TOM and Fred Kinney were driving back from the little mountain village, where they had been sent from the lumber station, up in the “Slash” on Mount Horrid, to buy supplies for the camp. They took this trip every week, their father, overseer of the camp, trusting them to drive Ted and Tot, the mule team, down the mountain alone.

Mount Horrid, rightly named, is a wild spot, and the mountain roads leading up to the camp are steep and rough. One drives over this trail for about fourteen miles, then arrives at a plateau, and just above, on the ridge, are the lumbermen’s shacks.

Darkness comes very early in these northern mountain regions, for the sun sets beyond the taller mountain crags at a little after four in the afternoon and it is twilight almost before one is aware of it. Suddenly the sides of the mountains take on a deeper purple hue, then in the dense forests of balsam and spruce the shadows grow black and blacker, and already night has come down in the valleys between the ridges.

The night bade fair to be very dark and early, but the boys were not afraid, for the two small mules knew the road well without guidance. They let the lines fall slack across their rough coats, while they munched sweet crackers, and talked together about the best places to set their new muskrat traps, which they had purchased in the village.

The mules crawled leisurely up the steep road, stopping, as they usually did, at a steep pitch to get breath, then plodding on again. All of a sudden, without warning, they began to act very strangely, rearing and plunging about in the strangest fashion, and snorting with fear.

“Say, they act funny, don’t they? Wonder what scared ’em,” remarked Tom, clutching the reins which had almost slipped from his grasp.

“Gee,” replied Fred, “do you know it’s gettin’ awful dark; wish we were back in camp. We ought to have started back sooner, not stayed to see that ball game,” he grumbled. For, to tell the truth, Fred Kinney was the more timid and cowardly of the two.

“Oh, don’t be a fraid-cat, Fred. It wasn’t anything much that scared the mules; perhaps a fox or even a porcupine crossed the road ahead of ’em, that’s all,” commented Tom, easily. “Look, it’s going to be moonlight the rest of the way. Who’s afraid? I ain’t. Have another cracker.”

The mules steadied down to their usual gait once more, and the boys shortly forgot their fears and were soon chatting away about their snares once again.

But if they had only known, and could have peered through a thick fringe of spruces, right on the very edge of a long, rocky ledge, just above the mountain road, crouched a great, tawny, supple, fur-clad cat; the very largest catamount, or, as it is sometimes called, the American panther, which had ever been seen in those parts. The catamount had started out to forage as soon as the first, long purple shadows began to climb the mountains. He was a magnificent specimen of the cat family, a male, and back in his dark den, which he had made beneath an almost inaccessible ledge of rocks, high up in the wildest part of the mountain, he had left a fierce, tawny mate and three kitten cubs.

The catamount was gaunt and half-starved looking, but he was also a good provider for his family, and when his mate stayed with the small cubs he carried her food; but his nature was so fierce and ugly that, whenever he chanced to bring home a supply of food to the den, he and his mate always had a fierce, snarling battle over the choicest morsels, and their savage howls and yells at such times were so fearful that all the other smaller wild things of the forest slunk back timidly into their homes, lest they encounter the dreaded catamount in one of his fits of rage.

Now, had there simply been one small boy on foot, or a deer, perhaps, walking up through that dusky mountain road, the catamount would in all probability, driven by his intense hunger and a desire to feed his young, surely sprung upon him. But somehow the sight of the sturdy little mule team and the two figures in the wagon disconcerted him, so that he merely stretched himself out over the ledge and peered curiously at them as they drove beneath him. It was this of course which had frightened the mules; they had caught the wild, strong scent of the catamount in passing.

The great tawny wildcat lashed its tail impatiently, and licked its lean chops hungrily, at the mere thought of what had escaped him; and then from sheer ill-temper and disappointment, because it had not been a deer, or something he could manage, he raised his angry, yellow eyes to the rising moon and gave a wild, blood-curdling yell of rage, a yell which cannot be described in mere words. It rose and rose, echoing through the dense forests of spruce, to be repeated back again from the other side of the dark mountain, ending in a horrid, whimpering wail, which reached the ears of the boys, and sent a chill to their very marrow; at the same time the mules broke into a wild, shambling canter, never stopping for steep pitches even, but keeping up the wild gait until they had reached the plateau, and finally the camp.

“Say, it was an awful yell. Didn’t you folks hear it?” questioned the boys breathlessly, as they rushed pell-mell into camp, full of their story.

“And the mules were scared stiff, too, so they just put for camp on a dead run. Say, father, it must have been something pretty bad to yell like that and scare the mules so.”

“Catamount,” spoke up old Uncle Peter Kinney from the chimney corner, where he was patching a pair of moccasins. “Pair of ’em over Deer Pass way. Heard about ’em last week; guess they got hungry an’ came over the Ridge after deer. Good thing you boys was in the team, I guess. Pesky varmints, catamounts; used to be pretty considerable plenty up North here when I was a boy; but lumberin’ scared ’em off some, I guess. Good bounty on ’em, an’ good money in a pelt, too, if it’s right, son.”

“Well, father, one thing; now there’s catamounts round here, you’ve got to let me take the rifle into the woods when I want to,” spoke Tom. “Why, if we only get the catamount, then I guess I could buy a rifle; couldn’t I, Uncle Peter?”

“Guess ye could, son; but, first of all, sight your catamount,” he chuckled.

Winter passed away, and gradually the boys forgot their sudden terror of the catamount, although farmers down in the valley reported that a pair of them had visited their barn-yards during winter and carried off sheep and even small calves, but had always got away; so plainly the catamounts were still lurking in the mountains.

One day Tom and Fred went off on the other side of the mountain to hunt for rabbits. The old yellow hound accompanied them, for although lame and decrepit, he was still keen after the scent of rabbits. A certain dense thicket of spruces on the edge of a plateau was the destination of the boys, because there the rabbits were always plentiful, the thick undergrowth forming a splendid cover. Although it was now early spring, snow still covered the ground, and the boys saw plenty of fresh fox and rabbit tracks. Tom shouldered the coveted rifle, proud in the assurance that he could handle it as expertly, almost, as his father. The boys examined the different tracks with keen interest, noting mink, deer, and the trail of other familiar wild things, for which they were always upon the lookout, being well up in wood lore.

“What’s that track, Tom?” asked Fred, curiously, pointing to a light, skipping track in the snow.

“Deer. Say, can’t you tell a deer’s track, Fred? Oh, look! Somethin’s been chasing that deer. See those deep, round holes right behind? The deer was running hard, too; he was being chased, all right, and knew it, too. Wonder what it was. I don’t seem to know those deep, round tracks.”

“Say, s’pose it was a bear, Tom?”

“Nope. Too far apart. Whatever it was, it wasn’t shuffling along stirring up the snow in long tracks, like a bear does. It took great, long leaps. Look there,” and Tom pointed to the strange tracks in the snow.

“Say, Tom, perhaps it was a catamount,” announced Fred, suddenly.

“Why, I never thought about a catamount; perhaps it was,” and then Tom clutched the gun a trifle closer at the mere thought of that awful, wild yell, which he had never forgotten.

It was growing late in the afternoon when the boys bagged their last brown cottontail rabbit, but Tom had scared up a covey of partridges, and eager to bag a few, the boys pressed back again, following the tracks of their old trail back through the spruces.

“Say, Fred, did you notice our old tracks back there in the spruces where we branched off?” asked Tom, suddenly. “Well, look here. Here they are again; and say, that thing, whatever it is, is following us now. See its tracks right here again. Say, Fred, we’re being tracked, and I believe by a catamount,” exclaimed Tom, excitedly.

“What’ll we do now, Tom Kinney? Look, it’s almost past sunset now,” and Fred pointed with slightly shaky hand at the yellow glow of the sunset and the fast darkening mountainsides. Soon darkness would be down upon them, and they could not possibly go back over the Ridge and into camp before dark. Already they had tarried too long, and they knew it. For, as if scenting an approaching peril, the yellow hound suddenly lifted his muzzle and gave a long, dismal bay while his yellow hide arose in deep ridges upon his back.

“Tell you what let’s do,” suggested Tom. “We won’t try for camp; we’ll strike for Uncle Peter’s old, abandoned shack. It’s straight around the ledge here. We shan’t be long reaching it; we can make it before dark. I guess we don’t want to be out on the mountain to-night with a catamount or two loose, and chasing us. Why, he might jump down on us any minute from a ledge. Canada Joe said he saw one jump off a terrible steep ledge once and land on a deer’s back, and he says they never miss anything they jump for, either.”

Accordingly the boys made tracks for the shack as fast as they could travel. And sure enough, the catamount was not very far behind them, but was surely tracking them. Stealthily following their trail without showing itself, creeping warily in and out between the dark spruces, never losing its sight of them, the soft “pad, pad, pad” of its round feet muffled by the snow, its hateful yellow eyes gleaming and watchful, pausing when the boys halted, and loping on after them as soon as they started again.

The boys did not relish a whole night in Uncle Peter’s old shack very much, but they knew that their folks would not worry about them greatly for frequently, when they were off hunting, they stopped off in some abandoned lumber camp, when they had gone too great a distance to reach the home camp. Ordinarily it would be a lark, but now they were slightly uncomfortable about encountering a catamount, perhaps a pair of them. But as soon as they reached the shack their spirits rose again, for the shelter of a roof, be it ever so humble, lends courage. To be sure the old shack lacked a door, for some one had long ago used it for firewood. The boys gathered quantities of pine brush, and soon had a great fire snapping up the rude stone chimney of the shack, which lighted it from top to bottom. They dressed and broiled their partridges, and ate their dry bread with hearty, healthy appetites, forgetting, for the time, all about catamounts.

But had they only known—straight out through the dense black cover of the spruce bush even now lurked and waited the great tawny cat, peering, peering, with its glowering eyes, right into the shack, simply biding its time, apparently, but growing every minute more desperately hungry and impatient to make an attack.

The boys tumbled into their balsam bunks and were almost asleep, while their fire dwindled and burned down low. Then suddenly the hound gave a little warning whine, and slunk back into the rear of the shack, his tail between his legs. Instantly the boys were wide awake, and just then came that fearful, blood-curdling cry, the yell of the catamount, and at the same time its dark, shadowy form bounded past the entrance of the shack, right outside the doorway. The catamount was now not a dozen paces off. It had tracked them to the old shanty.

“It’s the catamount; I saw him. Look, look, Tom! There he goes again,” whimpered Fred, suddenly stricken with terror.

“You keep still, Fred. Pile on brush on the fire, quick; that’s what we got to do. It’ll help scare him away. They’re awful afraid of fire,” and desperately the two boys worked, piling everything inflammable upon the dying fire until it blazed high again. Meantime the catamount, startled at first by the sudden glare, withdrew, but soon emboldened by its hunger back it came, ever nearer and nearer to the doorway; finally crouching just at the threshold, it made ready to spring.

With quick presence of mind Tom snatched up a great, glowing, resinous firebrand and hurled it with straight, sure aim at the catamount. It struck him squarely between the shoulders and scorched there, for he turned and bit savagely at the firebrand, snarling with pain.

All this time, between whiles, Tom had been fumbling with his gun and found, to his dismay, that he had but two shots left. He loaded, with desperate haste, not telling Fred of his lack of ammunition, but bidding him to keep firing the brands at the catamount.

“Now, Fred, I’m ready for him. You take a big firebrand in your hand, and then in case I miss him, let him have it straight between the eyes,” directed Tom, and crouching low, with

rifle ready, the boys waited for the catamount to come within range of the door.

Vicious with its burns and hunger, they had not long to wait for the appearance of the catamount; crawling, crouching low, cat-like it came, until it reached the door-sill of the shanty; then gathering itself, it made ready to spring into the room.

That very instant Tom fired. Straight between the gleaming, yellow eyes he aimed, and then, with a muffled howl of surprise and pain, the great, tawny beast leaped high in air, his bound broken; with a snuffling, snarling cry of pain he sank down, clawing and spitting. Tom had surely hit and wounded him.

“Look, look, Tom! See; he isn’t dead yet. Quick, hurry and give him another shot. He’s getting ready to jump again,” shouted Fred. Sure enough, the catamount, now mad with pain from its shattered jaw, crouched for a fresh spring.

“Bang,” went the rifle, Tom’s last shot. And when the smoke cleared there lay the catamount, quite dead. Tom was thankful enough, as you can well imagine, for what would have happened if that last shot had not taken effect? For no boy can handle a catamount when it is fierce and desperate.

The two boys were far too excited to sleep again that night; besides, what if its mate should be hanging around somewhere! So they skinned the dead catamount, and the next morning, as soon as the first yellow rays of the rising sun touched the top of Mount Horrid, Fred loaded with the rabbits, and Tom with the rifle over one shoulder and the tawny hide of the catamount draped proudly over the other, tramped back over the Ridge to the home camp, displaying to admiring eyes the largest catamount pelt ever seen on the mountain.