The Russellville Democrat., 1881-02-03


 was now startled with harsh blowing sort of an angry below, not far from me 1 looked up hurriedly toward my horse about half mile away. was mortified to see, about seventy-fve yards away, g huge alligator coming down the narrow point of land right toward me. never was afraid of gator, but this time 1 was cornered for fact. She was coming for me knew.
 | There was no earthly chance to pass her on that narrow strip of land because she took up the whole width herself Her head was elevated and her forelegs raised as if she was walking tiptoe. This they always do when enraged and ready to fight. Her mouth was open and orna- mented with the largest and whitest teeth ever saw. She swung her tail from side to side as gracefully as Span- ish woman her fan when she meditates some coquettish rascality.
 Again she snorted. She was calling the clans together for grand attack, and saw the river was full of them. There seemed to be thousands of them, and on the other side the sharks had increased and were flashing the lake into foam. They all understood the war-cry of the she-alligator. She had found her slaugh- tered young one and was bent upon re- venge.
 She had me in tight place. was barely able to balance myself where I stood. l could not pass her, if retreat ed the way she was coming. If leaped into the river l would encounter thou | sands of them equally as ferocious as the childless old gator; and if I attempted a movement by the lake l would certainly be devoured by the sharks, which were rendered ferocious by the taste of blood already given them from the fish they had stolen. Oh, they were lively set, and came up near enough to look me | right in the face with their horrid stony eyes. I tell you the old basilisk story is no myth. Nothing So paralyses man as to have a ferocious man-eating shark look you squarely in the eyes.
 realized my danger all in a minute. The old gator was coming tiptoe.and as mad as h--ll. She saw me and stop ped to look. She stood up and exposed the vital spot under her shoulder. But my gun was on the other side of her She had got between me and my rein- forcements. had not even my knife Things were becoming lively. l was surrounded completely-cut off and at their mercy. Mercy from man-eater? Mercy from an enraged alligator? Who ever heard of such thingl
 My jaws seemed to grow stiff and my scalp to wrinkle and corrugate. Calmly and slowly took up my stout, long fish ing pole and proceeded to meet the advancing foe. don't know why I took up the pole; certainly had no idea of using the frail, brittle thing as wea- pon of defense. It never entered my. head.
 thought might jump over her head and make another running leap to escape her tail, which she was using so dexter ously. knew that one blow from that armored fail of hers would break every bone in my body, and would be knock ed either into the river or the lake to be devoured, wounded and helpless.
 l advanced to meet the foe. don't know what possessed me at that moment, because my thoughts were away at the farm, five miles off, with my wife and little blue-eyed girl. It was not fear that felt as I started to advance It was only a choking lamp in my throat and drop of something in the eyes as thought of the folks at home I should never see again. The enraged gator, the old she devil, had love for her murder ed young, and thought of that and how might have kicked the little saurian into the water, and not have idly, coldly murdered it. But what right had she to evince so much maternal affection and behave so un'gator like, for we all know they forsake their young baby gators as soon as they can crawl.
 We were now close together. have thought all these things in less than a minute, and now I was within 10 feet of her capacious mouth. She was beautiful in her rage and I thought how my old woman had looked when our badly got her first fogging at school.
 l stopped, to permit her to open the attack, and, whenever she would make a snap at me, l would jump over her head while her pretty mouth was shut, and then leap for life beyond the reach of her ponderous tail. could outrun her, un- til l reached my knife and rife.
 I looked searchingly, desparingly to the right and left. There was no escape by either of those routes. In the river. the bull gators had risen to the surface at the war-cries of the mother and were as active as kittens, right up at the bank ready to receive me.
 In the lake, the sharks had kept pace with me and ready to form an alliance with the gators
 l had no friends there.
 She was now within eight feet of me and still walking tiptoe.
 She gave loud, blowing, half whistle, as if she was letting off steam at white heat
 She made a step forward, and poised herself on all fours, about foot from the ground, and the next moment she would spring upon me, seize me by the body or legs, and bear me off into the water. l don't know, can not tell even at this time what possessed me to do what did. looked her square in the eyes. l saw gore, and plenty of it. in her. got mad, and cried out at the top of my voice:
 "Oh, Mary, my darling babyp'
 And, quick as lightning, and with the energy of dying man who knows it all depends upon one last struggle, turned the steel-pointed butt end of my fishing rod, and drove it into her wide open mouth, and then sprang back a few feet
 Her ponderous jaws clamped the rod, and bit it off as clean as a jig-saw would have done.
 had sent it home into her pulmonary apparatus. Fortunately, the steel point had entered the trachea of the saurian.
 It tickled her wonderfully she cough ed and tried to below, but could not, be- cause she had eighteen inches of cold