The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-08
LION HUNTING EXTRAORDINARY.
A Gun With out a Stock Which Went Or
enthusiastically.

enthusiastically.
Many stories about hunting the Cali
fornia lion have been published, but the
following vouched for by correspondent
of the Los Angeles Times beats the
record, so far as the amount of danger
involved IN the sport is concerned, for in
this case the hunter had to fear his weapon
quite as much as his game.
The hero of this adventure is B. T. Kelso
of Juniper Flat. Juniper Flat is away
down in Riverside County in a nest of
tangled, brush-covered hills. between Lake
View and San Jacinto. Kelso is big,
burly, bearded man, with a good-humored
smile and an honest face. He makes his
living by digging manzanita and grease
wood, which he hauls to Riverside and
sells for 81 a cord. One day last week he
had his load all ready TO start on his
weary drive across the plains, when the
family heard the dogs barking up on the
hill back of the house. Kelso went for his
gun.
low this gun of Kelso's is fearful and
wonderful weapon. 1t had once been a
single barreled shotgun-but it had the
misfortune, some time in the misty past,
to have the whole stock smashed off. The
hammer was left, it is true, but it wouldn't
stand cooked under any circumstance
and everything abaft the hammer was
gone! Some of my brave readers who are
not afraid to pull trigger, may think it
an undesirable Job to hold up the hammer
of kelso's gun with the thumb, stick the
whole thing out at safe distance from the
face, shut one eye, take aim-make ready
and let the hammer slip-bangi
Not so with Kelso, however; he took
his fragmentary relic and strobe away
through the brush to see what the dogs
were raising such row about. He has
three dogs. One is a young, long legged
hound; another is a middle-sized dog, and
the third is little yapping fvste. They
sing tenor, alto and treble, and the way
they were making the rocks ring was q
caution.
The rocks on the top OF this hill are huge
cubes and rectangular blocks as big as
houses fresh flung from the hand OF God.
The dogs were barking about the crevices
OF one of these. Kelso climbed laboriously
to the top of it, SO as to look down and
find the wildcat or whatever it might be,
when. as he scaled the crest, giant noun
tain lion made rush past him, close
enough to touch, and stood glaring down
savagely at the yellow dogs, switching his
ia il with an uneasy, nervous energy.
The lion made spring down among the
dogs, struck them off to right and left, and
went in great leaps down the steep noun
tain side that slopes toward San Jacinto.
excited Kelso. Down, down they went,
for mile or more, through brush, over
rocks that would have cost the life of any
one but mountainer.
At last the big cat, harassed and con-
fused by the following dogs, took refuge
in his lair, cave among the rocks some
distance above the Pico spring, and when
the man arrived the dogs were fiercely
barking into the mouth of the cavern and
the lion was at bay. Kelso pushed in
among the dogs, in the thick of the fray.
Suddenly the middle dog shot like an
arrow at the lion and seized him by the
throat. At word from his master, the
hound rushed in and seized the great cat
by the jaw, and the fyste followed suit by
worrying his prey in the tanks.
The scene was indescribable. Fur and
blood, yells, growls, howls, snarls, de-
moniac cries and shrieks filled the echoing
cavern. Kelso held up the hammer of his
| ancient shooting iron and pointed the
| muzzle in toward the fearful din; he crept
| in till he was actually standing on the
lions tail. AS the great brute raised his
| head above the struggling dogs the ham.
| mer was released-for wonder the car
| fridge exploded, and the whole top of the
lions head was blown to smithereens.