Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1879 — PANTHER-HUNTING IN KENTUCKY. [ARTICLE]

PANTHER-HUNTING IN KENTUCKY.

I had been following on horseback for nearly a whole day a mere “ bridlepath” leading out at the head of one creek to strike another successively, across intervening mountains in Eastern Kentucky, having passed few cabins during the afternoon, when the approach of night warned me to look out for some place of shelter if I did not intend to make an impromptu and forced encampment in the forest. The mountains had proved very steep and hard to climb, the valleys correspondingly deep and narrow, with generally a beautiful clear stream meandering through them; and almost the only travelers met on the way were a long string of horses and mules, with their drivers, all in single file on the mountain path, and each animal with a packsaddle— Spanish fashion—carrying into the recesses of the mountain ranges such coarse goods as were suited to the necessities of a poor country; salt and sugar, clothes, iron, etc., the same carriers to take back ginseng, hides, a little wool, and whatever else of the limited produce of the region could be bad for exportation and in the way of exchange. And this was the commerce of Eastern Kentucky at that early period, somewhat improved since the war. Of course I was aware of the slender chance afforded for anything like a regular tavern; but feeling constrained to stop somewhere as it was close to sunset, I determined to try the first cabin I alighted on, no matter how unpromising might be the looks of things. Arriving shortly at a log house, I hailed the establishment, which stood some thirty yards back from the fence that inclosed it, inquiring as to the “ chances of shelter for the night?” “I reckon you’ll have to come in here, stranger,” was the response of a female voice, its owner for a moment peering out of the doorway with an inquiring look at man and horse. Riding into the yard through a rude gateway, I hitched my steed to a tree in front of the cabin, and, taking off my “plunder,” i. e. saddlebags, I entered the domicile. Right inside I encountered a white-haired old settler clad in the linsey hunting-shirt of the country, and seated at his frugal meal of “corndodgers,” buttermilk, and a cold cut of bacon. Merely looking up, but without rising, the salutation of my host was characteristic enough: “Sit down, stranger! Make a long arm and help yourself—l hate ceremony 1” Of course I promptly responded in the same vein, with the expressed assurance that “I, too, disliked all highfalutin and fuss,” and, seating myself, 1 “pitched in” witli a will, my appetite sharpened by the consciousness of having had no dinner, and the further conviction that, coarse as was the fare, it was all I would get until the next morning at any rate. The family I soon found to consist jf the old pioneer, his wife, one son, and two daughters; the latter really pretty girls of about 18 and 20 years, Respectively, and full of curiosity as to what the traveler in “store-clothes,” i. e. broadcloth, had to tell about the great outside world of which they themselves knew so little.

Supper over, and the welfare of my good steed looked after, I found myself seated before a huge log-fire, listening to stories of Kentucky in the olden time. On this occasion the subject happened to be principally pantherhunting, something with which, on account of its cliff’s and dark ravines, the section in early times abounded; and as many of these incidents can hardly help being of interest to readers of the present time, J propose to relate some of them as they were told to me. “When I first moved out of Ca’lina into Kaintuck,” began the old gentleman, “I had one of the likeliest colts any one ever sot eyes on. The mar’ was fine enough; but the oolt—why, its coat was jest silk and satin; and, as for its limbs, no fawn you’d meet in the woods was more trim built, or could git oyer the ground faster. Why, stranger, I jest had to stop and look at that mar’ and colt every time I went past the lot in which I kept ’em, up that hollow you c’me down to-day; and I thought’most as much of them as I did of the old oman and gals, for horses was horses then, for they was mighty scarce and hard to get in them airly times. “Well, I never dreamed of any harm cornin’ to the beasts, for the Indians had gone, and we had no horse thieves then about the settlements; but one fall morning, on going out" to salt ’em, I didn't see the colt at all, although thar’ was the old mar’, looking wild and scared-like. Come to look around, I seed whar the ground had been tramped all about, as if a big scuffle had taken place; and, looking further yet, I found ray fine colt killed by some varmint and hidden away in a pile of fern, a great chunk having been eaten out of its thigh. I tell you, I was mad! Of course it must have been & painter that did that, says Ito myself; and back I went for my rifle. “It did not take long to hunt up some of the neighbors, for I was determined to have the varmint’s scaln if he was anywhar’ in them hills. But, after a day’s hunt, all we shot was a big b’ar, which was killed at the start, and which we sunk in the creek 'till we came back from the painter hunt, for we did not mean tne painter should have any b’ar meat when he missed his next feast on the colt. “The horse-lot looked mighty lonesome for weeks after that, so that I

hated to go past it; but one day, about six weeks after the death of the colt, as I was sauntering about thar with my rifle on my shoulder, what should I see but a huge painter perched up on the big limb of a tree, below the bluff, overlooking the horse-lot, and twisting his tail and licking his chops as he was watching one of my yearling heifers that was feeding right along up toward him. “Thinks I your hide’s in the loft and your tail hanging out, my friend; and with that I ran to a point of the bluff where he couldn’t see me, and, drawing a bead on him, at mighty long range, too, I was lucky enough to break his backbone with my bullet. “Heavens and airth, stranger, you onght’er heerd him scream!—jest like a woman—only a hundred times louder! Down he went ker-chunk on to the ground; and, as he couldn’t run, he jest tore up the airth with his claws and gave scream after scream, enough to make one’s blood run cold. But I tell you, stranger, the best old ‘ Virginia break-down ’ ever played on any fiddle never made such music for me as that painter’s yell. I knew he was the very villain that had killed my colt; so, being determined to get full pay, I wouldn’t shoot him again, and so end him; but I jest went up on top of the bluff and rolled great rocks down on him until, at last, I made a perfect mash of him. And that, stranger, is how I got even with the horrid brute.” The old gentleman continued: “Painters was mighty plenty in them times, and ther’ warn’t many settlers that didn’t have some sort of scrimmage with one or more of them. But the most that ever I heerd of as being in one gang happened up on a high ridge about ten miles from here, when I first came to Kaintuck. That time a neighbor of mine and myself had agreed to have a day’s hunt together, for deer or bar’ —we didn't care much which—and, on starting out from his cabin in the morning, we agreed that each one should take up a high ridge of two that ran up both sides of a long and deep valley, and we agreed besides that, if either one fired, the other was to go to him, for, you see, a bar’ even was not always a safe chap to handle by one’s self.

“Well, I hadn’t been on my ridge very long till I heerd three shots, one arter another, as quick as a rifle could be fired; and at the first one away I ran down the mountain side to cross over to the other ridge. ’Bout half way over, what should I see coming toward me in the open creek bottom but a huge painter, who, as he saw me, stopped, not liking my looks, I thought, much better than I did his’n? There he was, squatting like a dog, on his hind quarters, and staring at me with his great yellow eyes. I aimed for his peepers in a hurry, but, to my horror, my gun snapped 1 and he jumps up and comes a few steps right towards me! My eyes begun to water, but I snapped again; and once more the horrid varmint come a few steps nearer, this time twisting his tail about like a cat watching a mouse! .By this time I was so scared —’tain’t no jise not to own up—that my gun begun to wobble, but, as well as I could, I kept on snapping, without at last aiming at all, in my fright, when finally the gun went off in his very face, and the cussed creature, scared too, turned his ugly tail and went off down the hollow, at a gallop, whilst the great drops of sweat stood on my face, and my ha’r almost raised the cap off my head, I do believe! Mighty glad, stranger, I was, to get rid of him. “ On going up to the top of the ridge, I found my neighbor had killed three panthers, one after another, as they came trotting along the top of the ridge toward him—the first one being a she, the others lies, and one turned tail—the one I met—making four in all that were together. He. told me that as he dropped one of ’em, the others came trotting up—and, luckily, his rifle didn’t miss fire as mine did. Old flint-locks, stranger, wasn’t a very good dependence in painter and b’ar fights, though they’d do for Indians who only had flint-locks themselves.” “ I suppose,” queried I, “ you never ate panther-meat in early times ? ” “ Well, no. The nearest I ever came to it was once up on Rockcastle, when I’d been three days in the mountains hiding from the Indians, and without a bite of meat or anything else. At that time I happened on a painter—a young one—and a lucky shot brought him out of a tree-top right dead. Thinks I, if ever I can go painter, it must be now, when I’m so nigh starved; so I set to work to skin the critter. Jest as I was getting through with the job, and noticing how nice and white the meat looked, I happened to have to shove up my coon-skin cap— for I was sweating—when suddenly there struck on my nose the smell of my hand and the meat, and the scent was so like that of a dog that it turned my stomach at once, and I believe if I’d a died of hunger I couldn’t have touched it. You see, b’ar meat don’t smell like that.

“I tell you, stranger, painters are vicious brutes, and I am glad they’re pretty much done with in these parts. Why, since I’ve been here, one of my neighbors, being late at night in getting home from a log-rolling, had a long, gravelly hollow to ride down, and, when about three miles from a cabin at the lower end of it, and 10 o’clock at night, suddenly he heered behind him one of those horrid screams ’bout which there could be no mistake. His horse heered it, too, you may believe, and it didn’t take the sharp Mexican spurs to make him git up and git, as the yell sounded closer and closer. Talk about your ‘two-forties,’ stranger! Why them brutes can forereach on the best Kaintuck blood almost as if the horse was standing still, for I believe they can make thirty or forty feet at a jump, and they gather again as quick as a cat. All that saved Bill Estill, for that was his name, was his horsq’s shoes once in awhile striking fire on the gravel, as the night was dark, and the sparks scaring the varmint for a moment at a time, made him give back. But it was a narrow escape, and Bill said afterward he could have been bought that night, horse and all, for a drink of old Bourbon.” The evening passed quickly away, as other tales of early times and perils in old Kaintuck followed in rapid succession, for the veteran pioneer was fortunate, at least, in having a good listener, until at length bed-time arrived, with the not-uncommon puzzle for a stranger of vhere he was to be disposed of for the night, in what seemed somewhat narrow quarters. But, after all, the solution was easy. “ Stranger,” said the old gentleman, “ you can take that bed thar,” pointing to one at the back of the room in which we were sitting. But no one moved, or for a while seemed disposed to stir; so, fortified with a wide experience, I proceeded to move, myself. The girls and all sat looking straight into the great log fire; sol went back to the bed, disrobed as quickly as possible, and—l must confess—in some ■trepidation, lest something should prematurely break up the circle; but the movement was a success, for I was quickly ensconced under the quilts. But I was not quite done with yet, for forthwith came the kindly query: “ Stranger, have you got kiver enough ? ” Compelled tn answer “ No,” for it was late in October, and the “ chinking ” to the logs not altogether complete, next came the injunction, or order:

“ Carline, pnt more kiver on the stranger, and then both of yon gals be off with yon to bed! ” The task thus enjoined was done neatly and as a matter of course; but with the least perceptible of blushes, or it might have been a reflection from the red firelight on the hearth. The girls then disappeared up the ladder into the loft, and the old gentleman, * raking np the fire,” next left for somewhere, and all was still, only that once in the night I heard the baying of hounds, and the wind, as it rose and sighed in the forest not far off. Tired, however, with the long day’s ride, I enjoyed a good night’s rest. I must not omit to say that the next morning, up bright and early, the meager entertainment of the evening before, as a supper, was nobly compensated for bv a .breakfast fit for a frequenter of Delmonico’s. Broiled venison steaks from a deer that the hounds had run across the very door-yard, and which had fallen before the old gentleman’s rifle, and the whitest of fresh biscuits and honey, were a few of the items of the feast; and, with a refusal of all compensa ion, “because,” he said, “I never did charge a stranger for stopping with me, and I am too old to begin now,” I was compelled to take it out in warm grasps of the hand all around, with cherished recollections of a pleasan t sojourn never to be forgotten, and a promise to “stop again if ever I came that way.”