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<DIV>Father was so pleased about it that he asked Mr. Edes if he would sell the
dogs. Mr. Edes would do better than that, Father could have the dogs and
welcome. He could have had most anything else that Mr. Edes owned, if he had
asked for it. We had them for a number of years.Our dog Conquer, looked all that
his name implied. I do not know what kind of a dog he really was, but he was big
as big as a yearling bear, and quite as wooly.But Conquer was the biggest coward
that I ever saw, he could not have conquered a flea.One day Adam thought he
heard a grouse, Conquer probably thought it was a grouse himself, though I do
not see how either of them could have mistaken a grouse for anything else under
the sun or have mistaken anything else under the sun for a grouse.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> The first one I ever heard I thought must be the awakening of
the Seven Sleepers and I was always listening and fearing that I might hear
them.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> So when Adam and Conquer thought they heard a grouse they went
to find it. Adam, of course, took his gun. The Queer, hooting noise that ended
in a wail came nearer and nearer. That was not like a grouse at all, a grouse on
the wing does not howl, neither does it hoot and wail, whether it is on the wing
or in the top of a big fir tree, where a hooting grouse should be. Nearer
and nearer it came, Adam had just begun to feel that maybe it might not be a
grouse after all, when a bloodcurdling scream came from an old log directly in
front of him, part of the scream came from Conquer, part of it came from a huge
panther. Conquer had every reason to scream for the panther lit square on his
back, his claws tore his hide into strips and its fangs were buried to his
skull. Conquer's size and his long, wooly coat were all that saved him, that and
his speed. Adam came to our house almost as fast as Conquer. He had only time to
see that our old dog was in trouble, dreadful trouble, when Adam came in panting
even harder than the dog and anyone at all could see that he was quite
scared.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Father said: "Adam where is your your gun?" Adam Admitted that
he had it with him right there on the very spot where he had met the panther. He
even admitted, when questioned further, that the gun was still there, where he
had dropped it. Neither he nor Conquer, it seemed, had "stood upon the order of
their going, and they had gone at once."Father was terribly provoked at Adam. He
took his rifle and went back to the place that Adam had described. there was
Adam's gun, exactly as he had said, there was the brush and ferns trampled and
beaten down, and panther tracks were there plain as anything, but the panther
itself was probably in the next township by that time, for Father hunted it a
long time and found no further trace of it. He told Adam he was a mighty hunter,
who dropped his gun to run like a scared cottontail from the first panther that
he met alone in the woods.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><B>Walt
Davies<BR>Cooper Hollow Farm<BR>Monmouth, OR 97361<BR>503 623-0460 <BR></B><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1134019354@aol.com" height=93 width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1134019354" ></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>