Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1892-01-06
A BATTLE WITH BATS.
A Hunters Experience in Cave Alon
RockcastIe River, Kentucky.

prominent young dentist, with dog
and gun into that LOCALITY to
shoot quail, and for a time he had ex-
cellent sport. About noon, however,
thunder storm came up and he en-
tered deep. rocky gorge with the hope
of finding shelter from the menacing
elements. Seeing an aperture in the
cliff on his left, he entered it, and was
surprised to find himself in a large
winding gallery with steep and craggy
walls on either side, and with a ROOF
that rapidly assembled to considerable
height. About twenty-five feet from
the entrance was an object which ar
rested his attention. 1t was gigantic
bowlder, oblong in shape and weighing
hundreds of tons, lying in an oblique
position on high, jutting ledge, with it's
huge crest upreared awfully into gap
in the cavern's roof.
1t looked as though q slight shock or
the touch of meddlesome hand might
displace it and cause IL to come crashing
down. Indeed, it was one of those
frightful death-traps or nature, grim and
sinister, sometimes found in subter-
ranean passages or upon jagged precl-
pices.
1t is we'll known that DR.. Kite is of an
adventurous disposition, also that he is
a naturalist and geologist of no small re-
pute. The novelty and excitement felt
in penetrating the unexplored SO fasci-
mating to daring spirits, allured and
emboldened him. Believing that he
should make some interesting discoy-
cries, he advanced resolutely into the
cavern As he did so his faithful dog
suddenly curled it's tail between its legs
and made speedy exit. At the same
instant the Doctor saw two fiery eyes
glancing from dark corner. Hastily
raising his gun, he took deliberate aim
and let 90 both barrels simultaneously.
He never knew what the animal was or
what became of it, for the internal din
that beloved and rebellowed through
the cavern was followed by an awful
crash, suffocatIng columns of dust and
dense darkness, and he was thrown
violently forward and al most buried be-
meath masses of falling sand.
He scrambled to his feet again, bleed
ing and gasping for breath. Terror
struck and appalled,, he realized that
the huge bowlder above had been pre-
cipitated into the passage, completely
blocking the corridor and shutting him,
like the doors of a ponderous tomb, for
ever from the light. He saw no way of
escape. A Plutonian darkness envel-
oped him. Moreover, a vast tribe of
bats, disturbed by the defamation of his
gun and the shifting sound, began to
swarm along the passage, numbers of
them alighting on his person. They
were of remarkable size and fierceness,
and seemed disposed to attack him. So
vicious did they become that he was
forced to fight them off by swift move
ments of his hands. They swept for
ward in enormous fiocks, as if to escape,
and that quarter of the cavern was
quickly alive with them. Stunned and
only partly aroused from their s;upor,
thousands precipitated themselves
against the, jutting rocks and fell upon
the floor dead or Tapping awkwardly
about in their wounded agony. They
swarmed on the Doctors back and neck
like huge bees. They dashed against
bis face and chung to his clothes, his
naIr and his beard, and their whirring
wings, bellows-like, whirled the dry
dust of centuries about in clouds, griev-
ousIy irritating the hunters already ex-
hausted lungs.
Threatened with suffocation, he in
creased the activity of his NOV ements
He struck savagely, and hurled hun
dreds Of the squeaking harpies upon the
earth and trampled them under his feet.
The cavern's rocky bottom became so
entrails of mangled bats that he could
scarcely keep his footing. That he
should preserve his equani nifty under
such torture is wonderful, but that he
did is manifest from what now trans
pired.
Shaking off his fierce tormentors for a
moment, be pulled off his coat, Ind,
pouring over it the combustible contents
of a whisky bottle which he carried in
his hip-pocket, he ignited it with a
match, and as it blazed up he began to
whirl it, a circle Of kissing flame and
pungent smoke, about his head. The
effect was magical. The bats, unable
to bear the light and the fumes, spread
their wings and began a precipitate
fight to other parts of the cave.
Surrounded by panic-stricken birds,
even under the spectral light of the
of something inhuman, ghoulish, de-
moniacal. Issuing from the pockets Of
his burning coat could be heard the
sound of bursting shells, which mingled
strangely with his unearJhly cries. Yell
ing and rushing from side to side of the
cavern, his hair tumbled over his fore
head in tangled masses, and his face
distorted with fury and despair, he
Whlsked the fiery brand about, scar
ing, scorching and burning many alive,
until the vast army of horrid creatures
had been driven back into further re-
cesses of the underground cham er
Nearly exhausted, his clothes and body
wet with sweat and blood, he began to
consider the possibility of escape from
his prison house. II any avenue of es-
cape over the stupendous bowlder still
existed, which was uncertain, it would
have been madness to attempt to scale
it in the deep, reigning darkness. He,
therefore, abandoned such a hopeless
idea, and sought to find some vulner-
able point at the side of the seemingly
impossible stone barrier
By the light of sickly blaze which
played over the smoking remnants of
his still burning vestment, he picked up
his gun and thrust the barrels into the
crumbling earth and stone at one side
of the huge rock. The mass yielded by
piecemeal to his exertion, and with the
energy Of a man entombed alive and
desperate for liberty, he worked heroic
ally, digging up the earth and pryng
away great fragments of rock.
Hope never forsook him, and after
seven hours of incessant labor. during