The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-06-23

villagers. and all hands waited for the
morrow to begin their hunt.
"As the party in the head mans
house sat drinking vodki and smoking. a
scream was heard outside and then a
cry of Tiger They rushed to the door
to find that a soldier had been carried
on by the tiger. His cries were heard
several times dying away in the dis
lance. but IL was useless to try to pur-
sue the tiger in the darkness. 1t ap-
peared that the soldier had left the hut
where he was quartered, against the
advice of his host, to visit his comrades
In another hut He never reached 1t.
the two houses the tiger had
bounced on him and carried him off. In
the morning the marks of the struggle
could plainly be seen in the snow, and
the tracks where the tiger had prowIed
watching the houses for a victim.
This was a bad beginning. but IL
made every one more eager than before
to kill the tiger. The tracks were plain
on the route the tiger had taken when
the party set u next morning, SO the
dogs were left at the village. Half a
mile away. in an evergreen thicket.
they came to where the tiger had
stopped to devour his victim. What he
had left of the body he had dragged
under the thickest bushes as IL he had
meant TO hide 1t. From this spot he
had zone straight to the nearest water
course and drank, hen turned toward
a place, three miles away, where q
Buddhist monastery once had stood. 1t
had been a ruin for centuries, but part
OF the wall with broken arches still
was standing. The tigers tracks led to
a hole where an arch had partly caved
in and there they ended.
How TO get to the tiger or to get him
out was the next question. The soldiers
had their rifles along. but the order to
h.-N ->x - 49, $500
command. As the officers stood before
the hole talking over wha they had
better do in the matter, Norris, who was
a daredevil sort of fellow, went close to
the wall with the idea of peering into
the hole and trying to rout the tiger
u with a shot. Before he could do
this the tiger bolted of his own accord
out of the hole straight for the officers
and was among them before one of
them could fire his rifle. In an instant
he had knocked one of them down,
seized him with his teeth and turned
back toward his den. The brute paid
no attention to Norris standing against
the wall, blu dropped the officer whom
he had seized by the side so as to shift
his hold to the shoulder that he might
drag him through the narrow hole. This
gave the Englishman his chance, and he
fired at the tiger at a distance not three
rife lengths away. There is where the
bullet s~truck-that round hole between
the eye and the ear: II looks as IL it had
been cut with a die. The tiger did not
need a second shot, but he clawed the
officers overcoat clean from his back
as he thrashed round, dying.
The officer was not much hurt. His
heavy winter clothes had saved him
from that. Norris got the skin and the
glory. You would think he would have
kept the skin as a trophy. but he gam
bled 1t away within a fortnight. and so
IL came at last into the raiders hands.
It's a beauty. The tiger was a full
grown one and not too old to W. the
finest sort of skin.
Every stranger who stays long at
Vladivostock hears plenty of tiger
stories. Here is another one that the
traveller who owns this skin told me. 1t
was of an old fellow. a native, who
lived somewhere in the Amoor valley,
and his house stood by itself in the forest
at some distance from a settlement. He
had no gun of his own, but one day a
party of hunters who were trying to
track down a man-eating tiger stopped
at his house to rest on their return to
the settlement. and one of their number,
finding his rifle heavy to carry. left 1T
with the old man until he should return
that way next day. That night a tiger
came snuffing around the house and
tried to break in. He reared against the
door and struck il with his paw, but ii
was to strongly built and strongly
barred for him to succeed in breaking 1t
open. But he smashed in the shutter of
the one small window-it had nc glass
and tried to force his way into the house
through II. 1t was mail for the tiger.
but he worked his head through and
then his shoulders and one foreleg.
"All this time the old man was trem-
bling with fear, not knowing what to do,
for the tiger seemed certain to get into
the room at last. Then he thought of
the hunters rifle leaning in the corner.
He vas not accustomed to firearms. but
he knew enough to cock IL. and he
thrust the muzZle into the tigers mouth.
and when the brute grabbed 1t with his
teeth he pulled the trigger. That ended
the tigers days in a hurry. When the
hunters came to the old mans hui in the
morning they found the manchester that
they had been after hanging dead over
the window sill, half inside and half
outside the house, with his head shat
tered. The old man got the reward OF
so rubles that the government offered
for the destruction of the tiger.
But | hin the most terrible story
the raveler told me was that of the
convict Petrovoski. who escaped from
the island of Saghalien. where the Rus
SLAMS have a penal colony. He was a
vicious and desperate character. who
had a long career of crime before he
was brought to Justice. He succeed
ed in escaping from the island to the
mainland, and in making his way to
the Amoor river 600 miles to the south
west. Every human being whom he
met that might betray him he muir
dered. and I'm his long journey he sub
sisted partly upon human flesh. In
the Amoor valley he came upon a pack
peddler. whom he murdered n robbed.
The officers following him found the
peddler's body and rifled pack. Rec
ognizing in this the work of Petrovoski.
they hurried on to the river. fearing
that the convict had enough the start
OF them to have succeeded in crossing
into Manchurfa beyond Russian juris-
diction. At the rivers brink was the
boat that he had secured, and in 1t the
bundle of ~valuables that he had taken
from the peddler's pack. The foot
prints of the convict were I'm the soft
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