Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1897-10-28
WITH A SMALL CALDER.
A Militia Officer Tells of Mite Overoom-
ing q Great Lion.


Militia OHicer Tells of q Mite Overoom-
ing q Great Lion.
Some one in the group Of militia
men had been showing target per-
lE-ated at mile by a bullet so
lssall as almost to appear ridiculous.
"And yet, said a veteran who
had seen service, 81 know an in
stance of a lion being killed with
one of these small cat rifles shooting
a B cartridge. About all they are
good for, you know, is to shoot
sparrows with"
"a very commenda BILE use, if they
are those nasty English sparrows,
ventured some one, whose senti-
ment was unanimously applauded.
"True enough" continued the
narrator. "But to the lion part of
my story. A dozen or more years
ago had gang of men at work
blasting rock in railroad cut to
shorten a line. We were near a
town, and to this town came circus
with wild animals, including lion
which was notorious for his ugly
temper and his size. OF course a
parade was part of the show, and
had given my men two hours or so
off to go and see it. They were ac-
companied by my 14-year-old boy,
who left his gun, one of those cat
rifles I have mentioned, with me.
had my Office in a shack near the
cut, and here ! was busy on an en-
gineering problem after the camp
was deserted by my force.
GAS I sat in the shack, with its
sides open, hard at work, about an
hour after the crowd had gone,
was disturbed by the sudden yelp Of
small dog we had with us, follow
ed Immediately by a growl that
sounded like thunder. l looked up
and, to my surprise and fear, saw,
not SO yards away, a great yellow
beast with half the dog in his
mouth. l thought at once of the
bad circus lion and was sure that he
had escaped in some way, and that
nobody knew where he was, except
myself, and that I was going to
have scrap with him unless could
escape.
"This I tried to do, but the lion
saw me and at once came my way,
at first with bounds and then creep
ing as cat does. The thing now
for me to do was to defend myself,
but there was absolutely nothing I
could use except my boys rifle, and
that was SO small it made me laugh
to think of training it on a lion.
However, it was all I had, and
took it up and waited, with a half
hope that ! might land the small
bullet in his eye and disable him for
a few minutes, anyhow.
Slowly he came toward me, and
as he crept nearer l noticed that he
had got dynamite cartridge fas-
tened to his foot by snap we were
using on some of them in some ex-
periments we were making. Some
careless workman had left the car
fridge, and this snap had evidently
caught to the hair on the beasts
foot, and he was dragging it along
with him. AS I noticed this I re-
membered that one entire end Of it
was like big percussion cap, and
wondered if I couldn't shoot my
little bullet and hit that part of the
cartridge. 1t was my only chance,
and one in 1000, 900, and, dropping
behind a heavy chest in the shack,
l sighted for the cartridge and wait
ed for the lion to come close enough
to better my chances and at the
same time not get too close in case
hit the cartridge.
''Well, he kept coming until he
wasn't so feet away, and then let
her go. She snapped like popping
an inflated rose leaf on the back of
a fair lady's hand, but in an instant
went over backward, there was q
tremendous explosion, and I didn t
know any more till a crowd of peo-
pie woke me up and asked me what
the matter was. They said the lion
had escaped, and while looking for
it they had heard the explosion and
had run over to see what it was.
Fifteen minutes later I had gathered
myself together sufficiently to tell
them what had happened, and when
one of the circus men found bunch
of hair like a whitewash brush on
top of my shack he identified it as
the end of the lions tail. That's
about all there was left of him, too,
but don't want to shoot any more
lions with cat rifles, I'm telling
you. Washington Star.