"Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."

The house was searched from cellar to garret by the two gentlemen.

Meanwhile the anxious mother and her hostess went to the library. Russ had left there some spoiled sheets of cardboard with some of the letters printed on them. It was easy to see the attempt he and Rose had made to print plainly a notice to Sneezer, Mammy June's absent son, telling him that his mother was at the big house.

"The dear things!" said Mrs. Armatage. "Your boy and girl are very kind, Mrs. Bunker. They want to relieve Mammy's trouble."

"They have gone down there to-night to stick up those signs!" cried Mrs.

Bunker, inspired by a new thought.

"Well, I reckon nothing will hurt 'em," said her friend soothingly.

"I'll tell Mr. Armatage and he will go down there and get them."

This idea impressed both the men when they came back from their unsuccessful search of the house.

The two men walked briskly along the trail to the burned cabin. The stars gave them light enough to see all about the clearing when they arrived. Not a sign of Russ or Rose did they find.

"Do you suppose they went home some other way?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"I don't know. I hope they haven't wandered into the thicket."

As Mr. Armatage spoke both men heard the terrible scream that had first startled Russ and Rose. Mr. Bunker fairly jumped.

"That can't be the children!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The way his companion looked at him told the children's father a good deal. Mr. Bunker seized Mr. Armatage's arm.

"Tell me! What is it?" he asked.

"Something that hasn't been heard around here for years," said the planter, his voice trembling a little. "It's the cry of a panther."

Mr. Bunker, although he was practically a city man, had hunted a good deal and had been in the wilder parts of the country very often. He knew how terribly dangerous a panther might be on occasion; but he likewise knew that ordinarily they would not attack human beings. Two little children lost in the woods in which a panther was roaming up and down was, however, a fearful thing.

"Get a gun and the hands!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "If Russ and Rose have mistaken the way home, and are in that timber, they may be in peril."

Mr. Armatage started off on a run for the quarters. He knew that some of his hands had guns, and the quarters were nearer than the big house.

Daddy Bunker, although he was unarmed, started directly into the woods, trying to mark his course by the repeated screams of the hungry panther.

He might have been lost himself, for there was not much light to mark the way; but Daddy Bunker could judge the situation of the screaming panther much better than Russ and Rose had been able to.

He hurried on, gripping a good-sized club that he had found. But, of course, he knew better than to attack a panther with a club. He might throw the stick at the animal, however, and frighten it away.

Russ and Rose had gone a long way into the thicket. The panther did not scream often. So Daddy Bunker did not make much progress in the right direction. By and by he had to stop and wait for help, or for the panther to scream again.

He heard finally many voices at the edge of the thicket. Then he began to see the blaze of torches. A party of colored people--men and boys--with torches and guns, followed Mr. Armatage.

In addition, all the hunting dogs on the plantation were scouring the timber. Bobo, the big hound, was at the head of this pack. He struck the scent of the panther at last, and his long and mournful howl was almost as awe-inspiring as the cry of the panther.

"Come on, Bunker!" shouted Mr. Armatage, when the party had overtaken the Northern man. "The dogs are the best leaders. Bobo has got a scent for any kind of trail. Come on!"

The negroes shouted and swung their torches. Perhaps they made so much noise and had so many lights because they somewhat feared the "ha'nts"

that many of them talked about and believed in.

But the two white men were not thinking of ghosts. They feared what might have happened to the two children if they had met the panther.

Just at this time, too, Russ and Rose were not thinking of ghosts. The panther was not at all ghostly. He had four great paws, each armed with claws that seemed quite capable of tearing to pieces the roof boards of the cabin the children had taken refuge in.

"He'll get to us! He will! He will!" Rose cried over and over.

"No, he won't," said her brother, but his voice trembled. "I--I don't see how he can."

"Let's run out again while he's on the roof, and run home," said Rose.

"We don't know the way home," objected her brother.

"We can find it. I don't want to be shut up here with that cat."

"It's not so bad. He hasn't got in yet."

But Rose ran to the door, and then she made another discovery that added to her fright. The door could not be opened! The spring lock on the outside had snapped and there was no way of springing the bolt from inside the shack.

"Now see what we've done!" she wailed. "Russ Bunker! we are shut into the place, and can't get out, and that thing will come down and claw us all to pieces."

With this Rose cast herself upon the ground and could not be comforted.

In fact, at the moment, Russ could not think of a word to say that would comfort his sister. He was just as much frightened as Rose was.

CHAPTER XXV

THAT PIGEON WING

Greatly as the two little Bunkers were alarmed, and as much as their father and Mr. Armatage worried about their safety, they really were not so very badly off. Not only were the roof boards of the hut in which Russ and Rose had taken refuge sound, but soon the panther stopped clawing at the boards.

It heard the crowd of men coming and the baying of the hounds. It stood up, stretched its neck as it listened, snarled a defiance at Bobo and his mates, and then leaped into the nearest tree and so away, from tree to tree, into the deeper fastnesses of the wood.

The dogs might follow the scent of the panther on the ground to the clearing where the hut stood; but beyond that place they could not follow, for the wary cat had left no trail upon the ground.

At first, when the dogs came baying to the spot, Russ and Rose were even more frightened than before. The dogs' voices sounded very savage.

But soon Bobo smelled the children out and leaped, whining, against the door of the cabin. He was doing that when Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage and the negroes reached the clearing.

"The creature is in that hut," said Daddy Bunker.

"Not much!" returned his friend. "Bobo would not make those sounds if it was a panther. Mr. Panther has beat it through the trees. It is something else in the charcoal burner's hut. Come on!"

He strode over to the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched in a corner of the hut.