The Dickinson press., 1898-03-26
WITH A SMALL CALDER.

WITH A SMALL CALDER
= Militia O0esr Tslls q i Mits 0vsrssm-
Ing : Great Ilea..s
Some oneinsthe group Of militia.
men had been showing targsfpe
forafed 1t q mile 81 81 b1llstso
smallsas almostto appearHdtct1apll.
And y~sts.said ssHyeteran who
had seesSservioee. now N In
stance 81 ii Zion being kiled#Hh
one Of OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
. B cartridge. AboutsaM 1hs1sass
good foryon know Is lot
sparrowssNith. ssssss sTsSs.
"AXsEyconmendsbb nsasSikay
are thossanastyISEnaais h snen,, 8 8
venkpred somssone. whoiEseiti-
merts ,wslassunai,imously applapded.
True enough continued the,
narrator. "But to the lion part Of
my story. A dozen b more syeass
ago'I hadra gang Of men sat work
blasting rock IN q railroad cnt To-
shorten a line. We were near 4
town, and to this towncame atc.ii1cus
with wild animals, including sion
which was notorious for his ugly
temper and his size. or course 4
parade was part Of the show. andI'
had given my men two hours or 20,
of to go and See it. They wereac-
companied BY my 14-year.old boy,
who left his gun, one Of those cat
rifles / have mentioned, with me- /
had my Office in shack near the
out, and here Twas busy on an en-
cheering problem after the camp
was deserted by my force.
"As I sat in the shack, with It's,
sides open, hard at work, about an
hour after the crowd had gone I
was disturbed by the sudden yelp Of
q small dog we had with us. follow
ed Immediately by q growl that
sounded like thunder. looked up
and, to my surprise and fear, ! saw,
not so yards away, a great yellow
beast with half the; dog in his
mouth. 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 q scrap with him unless I could
escape.
"This l tried to do, but the lion.
saw me and at once came my way,
at first with bounds and then creep
ing as a cat does. The thing now
for me to do was to defend myself,
but there was absolutely nothing /
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 l had, and I
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 / noticed that he
had got a dynamite cartridge fas-
tened to his foot by a 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 a big percussion cap. and
I wondered If l couldn't shoot my
little bullet and hit that part of the
cartridge. It was my only chance,
and one in 1000, 600, and, dropping
behind a heavy chest in the shack,
I 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
''Nell, he kept coming until he
wasn't so feet away, and then I let
her go. She snapped like popping
an inflated rose leaf on the back Of
a fair lady's hand, but II an instant
I went over backward, there was Z
tremendous explosion, and 1 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 seq what it was.
Fifteen minutes later Ihad gathered
myself together sufficiently to tell
them what had happened, and when
one Of the circus men found a bunch
Of hair like 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.