Panther Tracks

Here we go again....

I swear we must be emit panther attractant or something! Today it was my son and my nephew who sighted the panther.

I was going to be helping Holly put some finishing touches on letterboxes today and the boys asked if they could fish in the river while we were working. So at 6:30 this morning the three of us headed over. When we arrived Holly and I drove the boys down to the river access at the campsites and dropped them off with a walkie-talkie and their fishing poles. We told them to fish their hearts out and left to get our work done. Not much after that my walkie-talkie went crazy.

I called to the boys, “What's going on? Talk to me!!”

“Mom” my son whispered, “We think we see that panther you were telling us about. What should we do?”

“Hold on, stay where you are unless you can quietly walk back. We're on our way.”

This time Holly grabbed the gun and we sped across the hayfield to the campsite. When we got down there the boys met us white as sheets. The panther was gone, just as quickly and as quietly as he had come.

Holly said, “Show me where you saw him.” We followed their pointing hands to the river. Was he across the river, in the river...where?

They said “In the tree...”

Holly and I slipped down to the riverbank and looked all around. We didn't see the panther, but we did see the tree hanging over the river. It was just the kind of tree you would expect a panther to be in. And on the other side of the river we saw some fresh tracks and a tuft of black fur. Yep, there had definitely been something here. Maybe even still was. We didn't hang around to find out.

The boys are over their scare. Although they did say they aren't camping with me this weekend.

Anyways, we thought we'd let you know, The Troll will be on standby with ammunition, if needed. Heck the Troll could probably scare a panther away without ammunition!