the gorge are perpendicular. A short distance ahead, a cliff, over which the water tumbled, would stop his career. They had no guns with them, and, although the game was securely bagged, their only way to kill him was with stones. They pushed on pelting him with these. At length, maddened with the stoning, the old stag turned and rushed by them, breaking the narrator’s fishing rod as he passed. Just then he fell between two large boulders, and one of the young men, springing on the animal’s back, soon dispatched him with his knife. They sank the carcass in the cold, rushing water; fished until noon, catching several hundred trout, and then returned home to send two servants with a pack-horse after the game. The return of the servants was expected that evening, but it was not until the following afternoon that they appeared. They related that they had found the deer, but it was dark before they were ready to start. Thinking it was best to wait for the moon to rise, they placed the deer on a large, flat rock in mid stream, and then laid down beside it to sleep until that time. An unusual sound awoke them, and by the moonlight they saw an immense panther crossing the foot-log toward them. He had scented the fresh meat, and was about to investigate, but on the unexpected awakening of two human beings, he fled, as much startled as they were. The night was intensely cold, and finding it impossible to start, and also being afraid of wild animals along the lonely way, they remained on the rock until the sun had risen and warmed their numbed bodies. Thus they accounted for their long absence.
A few miles from Brevard, the headwaters of the French Broad, and farther south, on the Jackson county side, the streams hidden in the wilderness of the Hog-back and emptying into the Toxaway, and the head-waters of the Chatooga, can be recommended to the followers of Isaak Walton. The writer does not know from actual experience of any trout inhabiting the Linville waters, but there are sign-boards on the banks prohibiting fishing.