BAYARD BELL AND HIS CROWD.
The members of the Club had one and all made up their minds that the
panther should be killed in the morning if he could be found, and they
had resolved, too, that Mr. Gaylord and Uncle Dick should have no hand in
the business. They had won glory enough already. Mr. Gaylord had lived
in the country from early boyhood, and had trapped and shot scores of
panthers, while Uncle Dick had more than once tried his skill on lions,
tigers and elephants. The Club, however, could not boast of any such
exploits. They had shot any number of turkeys, had eaten many a dinner of
venison that they had brought home from the woods, and had been in at the
death of more than one bear; but not one of them, before that night, had
even levelled his gun at a panther. Now they had a capital opportunity to
exhibit themselves, and they were determined to show the old Nimrods in
the village that some folks could do things as well as others.
“We’ll never have another chance like this,” whispered Bab, excitedly,
“and we must improve it. I know that panther has some of our bullets in
him, and that he can’t travel far to-night. Go and put your alarm-clock
in the stable, Walter.”
“What for? Don’t we want to get up early in the morning?”
“Certainly. But if the horse awakens us by neighing under our window,
won’t he arouse your father and Uncle Dick also? If they know when we go
out they will want to go with us, and that will knock all our fun in the
head. Trust me—I will have you out of bed at four o’clock.”
Walter whistled for his horse, and the rest of the Club went up stairs.
Tom followed his master to the barn like a dog, and after Walter had put
him in his stall, he returned to his room and tumbled into bed. He did
not intend to go to sleep at all that night, but before he knew it he
was dreaming of panthers, wild-cats, and all sorts of savage animals. It
seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when some one seized
him by the shoulder. He glanced at the clock and saw that Bab had been
true to his promise, for the hands pointed to five minutes past four.
While the boys were dressing they stepped about the room very carefully,
for fear of awaking Mr. Gaylord, who always slept with one eye and both
ears open; and taking their boots in their hands they crept cautiously
down the stairs, followed by Rex, who seemed to know what was going on
and to understand the necessity of making as little noise as possible.
As they stepped upon the porch their hounds came up; and if some one
had told them what their masters’ arrangements were, and why they were
leaving the house in so stealthy a manner, they could not have behaved
more sensibly.
It did not take them long to walk to the barn and saddle their horses;
and in ten minutes more they were sitting around the fire, which was
still burning brightly near the stump of the oak, comparing notes and
waiting impatiently for daylight. It came at last, and as soon as they
could see to ride through the woods, they led their hounds to the tree
and showed them the limb on which the panther had been sitting. They did
this so that the dogs might know what game they were expected to follow.
If their masters had simply ordered them into the woods, they would have
opened on the first trail they found, and it might have been that of a
rabbit or coon. But now they understood that the boys wanted them to
follow the panther; and they were so well trained that if a bear or deer
had run through the woods in plain sight, they would not have paid the
least attention to it. They smelt at the limb and began circling about
the tree in search of the trail. They worked faithfully for a quarter
of an hour, and then a long, deep-toned bay echoed through the woods,
telling the young hunters that their efforts had been successful.
“Hurrah!” shouted Eugene. “To horse, my brave boys, and away! Hi! hi!
Hunt ’em up, there!”
If you have never followed the hounds we cannot convey to you even the
slightest idea of the melody that filled the forest when that pack of
high-flyers opened in full chorus on the trail, or the excitement that
thrilled the hunters as they flew over the ground, leaping fences,
ditches and logs, each boy urging his horse forward at the top of his
speed, in the hope of distancing his companions, and being the first to
come up with the hounds when they brought the panther to bay. Walter’s
nag took the lead at once, and with a few of his long bounds brought his
rider to the place where the dogs had struck the trail. He saw the prints
of the panther’s great feet in the snow, and every track was marked with
blood.
“The chase will not be a long one,” exclaimed Featherweight, dashing up
beside Walter and reining in his horse for a moment to glance at the
trail, “for he is too badly wounded to travel far. Now, every man for
himself, and three cheers and a tiger for the winner.”
Once more the boys put spurs to their horses and went galloping through
the woods at break-neck speed.
If you have ever ridden with experienced hunters, you will, perhaps, have
some idea of the manner in which Walter and his party intended to conduct
the chase; if you have not, a word of explanation may be necessary. To
begin with, they had no intention of following directly after the dogs,
or attempting to keep up with them, for that would have been useless.
They settled it in their minds beforehand which point in the woods the
game would run for, and then “cut across lots,” and tried to reach that
point before him.
Wild animals have ways and habits of their own that a man who has often
hunted them understands. If he knows the country he can tell within fifty
yards where a deer or a bear will run when pursued by the dogs, and each
of the Club thought he knew just the place the panther would make for
when their hounds opened on his trail. While they were sitting beside
the fire waiting for daylight, Eugene said that if the trail ran toward
the swamps, he would ride for a certain ford in the bayou. That was the
point at which deer always crossed in going to and from the swamp, and he
thought it very probable that the panther would cross there also. Walter
did not agree with his brother, and intended to look elsewhere for the
game. There was a huge poplar tree about two miles from the plantation,
that went by the name of “the panther’s den;” and he was sure he would
find him there. Featherweight thought the animal would make the best
of his way to a certain canebrake where Uncle Dick had killed three or
panthers during the previous winter, and the others thought he would go
somewhere else. In short, they had all made up their minds what they were
going to do, and each fellow thought his place was the best. They agreed
that the first one who discovered the panther should announce the fact
to the others by blowing four long blasts on his hunting-horn.
In less than two minutes after the hounds opened on the trail, the
hunters had scattered in all directions, and each boy was drawing a
bee-line for the place where he expected to find the panther. For a long
time Walter thought he was right in his calculations, for the music of
the hounds told him that they were running in the same direction in
which he was going; but presently the baying began to grow fainter and
fainter, and finally died away in the distance. Then Walter knew that
he was wrong, but still he kept on, determined to visit and examine
the “old panther’s den,” when suddenly he heard the notes of a horn
away off in the swamp. He listened and counted four long blasts. It was
Bab’s horn, and judging by the way that young gentleman rolled out the
signals, he was very much excited about something. Walter faced about at
once, and, guided by the music of the horn which continued to ring out
at short intervals, finally came within sight of a dense brier thicket
in the lower end of his father’s cornfield. There were several trees in
the thicket, and the hounds were running about among them, gazing up
into the branches and baying loudly. Bab was the only one of the Club
in sight. He sat on his horse just outside the fence, looking up at a
cottonwood that stood a little apart from the others, and following the
direction of his gaze, what was Walter’s amazement to see _two_ immense
panthers crouching among the branches!
“Are we not in luck?” exclaimed Bab—“two panther-skins to show as
trophies of our skill, and fifty dollars to put into our pockets? This is
grand sport. I never was more excited in my life.”
Walter thought it very likely. He did not see how any boy could possibly
be more excited than his friend was at that moment. There was not a
particle of color in his face; his voice trembled when he spoke, and the
hand in which he held his rifle shook like a leaf.
“Humph!” said Walter; “are you not counting your young poultry a little
too early in the season? Those skins, that you intend to exhibit with
so much pride, are very animated skins just now, and the bone and
muscle in them may carry them safely out of our reach in spite of all
our efforts to prevent it. Have you never heard old Coulte talk about
panther-hunting?” (Coulte was a Creole who lived away off in the swamp.
He was a famous hunter, and had killed more panthers, bears, and deer
than any two other men in the parish.) “He says,” continued Walter, “that
‘ven ze Frenchman hunts ze paintare ze shport is fine, magnifique; but
when ze paintare hunts the Frenchman, Ah! oui! zare is ze very mischief
to pay!’ Suppose those panthers should show a disposition to jump down
from that tree and come at us; what then?”
“Ah! oui!” said Bab, with a regular French shrug of his shoulders. “By
the time they touched the ground I would be a long way from here. That’s
our fellow,” he said, pointing to the nearest panther. “I caught sight
of him just now as he was ascending the tree, and noticed that he could
scarcely raise his fore-legs. He is badly wounded.”
“Where did the other come from?”
“I don’t know; he was in the tree when I came here. No doubt the dogs
started him up in the woods, and he ran with the other to keep him
company. Now, we don’t want to take any unfair advantage of the rest of
the Club, and I propose that we wait until they come up.”
Of course Walter agreed to this—not simply for the reason Bab had given,
but because he thought it best to have a strong force at hand before
troubling those panthers. The other hunters were not a great way off.
Led by the sound of Bab’s horn, they came up one after the other; and
when Eugene, who was the last, made his appearance, they gathered around
Walter to hold a council of war. Their arrangements were all made in a
few minutes, and after throwing down a portion of the fence, they leaped
their horses into the cornfield, and rode toward the thicket. They
surrounded the cottonwood, and at a word from Walter, five guns were
pointed toward its branches, the sights covering the wounded panther’s
head.
“One—two—three!” counted Walter, slowly.
The guns belched forth their contents at the same instant, and through
the smoke that wreathed above their heads the hunters caught just one
glimpse of a limp, lifeless body falling to the ground. One enemy was
disposed of, and the fate of the other was sealed a moment afterward, for
Perk fired the second barrel of his deer-killer, and fifteen buckshot
found a lodgment in the panther’s head. Two more guns cracked while he
was falling through the air, and if he was not dead when he left the
branch on which he had been crouching, he certainly was before he touched
the ground. The work was easily done, but there was not one of the young
hunters who did not draw a long breath of relief when he saw that it was
over. They knew that panther-hunters do not often bag their game with as
little trouble and danger as they had in securing theirs.
“Well, Walter, we’ve done it after all, haven’t we?” exclaimed Bab,
highly elated and excited. “Three cheers for the Sportsman’s Club one and
all!”
When the cheer had been given, the boys dismounted to examine their
prizes. The one they had cut out of the tree the night before was an
immense animal for one of its species, and his teeth and claws were
frightful to see. The other, although not nearly as large, was still an
ugly-looking fellow, and, no doubt, before he received their bullets and
buckshot in his head, would have whipped them all in a fair fight, if he
had seen fit to descend from his tree and give them battle.
“Now, the next thing to be done,” said Eugene, “is to go to the house for
a wagon.”
“One of us can do that,” replied Walter, “and the rest had better stay
here and watch the game.”
“Do you think there is any danger of their running away?” asked Perk.
“No; but there may be danger that some one will run away with them if
we don’t keep our eyes open,” returned Walter, who was gazing intently
toward the woods. “There are other hunters coming, if my ears do not
deceive me.”
After listening a moment, the boys all heard the noise that had attracted
Walter’s attention. It was the baying of hounds. The sound came faintly
to their ears at first, but grew louder and louder every moment,
indicating that the chase was tending toward the cornfield.
“Now isn’t that provoking?” cried Eugene. “Pull off your coats, boys, and
get ready for a fight; for if we don’t have one in less than ten minutes,
I shall miss my guess.”
“We can tell more about that when we see the hunters,” said Featherweight.
“O, I know who they are,” replied Eugene. “I have heard those hounds
before, and I am certain that they belong to Bayard Bell and his crowd.”
The other members of the Club thought so too, and they wished that Bayard
had stayed away half an hour longer, and given them time to remove their
game to a place of safety.
Every section has some laws of its own that are not written in books;
and this is especially true of a new country, concerning the sharing of
the proceeds of a hunt. For example, a hunter sets out on the trail of
a deer that has travelled all night. A second hunter strikes the trail
in advance of him, and follows up the game and kills it. The first
man, if he comes up before the game is removed, and can prove that he
was on the trail at an earlier hour than his rival, can claim half the
deer, although he may have been miles away when it was killed. Game was
so abundant at the time of which we write, that there was seldom any
difficulty in regard to the division of the spoils. If the successful
hunter was generous, the other let him off very easily, perhaps taking
only a few steaks for his next morning’s breakfast; but if he showed
a disposition to be stingy, his rival always insisted on his rights,
and got them, too. In this case the Club thought they saw a chance
for trouble. Every one in that region knew that there was a standing
reward of twenty-five dollars offered for the scalp of every panther
killed in the parish, and they were afraid that the hunters who were
then approaching might endeavor to establish a claim to a portion of the
money. That was something they did not intend to allow. They found the
trail first, followed up the panther, and finding him in company with
another, killed them both, before any one, except Mr. Gaylord, knew that
they were in the neighborhood. They hurriedly discussed the matter while
they were awaiting the approach of the rival hunters, and resolved that
they would stand up for their rights.
The noise of the chase continued to grow louder every moment, and
presently a pack of hounds, perhaps a dozen of them in all, emerged
from the woods, and leaping the fence came close upon the young hunters
before they discovered them. Then they ceased their baying, smelt of the
panthers, and tried to scrape an acquaintance with Rex and the rest of
the Club’s hounds; but their advances not being very graciously received,
they ran back to the fence to await the arrival of their masters. They
came at length, and when the foremost horseman appeared in sight, our
heroes exchanged significant glances and drew a little closer together,
while Eugene rested his gun against the nearest tree and began to
pull off his overcoat. “It is just as I expected,” said he, in great
disgust. “We’ll see fun now, for Bayard and his crowd are mean enough for
anything.”
As Eugene spoke, a magnificent coal-black charger arose in the air, and,
sailing over the fence like a bird, came toward the thicket at a rapid
gallop. He carried on his back a dark sullen-looking boy about seventeen
years of age, who wore a military cloak and cap, heavy horseman’s boots
and gauntlet gloves, and carried a light rifle slung over his shoulder by
a broad strap. This was Bayard Bell, Walter’s rival in everything except
his studies. Close behind him came four other boys—Will and Seth Bell,
Henry Chase and Leonard Wilson—all finely mounted, neatly dressed, and
armed with shot-guns and rifles. These five boys had a society of their
own, something like the Sportman’s Club, and somehow they were always
opposing the members of the Club, and were invariably worsted by them.
They had claimed to be the champion oarsmen of the Academy, and in the
attempt to establish that claim, had been so badly beaten that their
friends were ashamed of them. Bayard and Henry Chase had been candidates
for the position of Commodore and Vice-Commodore of the Academy
squadron; but Walter and Featherweight had carried off the honors.
Bayard also wanted to be president of one of the literary societies of
the institution, and had worked hard for certain academic honors that he
thought he ought to have; but rattle-brained Eugene Gaylord had snatched
one of the prizes from his grasp, and the studious little Featherweight
had walked off with the other. As Bayard and his friends had been
confident of success in every one of these instances, their failures
were sore disappointments to them. They looked upon their defeats as
direct insults, and declared that they would never forget them. They had
generally tried to treat the Club with civility as long as they remained
at the Academy, but now that they were out from under the eyes of their
professors and away from the rest of the students, they thought they had
no reason to conceal the real state of their feelings.
The attention of the new-comers was so fully occupied in guiding their
horses through the thicket and over the rough, uneven ground, that
they did not discover the members of the Club until they had dashed
into the very midst of them; and then they checked their horses so
suddenly that every one of them was thrown back upon his haunches. The
encounter was plainly unexpected, and very much of a surprise to them.
They gazed first at our heroes and then at the panthers, and taking in
the position of affairs at a glance, looked inquiringly at one another,
as if to ask: “What shall we do about it?” Bayard must have been able
to read the thoughts that were passing in the minds of his friends, or
else he received some sign from them indicative of their desires, for
he immediately assumed a swaggering, bullying air, which told the Club
plainly enough what was coming.
“Well,” he snarled (he always talked in a snappish sort of way, as if
he were angry about something), “Who’s work is this? Who killed these
panthers?”
“We did,” replied Eugene.
“You!” echoed Bayard. He looked at the young hunters in amazement, and
then smiled derisively. “You can’t crowd any such story as that down our
throats,” said he, at length. “Your father and your uncle Dick killed
them, and you’re watching them while they go after a wagon to haul them
home. That’s the way the thing stands.”
“You are nice-looking fellows to kill two panthers, are you not?” said
Seth, with a sneer. “You would run crying home to your mammas if you saw
the track of one.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Walter, good-naturedly. “We killed them
without help from anybody, but there’s no law that I know of that compels
you to believe it.”
“They’re done for, anyhow,” said Bayard, “and we are saved considerable
trouble and hard riding. We’ve been following them for more than an
hour—we found their trail down there on the banks of the bayou—and we
would have got them if we’d had to follow them clear to New York. If
you can prove that you shot them you will take a few dollars out of our
pockets.”
Bayard and his men dismounted and proceeded to examine the animals very
closely. They looked at their teeth, lifted their paws, guessed at their
weight, and finally Bayard drew a hunting-knife from his boot, and after
trying the edge on his thumb, walked up to one of the panthers and took
hold of his ear.
“Hold on, there!” exclaimed Eugene. “What are you about?”
“What am I about?” repeated Bayard, as though he regarded the question
as a very strange one; “I am going to take this animal’s scalp—that’s
all. It is worth twenty-five dollars to us. We don’t care for the money,
but we have rights here, and we intend to enforce them. You can take the
other scalp—it belongs to you, or to whoever killed the panthers—and, as
we are not disposed to be mean, we will give you both the skins.”
“Now, let me tell you something,” said Perk. “Keep away from there.”
“Eh!” ejaculated Bayard, opening his eyes to their widest extent.
“Doesn’t half the fifty dollars these scalps are worth belong to us? It
does, and we’re going to have it.”
Perk very deliberately pulled off his overcoat and threw it across his
saddle, and Bayard put up his knife and stepped back. Perk coolly seated
himself on the head of the largest panther, crossed his legs over the
other, and placed his hat beside him on the ground. When the Club
witnessed these movements, they told themselves that if they had belonged
to Bayard’s party, knowing their friend as well as they did, the offer of
double the value of the panthers’ scalps would not have induced them to
interfere with him then.