Thomas County cat., 1886-08-12

drophob,a; but when q dozen Of hls
canine victims were killed Miss Was.
siljew interceded for her pet They
locked him up in barn to await
developments. Early the next
morning, March 8, 1856, Dushka man
aged to break out and in the course Of
that day not less than twenty-eight
persons were fiercely bitten. besides
dozen or two who got off with snap
bites and torn clothes At the very b.
ginning of the trouble the pluck OF one
heroic Mujik would have prevented all
further mischief if his companion had
not turned craven at the critical mo-
ment Peter Tcherkow, an ath-
letic young villager, accompanied
by his sister and young
neighbor, was returning from an
all-nlght dance, when they saw the
wolf coming down the road in sort of
sidelong trOt and with an uncanny leer
that made them step aside to give the
traveller achance to leave the neighbor-
hood by the straightest route. But
Dushka had seen them. and in the
next moment made rush aud caught
Peter by the breast. ''Savc yourself,
Olga the brave Mujik cried to his
sister, as he grappled with the wolf,
and then calling on his companion, he
clutched the brute round the neck and
wrenched his head down till ne had
pinned him flat on the ground. At
that moment common pocket-knife
in the hands of resolute man could
have ended the affair, but the coward
l,r Err II Il toll f, IL, TO
protect the retreat of the girl, as he
afterward explained it, and Peters
struggle with the werewolf now be-
came duel for life and death. Too
soon the grip of his fingers relaxed,
and in spite of his frantic efforts to
maiptain his vantage the wolf got his
jaws free and began to use them with
terrible effect, when at last a teamstsr
appeared on the scene and began to be-
labor the monster with long hatchet
The wolf then left his victim
and turned on the newcomer
and with two successive rips
tore his face nearly off. Minus his
cheeks. lips and nostrils, the unfOrtu-
nate man staggered out Of the way and
left the ogre at leisure to turn his at
tention to third adversary, the Mujik
Jackolen, whom Peters sister had in
the meantime summoned from the
farmstead. Jackolen, too, was terri
bly, mangled and had to back out
toward the team, trying in vain to
cover his retreat with club, but by
this time neighbors with fails and
axes came running up from all sides
nd cd of 1oSf in Nho
apparently indestructible monster.
But IN the outskirts of the next village
the havoc recommended, and before
night nineteen persons, some of them
torn almost into pieces, were turned
over to the district hospital at
Semstow. The village priest of Biely and
the game-kceper Niktin Garcewitch,
died on the following day from wounds
as desperate as any treated in the field
hospitals of modern armies, for the pet
of Biely had attained the size of the
largest specimens of his tribe. Two
more died in the course of the next
week, and three of Mr.. Pasteur's pa
tients are now dead or on the point of
dying. The Russians, as nation, are
not much given to lynching. their Off
cial provisions for retributive justice
beng rather in excess of demands but
at the mass meeting of the Semstow
peasants the wretch whose cowardice
had cost the lives of so many braver
men was denounced in terms which
induced him to consult his safety by
disappearing under cover of the next
night. In Western Russia, where even
the urox has been permitted to sur
vive, wolves still infcst all larger for
ests. and their whelps are caught and
tanned about as often as the fawns of
our Southern Alleghanies. - Cincinnati
Enquirer.