The panther was wholly engrossed with observing the astonishing impudence of that dog, when Quonab came quietly up, leaned his rifle against a tree and fired.

The smoke cleared to show the panther on his back, his legs convulsively waving in the air, and Skookum tugging valiantly at his tail.
"My panther," he seemed to say; "whatever would you do without me ?" A panther in a deer yard is much like a wolf shut up in a sheepfold.

He would probably have killed all the deer that winter, though there were ten times as many as he needed for food; and getting rid of him was a piece of good luck for hunters and deer, while his superb hide made a noble trophy that in years to come had unexpected places of honour..