spered Joe, as they moved slowly along the
path in a stooping posture.

"Where?" asked Glenn, as they crept softly to the blind and cast their
eyes over the clear unruffled water.

"I thought I saw one on the muskrat house; but he must have gone to
the other side," responded Joe, now looking in vain for it, and
closely scanning the little hillocks that had been thrown up in the
lake by the muskrats.

"You must have been mistaken," said Glenn; "suppose we go to the other
lakes."

"No, I wasn't mistaken--I'd swear to it--be quiet and keep a bright
look-out, and we'll see him again in a minute or two," replied Joe,
who stood in an attitude of readiness to fire at an instant's warning.

"What is that?" asked Glenn, just then actually observing a small
brown object moving behind the hillock.

"Wait till I see a little more of it," said Joe, with his finger on
the trigger.

"Don't fire, Joe! its a man's _cap_!" exclaimed Glenn, detecting under
the dark brim the large staring eyes of a human being, apparently
evincing a sense of imminent peril; and the next moment the muzzle of
a gun pointing above their heads came in view.

"Dod rot it, look up that tree!"

The smile that began to play on our hero's features on recognizing the
voice of Sneak was quickly dispelled and succeeded by horror when he
cast his eyes upward and beheld an enormous panther, stooping, and on
the eve of springing upon him!

"Oh!" exclaimed Joe, letting his gun fall, and falling down himself,
bereft alike of the power of escape and the ability to resist.

"Be quiet!" said Glenn, endeavouring to raise his gun, which had
become entangled in the bushes; but before he could execute his
purpose Sneak fired, and the ferocious animal came tumbling down
through the branches and fell at his feet.

"Ugh! Goodness!" exclaimed Joe, his hat striken down over his eyes by
the descending panther, and, leaping over the frail barrier of bushes
into the water, he plunged forward and executed a series of diving
evolutions, as if still endeavouring to elude the clutches of the
carnivorous beast, which he imagined was after him.

"Dod--come out of the pond! Its dead--didn't you hear _me_ shoot?"
said Sneak, who had by this time paddled a little canoe in which he
had been seated to the shore. But Joe continued his exercises, his
crushed hat not only depriving him of sight, but rendering him deaf to
the laughter that burst from Glenn and Sneak. Sneak ran round to