somethin' fer these
fellers to munch?"

Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time,
and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round,
and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they
entered the woods. They had a splendid "tuck-in," consisting of fried
ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And
the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the old
settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier pioneering
days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys' benefit. And many
eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the "lunk
soos," or "Indian devil," the dreadful catamount or panther, which was
once the terror of Maine woodsmen.

"So help me! I'd a heap sooner meet a ragin' lion than a panther," said
the old man. "My own father came near to bein' eaten alive by one when I
was a kid. He was workin' with a gang o' lumbermen in these forests at
timber-makin', and was returnin' to their camp, when the beast bounced
out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff. The thing
screeched,--a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a man's
sweat to ice-water, an' a'most set him crazy. Dad hadn't no gun with
him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an' hollered fit to
bust his windpipe, hopin' t'other fellers at the camp 'ud hear him.

"But the panther made up another tree hard by, an' sprang 'pon him. Fust
it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o' the calf of
his leg, an' devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them's the sort o' dangers
that the fust settlers an' lumbermen in these woods had to face.

"Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
from the tree with his huntin'-knife, an' tied the knife to the end of
it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his
mad yells, were gittin' to him. With the fust shot that one of 'em fired
the catamount made off.

"Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after
a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been
soot-black on that evenin' when he was returnin' to camp, was as white
as milk afore he got about again; an' he was notional and narvous-like
as long as he lived.

"He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
an' five or six feet in length. It was a sort o' bluish-gray color. A