Читать книгу The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle онлайн

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In less than two minutes after the hounds opened on the trail, the hunters had scattered in all directions, and each boy was drawing a bee-line for the place where he expected to find the panther. For a long time Walter thought he was right in his calculations, for the music of the hounds told him that they were running in the same direction in which he was going; but presently the baying began to grow fainter and fainter, and finally died away in the distance. Then Walter knew that he was wrong, but still he kept on, determined to visit and examine the “old panther’s den,” when suddenly he heard the notes of a horn away off in the swamp. He listened and counted four long blasts. It was Bab’s horn, and judging by the way that young gentleman rolled out the signals, he was very much excited about something. Walter faced about at once, and, guided by the music of the horn which continued to ring out at short intervals, finally came within sight of a dense brier thicket in the lower end of his father’s cornfield. There were several trees in the thicket, and the hounds were running about among them, gazing up into the branches and baying loudly. Bab was the only one of the Club in sight. He sat on his horse just outside the fence, looking up at a cottonwood that stood a little apart from the others, and following the direction of his gaze, what was Walter’s amazement to see two immense panthers crouching among the branches!