Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-23

OuV-uOW Olu ILL IL 1Ou u V0As
Just as old as I seem to you!
Nor shall I a day older be
While life remaineth, and love is true
Mrs. j. c.. R. DorT, in Good Company.
- -
: AN ALGERIAN LION STORY.
How I came to be sitting, in very
good company, N glorious September
evening, in the little moon-lighted gar
den of the hotel at Algiers is neither
here nor there.
+. My companions about the round
table, which was garnished with SLIM
bottles, glasses. and piles of cigarettes,
were all Frenchmen-thr old Algerian
colonists, the fourth an ex-Lieutenant
of the Navy, who had exchanged a life
on the ocean wave for that of a hunter
in three-quarters of the globe.
Before dinner I had picked up in the
salon Du Chaillu's gorilla-book, which
] had never seen before, and my saying
something about this turned the CONVEX
sation in the garden upon wild beasts
and the hunting of them.
! Some wonderful stories were told,
especially by the ex-sailor, though not
. bit mor wonderful than many one
hears from old Indian sportsmen.
For the matter of that the most extra
ordinary sporting story I ever heard
was told by-of all men in the world
. hare-hunter, who capped Herewith a
acknowledgement narrative, quite
unique of its kind.
! Presently, a short silence, caused by
the uncorking and tasting of a new bot
tie of Hermitage, was broken by the
eldest of the partly, who had not said
much before. He was a good-looking
man of fifty, with beard grayer than his
head, and a merry twinkle in his eye.
What he said 1 shall repeat for the sake
of clearness in the first person, just as
he told the story himself.
'FThe adventure of which [ am going
to tell you, gentlemen, happened to me
agood many years ago. twas my first
serious interview with a lion. Like
most serious things it had q comic side,
too.
81 was a young man then, and had
been some dozen years in Constantine
farming in partnership with a friend, an
old colonist, whose acquaintance l had
made on board ship coming out from
Aarseilles.
"Our business was corn and cattle
raising, and we did very well together,
until my partner died of a fever, and I
took a dislike to the place. I thought I
would shift my ground into this pro-
vince. Algiers, push toward the frontier,
and get a grant of Government land and
make a farm of it. So, getting a neigh
Dor to give an eye to things in nv alb
eence, l started on my prospecting expe-
dition.
II say I, but I should say we, for
there were three of US, sworn comrades
as ever.were.
"First, there was your humble SER
want; secondly, there was my horse Ma
rengo, and q better never looked through
q bride. He was bred between a Barb
sire and an English mare, belonging to
the Colonel Of chasseurs of whom I
bought him in town, when his regiment
was going home. He stood about fifteen
hands two, carried the Barb head, and
the rest of his body was all bone and
muscle. His temper was as good as his
courage was high; me he would follow
about like a dog, bat he had one failing,
and that was an insuperable objection
to the close proximity Of anything. e;x-
cept n thing, that stood on four legs.
We all have our ~peculiarities, and this
was his. Bipeds were all very well, but
multiply the legs by two, and he let fy
Immediately, and never missed his aim.
"Such was Marengo.
''Thirdly, there was Cognac, the
faithfullest, the most honest, the oldest
and the wickedest little dog the world
ever saw. He was more like a terrier
than anything else, with q short yellow
coat, a fox's head, very long ears and
3 very short tail. The shrillness of his
bark pierced your ears like a knife, but
the awfulness of his howl-he always
howled if left alone-bafaes description.
During the fourteen years l had him, he
seldom left me day or night. On a jour-
ney he would run beside me, and when
tired get up and sit in my wallet. The
great pleasure of his life was to steal be-
hind people and secretly bite their legs.
"By some mysterious affinity, he and
Marengo were friends from the first
They now sleep under the same tree.
Well, we started, and after going
over . good deal of ground I thought 1
had decided on a location, and turned
my face homeward. My direction was
by Alma, to strike the great road that
runs under the Atlas eastward into Con-
stantine,
':Itwas about eight o'clock one morning
when I had been some two hours in the
saddle. that / emerged from a narrow
valley, or ravine, through which the
road ran, on to a sandy plain dotted
with bushes and scrub.
II had just laid the reins ON Marengo's
neck, when suddenly he gave a tremen-
dous shy that pitched me clean of.
1.-The next minute. with a horrible
roar, a lion sprang right at his head.
II made sur he was on the top of
and 80 he would have been, but, as
wheeled short around like
lightning on his hind legs, the stream