The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1898-11-25
D FIGHT IN TEXAS.

in the sides and rear, and he fell back
! into the writhing mass. A minute more
and one bear was a ~lifeless, shapeless
mass, with the yellow-brown fiends rip
ping his hide into ribbons and cracking
his bones like pieces of glass.
While this was going on the remain
ing bears and the lion had their paws
and jaws full of business. The bears
still safely perched on their respective
stumps, but were kept busy knocking
off the peccaries which were doing their
level best to dislodge them. Half a
dozen were lying o. their backs, dead,
while others were jumping about, and
while badly wounded were yet mad and
unconquerable as ever; while the bears
themselves had not escaped scot free.
A number of scarlet spots on their
black hair showed where the peccaries
had left imprints of their scimetar-like
tusks. One Of the p%eccaries caught
a grip on the headquarters Of one of
the bears and hung on like grim death.
The bears foothold was lost and he fell
squarely into the jaws of the swapping
mob below. Then followed another
battle on the ground, with the zeal I'M
derneath and the wilds hogs in a yellow
bank above, swapping and struggling to
get at their enemy. The zeal began
to work his hind feet and bodies of
wild hogs began to fly upward and out
ward, ripped from end to end by the
claws of the bear. The Deal at last got
on his feet and backed up against the
stump. He sat there and beat the pee
carries away, knocking fully a dozen
into kingdom come before the hogs sue
, ceeded in overcoming him.
The last living bear was now attack
ed with redoubled fury and by an in
creased force Of peccaries. For fully a
minute the battle ragged, and the bear
succeeded in wiping out at least half a
dozen ~peccaries. He a no chance of
escape, however, and was in the end
literally torn to shreds by the enraged
peccaries.
Meanwhile thirty or more of the pee
carries not mixed up in the fight with
the bears were either strung out over
the field trying to get at the cowboys
on the fence or attacking the Mexican
lion. The long, 1.-THE body of the lion
had thus far escaped serious injury,
having received only a few gashes from
; the tusks of his enemies, while four or
five Of the wild hogs were lying at the
foot of the stump on which the panther
| 90 r1ry IN tho Grh% Fo,,~1 - ~oooccor1 70
take refuge. But as the raging pee
carries drew off from the dead bears
they turned their attention to the lion,
swarming about the stump four or five
deep. The lion soon saw that with enc
mics jumping at him from all sides he
ton. Suddenly, with an ear-piercing
scream, he sprang out n into the
midst of the swarm of hogs, where,
slashing right n left, he cut a swath,
ripping open and killing a number be-
fore they recovered from their surprise.
In a second the lion was out Of the
mass and back on the stump. Twice
was the same feat performed. Each
time the lion dashed downward, knock
ing and slashing the life out of a num-
Der and then jumping over their backs
out Of reach, n it began to look as
though it would end in his whipping
the lot and getting away without great
damage; but when he sprang down the
third time his chain became entangled
in the body Of a lead peccary, and
when he sprang up again to regain the
stump the whole weight of the peccary
checked his leap, and he fell to the CEN
ter of the yellow mass. The peccaries
completely covered every inch of the
lion in a second. and in half a minute
they had torn him into pieces.