Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/128

92 I went out to feed them and he drew back and slapped me, and I shot him on the spot with my pistol. The female I kept until she was considerably over a year old, when I sold her for one hundred dollars to an Englishman named Mace, and had I only known it, that panther was worth five hundred dollars. I had taught her many tricks.

She could count ten, by putting her paw on the ground ten times, and would do various other tricks, but when asked by any other person than her master to perform, she would shake her head and would not allow any one else to touch her. I always tied her up when going out for a hunt, and when I would return she would cry and scream so shrill that it would almost raise the hat on a man's head until I would untie her. She never was contented until she could get to lick my face, and I never saw a dog more watchful than she.

It was in the month of April that Uncle Kit came in