Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-01-04

|
knot of quadrupeds, and during the
ensuing fifteen Or twenty minutes a
great fight went on in the wild. dark
| glade under the oak
| Tufts of wild cat hide and dog skins,
with leaves. sticks and tufts. flew
| about that forest theater commingled
with scraps of red overall cloth: and
| above the melee rose and fell a geyser
of bucolic profanity. now and then
| that was shot through with wells and
sroNls of cat and dogs. The men
! fought with oak cudgelS and il was
| give and take all around, especially
take" on the part of the wild cat
which was rolled most of the time in
a changeful cocoon of flying and furi-
| Gus men and dogs. At times there
were features of the combat exceeding
in grandeur and ferocity. perhaps. those
| of an average South American revolu-
ton. and suggesting in a tame way
/ one of the familiar seismic mud shocks
of a Thanksgiving day Yale Princeton
football game.
The four men and two coon dogs
finally bagged that wild cat-the re-
mains of him-he weighed exactly
! thirty-two pounds, partly undressed,
not counting pound or two of fur
and hide that the dogs gor in big
sitting mouthful, besides what was
hung on sharp7pointed rocks and in
thorn bushes. He was a great, lean,
tawny- hued beast, mostly muscles,
sinew and bone, and with a powerful
forearm equal in girth to mans
The dogs We're badly used up, but
neither was mOrtally hurt nor crippled.
The hunters, also, were scratched and
bruised, with lacerated and bleeding
faces, and curtailed in respect of their
striped Jumpers" and oYerallS by
about a yard of cloth. which the lynx
took and spat out of his Jaws subSe-
quently. He was the biggest and most
formidable wild cat ever taken in the
Connecticut valley, and the scrim-
mage the hottest one of the sort in the
annals of valley cat hunting.
f. d. Francis, the veteran hunter and
best marksman of Durham hamlet,
among the Connecticut fil1s, had a
thrilling encounter with a wild cat
two nights ago, which he made out to
bag very easily, however. in a dense
| forest in that region, not far from his
lonely farmhouse For two nights
the beast walked the hills, bowling,
and once or twice he lodged into the
town and took a dozen choice fowls or
so. His fierce cries scared Durham
people immensely; in fact, several con-
firmed male ''gadders' did not go OUT
once after dark, but Rugged their own
fireSideS, and the women folks were by
no means sure that the wild cats were
altogether a bad thing, in mild doses,
as a specific against late hours.
Francis alone in Durham town was
bold enough to 60 in pursuit of the
common enemy. and he is no gadder
either.
But Francis could not find the game
afield with his gun, so he set an
enormous steel trap at nightfall at the
foot of a great ledge in rocky defile
in the wooded hills Il mile or two dis
tant from his home. At daybreak next
morning, with his handsome setter and
light double gun loaded with duck shot,
he approached his rap. The woods
resounded with intermittent yells of a
wild animal, evidently mad with rage
and when the farmer was still q dozen
, rods away from the ledge, he heard
the sounds of small trees and brush
swapping as if heavy body had been
rolled upon them.
Peering over the shoulder of a
bOwlder, he beheld a magnificent wild
cat in his trap, held there by the mass,
i've steel jaws, which bounded about
the earth snarling frightfully, clawing
at the ground and bushes. The trap a
heavy one, was securely fastened to
a tree by "a long chain, but so sinewy
and agile was the animal that he
bounded over the ground as easily as
if the trap and chain were of WOOD
and hemp.
Without a word from his master, the
brave dog rushed upon the wrathful
cat, and at that instant the latter, with
a powerful wrenching effort, freed it
self from the grip of the steel trap an6
( with one stroke of its paw hurled its
enemy ten feet away on the ground
Over and over the dog rolled, then diz
lilly regained it's feet and, terror
stricken, bleeding, and bowling with
pain, limped out of the forest. II
paused not in it's retreat until it reach
ed it's kennel at home
The cat, recoiling upon its launches
after its attack upon the dog, instantly
prepared to leap upon the hunter, but
Francis, who had swiftly closed in Oh
the furious beast, took a rapid SNAP
shot at it, pulling both triggers of his
gun simultaneously. The cat was moi
twenty feet away from him, and the
charges Of the pellets, in two almost
solid Jumps, crashed into its brain
With a single howl it rolled over OF
! it's side dead 1t was a splendid, great
lank, gray and yellowish-colored beast
with heavy forepaws and tusks al
inch long. 1t weighed nearly thirty
pounds, but was lean. Francis drag
ged his prize into Durham and it vas
exhibited in the show window Of q
furniture store.
WORSHIPPERS OF MEN.