Lou’s View: MAN VERSUS PANTHER
By Lou Bernard
Hunting, obviously, has always been a big deal in Central Pennsylvania, as anyone who has tried to get something done on the first day of the season knows. In the past, it wasn’t just a sport, but a method of survival, sometimes directly. John Vanemon, of Waterville, found that out, and was fortunate to have survived the experience.
Vanemon went out the morning on January 16, 1912. He was setting some traps for foxes, and wound up in pursuit of something much bigger and more dangerous. Things escalated quickly.
He saw panther tracks, big ones. Vanemon abandoned his fox traps temporarily and decided to follow the tracks, maybe find the panther. It took him all day, following the tracks all over Pine Creek, and he finally encountered the panther close to nightfall.
He was certain that it measured about twelve feet long, standing four feet tall. Big—Much bigger than anything I’d want to mess with, myself.
He had his rifle with him. There was just one problem—He was on one side of a ravine, and the panther was on another, and it was a really, really long distance between them.
Vanemon was not the type of person to give up easily, however. He raised his Springfield rifle and took aim, firing one shot. It was close, but missed, frightening the panther. The panther ran, covering thirty feet at a bound, according to the Clinton Republican. Vanemon crossed the ravine with some effort and continued to follow the trail until darkness (this being winter in Pennsylvania, that probably came at about four thirty.)
Personally I’d have long since given up and gone home, but Vanemon was a more dedicated hunter than I’ll ever be. He found an abandoned camp and bunked out there overnight, getting up in the morning and following the panther tracks again.
The tracks led to a small cavern on the mountain near Pine Creek. Vanemon finally had his prey trapped, at least presumably, and he proceeded to gather sticks and build a fire in an attempt to smoke out the panther.
It worked, at least on the surface of it. After Vanemon used his hat to fan smoke into the cave for about an hour, the panther burst out of the cave, leaped over the fire, and tackled him.
This was not the optimal outcome.
The panther bit Vanemon, and the two of them rolled down the mountain. “Together they rolled over and over down the mountain a distance of over two hundred feet,” reported the Clinton Republican. At this point, I’m not entirely sure is this is an action story or a comedy, what with Vanemon and the panther fighting each other all the way down. I suppose it could go either way. Vanemon, in a burst of sound judgement, assumed he was going to die, and then realized that he’d grabbed one of the burning sticks before he began to fall.
He jabbed the panther with the burning stick, singing its fur. (I’m looking forward to all the hate mail I get from PETA after this column runs.) The panther yowled and ran off, and at that point, Vanemon called it good. He bandaged his wounds and went home, arriving late that night.
So you could call this one a tie. However, the newspaper reported that there was a Round Two expected—Vanemon told the Republican that he would be recovering from his wounds, and then hiking out there and going after the panther again. Because, clearly, John Vanemon was the kind of guy who was never accused of knowing when to quit.
