Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-03-13
NUMBER SO.
Old Times.

Ed. ReCtS(eT-J uSt DefDTe We5taTteC
for the west, We boys met, one day, q
cousin, on the street, and with him
was one of those dark, brindled, curly.
b 'ired bull dogs
My cousin said, "You ought have
Iige to g0 with you, and he will take
care all of your things. You need not
worry about anything being s,ol, n as
'nng as Tige is around"
One of my brothers had an old fiddle
i te had traded for. with the expectation
# being an Old Bull, [ guess; any
way, he bought the old fiddle, and
s1ch music as he did make with il, 1t
was enough to raise the dead. and tell
YOU we we're all awfulIy glad when he
swapped it FIR the dog; f'r. if the dog
| wss f no ace unit. we could kill him
or swap him off FIR something else
perhaps get pair of pups for him.
After we got on our way. we found
all that my cousin had said in praise OF
| Tige was true. and lie hal not told the
half OF Tige's good qualities. He would
not only look after the folks and the
trunks and wagons, and horses, but
would lick every dog he met on the
whole route to Missouri. / never saw
| the dog could whip Tige in his whole
life. And we had not be- n in the Val
| ley two hours-n0, we had not unhar-
| messed our teams from the wagons, be-
| fore we heard the awful, st racket out
| in the street ~ the teams. On ing
out We saw old TIge With a tw"-ye r
| old mule down on the gr und. Twice
he bad that mule hy the throat, ami
| would have Killed it, had we not been
in time to get him off. We tried to
make Trga let go by whipping him.
| We beat him with sticks, then with
clubs; the more we fought the dog the
harder he fought the mule. Finally.
We had to choke him off. And yet he
watching after the children; if they
went any where, he would go before.
If anything was in the way he thought
would eudanger those children, it had
to get out of the way, or he would take
it out of the way. Snakes stood sorry
show il he saw one. Rattlesnakes? He
would kill every rattler I came across.
When you heard Tige barking on
ahead of you, and you saw him dane
Ing and circing around, you might
just as well stand off. He would make
believe to the snake until he could
catch the snake off his guard; then he
would catch it by the neck. and the
way he would shake it until the life
was shaken out of its body! l remem-
Der, one day in wheat harvest, we boys
were on the way back to the field after
dinner. We heard him commence
barking very fierce. We all said, ian
to see one of the largest rattlesnakes 1
ever saw. coiled up. / tell you, he look
ed wicked. His head was waving back
and forward, his tongue fairly flashing.
We boys all stood off. AT last Tige
made spring, and, as be did SO, that
snake, as quick as flash, struck TIge
over the eyes, but Tlge caught him.
and the way be did shake him for a
minute or so; then dropped the snake,
W ho did not seem to have Jared very
badly. AS soon as Tige had dropped
the snake it threw itself into a coil
again, ready for another charge. AL
though Tige was badly tit, he would
not give up, but still made charge af-
for oh .al MI, I a
rattler would strike him bout tn head
somewhere. Tige became so mad, he
just charged on the snake and COM
meEced to chaw it to pieces, as he did
the mule. All this time the snake kept
striking the dog. Finally, we ran up
and caught the dog by the hind legs
and pulled him away, and then killed
the snake.
BY this time Tige was past standing.
We took him up and carried him home,
and spent most OF the afternoon doctor
ing him. We turped fat down his
throat, boiled cocklehur leaves in SWEET
milk, and gave him. We began to
think il vas all night with old Tige.
Those bites would have killed any
half-dozen common dogs, but he mad
so much Of The Old Scratch in MIN, he
was hard to kill. How many, many
times we boys have had to choke or
pound that dog to make him let go Of
something he had got his paws set on,
[ don't know. If you let him go hunt
ing with you, and you shot squirr' ],
or anything he could get his teeth on,
he would chaw it as long as he could
feel or hear bone crack. / used to
get SO mad at him sometimes, / felt
like shooting him. The family, often,
when together, would talk of that fall
ing of old Tige's. We often discussed
the question, how can we break that
dog Of that bad habit of killing and
wing everything to pieces 30?
One day ! had been out hunting. |
would hardly ever let Tige go with me
if | could help it. He would often, af
ter / had gone, take my track, and
when least expected it, come up on
me in the woods. But this time he
did not follow me. On my way back,
had to 90 within a mile or so of home.
Wav ahead of me / saw very large
horned owl sitting up in tree Itwas