The Worthington advance., 1891-08-20

my right and the cup to nv
lips without Tor arfinstant relaxing nv
watchfulness, proceeding which
greatly disconnected my entertainers,
as they had doubtless supposed that I
would lay down my weapon and take
seat while drinking.
after feigning to swallow some of
the vile stuf. I stepped forward to re-
turn the cup and in doing so saw some
thing which made my pulse beat lit
tlesfaster and dispelled lat least one of
my plans for escape.
tThe something. was IN looking
cur dog stretched out, quiet and mo-
t1onless, on the hearth, and with half
shut; keen eyes ga7 ing furtiyelyS at me.
And so vanished all hope of hiding in
the darkness; for the fact that the ami
NAL had tai ken no notice of the entrance
OF stranger convinced me at once that
he was; trained! I now said good
night, backed out of the door, closed it
carefully and started off down the
road, feeling morally; certain that I
should be followed. BY this time the
rain had ceased; the sky was clear of
Clouds and by the light;of the stars
l could family distinguish surround
ing objects sGrest jas my need was, l
was too tired to walk.fast, but pressed
doggedly on, sometimes half asleep,
and had got some distance, probably
three miles, from the hat when heard,
behind ne, a sound as of footsteps
staggering through the mud, and oc-
cassionally smothered cath or two.
Listening then more intently, plainly
recognized that low, eager whine which
! dog makes when tugging at his chain,
and it required no great sagacity to
tell me that the villains were tracking
me and holding their fellow brute in
check, so that he might not run on me
in advance and get killed before they
could come up. Il !Ss&
81 knew now, for certain, that in a
few minutes should be engaged in a
life-and-death struggle against heavy
odds, but cannot say that felt much
fear, though I would gladly have
| avoided the encounter. 20. ~x
1T would, of course, have, been a
quite easy matter for me to have shot
both these men dead in their tracks,
but did not want to do this, even on
such strong presumptive evidence Of
their murderous intent
''Besides, though tolerably sure of
ultimate acquittal, l had no particular
ambition to be myself tried for murder
in this colony where the law is terribly
swift and stern in its operations Had
l known then whatI afterwards ,kne1w
= might have acted differentfY; but
now made haste to carry out an al
ready matured plan of defense.
"About twenty yards ahead saw by
the roadside large ironbark. tree, and
stepping quickly behind this~I took the
percussion, caps off the nipples of nv
gun, separated the stock from the bar
rels and thus had, in the latter, most
effective and convenient weapon
"Then I stood motionless in the
shadow, waiting; but not for long. In
less than minute my pursuers were
close at hand, and, being entirely un-
aware of my proximity, were talking
and swearing quite freely IN the thick,
cultural tones Of half-drunken men. /
distinctly heard one of them say:
'Lookee ere now, 'soon's ever we
catches sight Of i'm you let the dog go
and it'll grab the cove, SO ell never
think to fire till we comes up to knock
i'm in the 'ead. We don't want no
shootin' nor noise at this job
Very good indeed: I thought, the
big pistol won't be discharged except
in the last extremity. This reassuring
idea had hardly crossed my mind when
the dog, now straining furiously on his
leash, came around the tree and in the
instant dropped dead without a moan
his skull crushed in by blow from the
breech of my gun barrels.
$50 surprised were the ruffians by
this uni expected attack that, for Sec
ond or two, both stood stock still, Civ
ing me ample time to again swing my
weapon and bring it down with re-
sistless force upon the head Of the
leader, who fell like log to the earth.
His cut-throat companion was at this
moment ten feet or so in the rear, and
as 1 rushed toward him, he, deeming
that the last extremity had indeed
come, leveled his piece of ancient
artillery and fred, at me-, point
blank. He made, however, the IA
tai mistake of aiming for my. head
instead. Of my body, and the pistol,
being overloaded, shot too high, though
the call was pretty close, the bullet
cutting channel through my hair!
Seeing that he had missed me, the
villain caught his heavy weapon by
the muzzle and hurled it at me with all
his strength. Quickly guarding, sue
ceeded in partially detecting the dam
gerous projectile. but. yet it Rrazed my
cheek and inflicted flesh wound which.
bled profusely-the; scar, you see, is
still visible. Then, with hoarse cry
like that of an enraged tiger, he closed
in on me, dodging a blow I aimed at
his head. The moment the fellow
grappled me Ifound that in mere brute
strength he was far my superior, and
that should have to depend upon my
greater skill and activity to escape from
his clutch alive.
''At such close quarters my trusty
weapon was useless, and dropped it
to the ground. Locked together in a
deadly embrace, the fearful struggle for
mastery now began. 'f'
my antagonist, time and again. tried,
to fasten his iron grasp on my throat,
but was as often .foiled. Then he
would attempt to batter my face with
his bullet head, but I was taller than
he and he could not do it. The brute
fairly foamed at the mouth with impo-
tent rage as he found himself matched
at every point, while I, for the first
time, inwardly- blessed my stars that
the gymnasium of my alma mater had
recsivsd . greater show Of my dsvo-