When Danner was able, he picked himself up and lighted the lamp. His wife lay on the floor in a dead faint. He revived her. She sat up and wept silently over the wreck of her parlour. Danner paled. A round hole—a hole that could have been made by nothing but a solid cannon shot—showed where the kitten had left the room through the wall.

Mrs. Danner’s eyes were red-rimmed. Her breath came jerkily. With incredulous little gestures she picked herself up and gazed at the hole. A draught blew through it. Mr. Danner stuffed it with a rug.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“If it comes back—we’ll call it Samson.”

And—as soon as Samson felt the gnawing of appetite, he returned to his rightful premises. Mrs. Danner fed him. Her face was pale and her hands trembled. Horror and fascination fought with each other in her soul as she offered the food. Her husband was in his classroom, nervously trying to fix his wits on the subject of the day.

“Kitty, kitty, poor little kitty,” she said.

Samson purred and drank a quart of milk. She concealed her astonishment from herself. Mrs. Danner’s universe was undergoing a transformation.

At three in the afternoon the kitten scratched away the screen door on the back porch and entered the house. Mrs. Danner fed it the supper meat.

Danner saw it when he returned. It was chasing flies in the yard. He stood in awe. The cat could spring twenty or thirty feet with ease. Then the sharp spur of dread entered him. Suppose someone saw and asked questions. He might be arrested, taken to prison. Something would happen. He tried to analyze and solve the problem. Night came. The cat was allowed to go out unmolested. In the morning the town of Indian Creek rose to find that six large dogs had been slain during the dark hours. A panther had come down from the mountains, they said. And Danner lectured with a dry tongue and errant mind.

It was Will Hoag, farmer of the fifth generation, resident of the environs of Indian Creek, church-goer, and hard-cider addict, who bent himself most mercilessly on the capture of the alleged panther. His chicken-house suffered thrice and then his sheep-fold. After four such depredations he cleaned his rifle and undertook a vigil from a spot behind the barn. An old moon rose late and illuminated his pastures with a blue glow. He drank occasionally from a jug to ward off the evil effects of the night air.