I suppose that the panther thought that there were too many dogs and men for him to fight. All the hunters came after the dogs. They held their guns ready to shoot if the panther should make up his mind to fight them.
After a while the sound of the dogs’ voices changed. The hunters knew from this that the panther had stopped running, and gone up into a tree.
At last the men came to the place where the dogs were. They were all barking round a tree. Far up in the tree was the dan-ger-ous beast. The hunters came up care-ful-ly. One of them fired. The bullet hit the panther, but did not kill him.
The panther sprang to the ground, and ran off again. The dogs ran after. The men got on their horses, and rode after.
But the horses were tired, and the men had to get down, and follow the dogs on foot.
The hunters now had to wade through little ponds of water. Sometimes they had to climb over fallen trees. Their clothes were badly torn by the bushes. After two hours more, they came to a place where the panther had again gone up into a tree.
This time three of the hunters shot at him. The fierce panther came tumbling to the ground. But he was still able to fight. The men fought the savage beast on all sides. At last they killed him. Then they gave his skin to the settler. They wanted him to know that his en-e-my was dead.
Wil-liam Cul-len Bry-ant was the first great poet in this country. He was a small man. When he was a baby, his head was too big for his body. His father used to send the baby to be dipped in a cold spring every day. The father thought that putting his head into cold water would keep it from growing.
Bry-ant knew his letters before he was a year and a half old. He began to write rhymes when he was a very little fellow. He wanted to be a poet. He used to pray that he might be a poet. His father printed some verses of his when he was only ten years old.
Bry-ant wrote many fine poems. Here are some lines of his about the bird we call a bob-o-link:—
Rob-ert of Lin-coln is gayly dressed, Wearing a bright black wedding coat, White are his shoulders and white his crest. Hear him call in his merry note: Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link, Spink, spank, spink; Look, what a nice new coat is mine, Sure there was never a bird so fine. Chee, chee, chee.