of all forms.  The slender store of food with which they had set out, was soon exhausted.  To obtain a fresh supply was the first and most pressing want.  Accordingly, a convenient place was selected, and a camp constructed of logs and branches of trees, to keep out the dew and rain.  The whole party joined in this preliminary arrangement.  When it was so far completed, as to enable a part to finish it before night-fall, part of the company took their rifles and went in different directions in pursuit of game.  They returned in time for supper, with a couple of deer and some wild turkeys.  Those, whose business it was to finish the camp, had made a generous fire and acquired keen appetites for the coming feast.  The deer were rapidly dressed, so far at least as to furnish a supper of venison.  It had not been long finished, and the arrangements for the night made, before the clouds, which had been gathering blackness for some hours, rolled up in immense folds from the point, whence was heard the sudden burst of a furious wind.  The lightning darted from all quarters of the heavens.  At one moment every object stood forth in a glare of dazzling light.  The next the darkness might almost be felt.  The rain fell in torrents, in one apparently unbroken sheet from the sky to the earth.  The peals of thunder rolled almost unheard amid this deafening rush of waters.  The camp of the travellers, erected with reference to the probability of such an occurrence, was placed under the shelter of a huge tree, whose branches ran out laterally, and were of a thickness of foliage to be almost impervious to the rain.  To this happy precaution of the woodsmen, they owed their escape from the drenching of the shower.  They were not, perhaps, aware of the greater danger from lightning, to which their position had exposed them.

As was the universal custom in cases like theirs, a watch was kept by two, while the others slept.  The watches were relieved several times during the night.  About midnight, Boone and Holden being upon the watch, the deep stillness abroad was broken by a shrill scream, resembling the shriek of a frightened woman or child more nearly than any other sound.  The two companions had been sitting in a contemplative mood, listening to the deep breathing of the sleepers, when this cry came upon their ears.  Both sprang erect.  “What is that?” exclaimed Holden, who was not an experienced backwoodsman, in comparison with the others.  “Hush!” answered Boone; “do not wake the rest.  It is nothing but the cry of a panther.  Take your gun and come with me.”

They stole gently from the camp and listened in breathless silence for a repetition of the cry.  It was soon repeated, indicating the place where the animal was.  Groping cautiously through the bushes in its direction, frequently stopping to look around, and holding their rifles ready for an instantaneous shot, they drew near the formidable animal.  At length they discovered at a little distance before them, two balls that glared