ild
beast. All of the hunters carried horns. Who-ever should find the
track first was to blow his horn to let the others know.

In about two hours after they had started, they heard the sound of a
horn. It told them that the track had been found. Every man now went
toward the sound of the horn. Soon all the yelping dogs were
fol-low-ing the track of the fierce panther. The panther was running
into the swamp farther and farther.

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.

[Illustration]

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.

SOME BOYS WHO BECAME AUTHORS.

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 hi