Edgefield Advertiser

A PARAGRAPH FROM G., OMITTED FROM HIS LETTER OF LAST WEEK.

Several years ago, I heard a truthful man relate the following story of a remarkable fight in the mountains. In committing the narrative to writing I give it this caption:

"THE BATTLE OF LIFE."

The beams of the morning sun rested on the gray craggy peaks of the Blue Ridge. The loud scream of the eagle mingled with the hoarse voice of the cataract. A hunter with poised rifle was scanning the light graceful figure of a deer. Suddenly he is anticipated in the work of death by a prowling panther. A prodigious bound and the long sharp teeth of the blood-thirsty beast were fastened in the throat of the unresisting stag, and in a moment it lay on the earth a lifeless and bleeding mass. For a few minutes the panther, sitting like a cat upon the trunk of a fallen oak, licked his gory breast and contemplated his coming feast. A crash is heard in the adjacent thicket of laurel, whence a huge bear is seen emerging, fierce, shaggy and determined. The panther and the bear, with a piercing cry and a solemn groan known only to glooms and solitude, meet in deadly fight. Each found his equal in the mortal strife. The panther is crushed to death in the strong arms of the bear, whilst Bruin is completely disemboweled by the claws of his antagonist. So, the three animals fell a prey to the astounded huntsman without the waste of a single round of ammunition. And thus we see how "the battle of life" is literally fought among the inferior orders of creation. Wouldn't such a spectacle as that be worth twenty pageants on Broadway?