Gradually, from this long-range practice with
single guns and exchange of broadsides, they drifted into closer
conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the individual
combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time
to go; and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it.
We hastened down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the
luncheon. Just off from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete
arbor, or tunnel, of rhododendrons. This cavernous place a Western
writer has made the scene of a desperate encounter between Big Tom
and a catamount, or American panther, which had been caught in a trap
and dragged it there, pursued by Wilson. It is an exceedingly
graphic narrative, and is enlivened by the statement that Big Tom had
the night before drunk up all the whisky of the party which had spent
the night on the summit. Now Big Tom assured us that the whisky part
of the story was an invention; he was not (which is true) in the
habit of using it; if he ever did take any, it might be a drop on
Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we had a flask, he remarked
that a taste of it would do him good then and there.
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