and many small birds; and in the office were two large panthers
that looked very fierce and natural, their glass eyes glaring as if
watching a victim, their feet placed as if ready for a leap. But the
boys enjoyed most the deer in the large park back of the hotel. There
were four old deer and two pretty young fawns with glossy, spotted
coats, that Sam and Leon thought were the most beautiful animals they
had ever seen, as they ran and played together like lambs, jumping and
capering with a perfect grace that only deer possess.

After a nice venison supper the boys went to bed, and in a few minutes
both were dreaming of deer, and bears, panthers and hounds, and all the
excitements of the chase among the game-covered mountains.

Early in the morning, and long before Herbert was up, Sam and Leon were
out again watching the deer in the park, and examining again the
terrible panthers whose changeless eyes looked just as fierce as the
night before. Their guns were loaded, and when they had eaten breakfast
and the men were ready to start, the boys were off ahead ready for the
expected game. All the way up the mountain path to the runways they kept
the lead, occasionally stopping to rest in the shade of some great pine
where chattering squirrels were quarrelling over their breakfast. Often,
too, they would leave the path and plunge off in search of "track,"
which they failed to find, so that by the time the runways were reached
they were well tired.

The landlord stationed Sam and Leon on the lower runway, while he and
Herbert went to those higher up the mountain. There was a long time to
wait before any game could be expected, as the man who was to start the
hounds had a good distance to make before sending them off, and he was
only a half-hour ahead of the watchers.

Leon laid down to rest after making sure that his gun was in good order;
but Sam wandered around, looking for squirrels and "signs of game,"
until suddenly he heard, away back on the mountain, the bay of a hound.
This was a signal that the chase had begun, and he hurried back to the
watching-place to be ready for the deer, should the deer come. For
nearly an hour the boys stood with guns ready, every minute hoping to
see a deer. A squirrel running through the brush would bring their guns
to their faces, and at the slightest rustle of the bushes they would
start and listen. Meanwhile the hounds were surely coming nearer and
nearer, their excited barking procla