Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1901-12-13
STRANGER AND TIGER
THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CAGE
KNEW THE BEAST.
He Had Felt the FanEs of the An, m ais
Mother in the Jung can East In
diaz Adventure that Might Easily
Have Resulted Fatally.

Zine ANIMAL" ventured the reporter
to the stranger, who had stood for half
an hour in front of a cage in the New
York Central Park zoo, containing a
splendid Indian tigo. The man raised
a sallow, thin face, in which pair Of
steely gray eyes, steady as a church,
were the only feature.
YES" he said, with a nod of assent.
know him?"
"Yes, rather"
"Did you capture himf' asked the re-
porter as a venture.
yes"
That was not the answer expected.
Then the stranger sat down IN the
Hospital of the menagerie, in the lit
tie shed behind the elephants house,
where Keeper Snider has travelling
cages in which he treats lions when
they suffer from locomotar ataXia and
tigers and tigresses when they have
their occasional illnesses. Seating him
self on bale of hay and hugging his
knees with his hands, he began:
Il trapped that tiger when he was
little fellow and his mother had trap
ped me when | did it. | sold him to
Hagenbeck of Hamburg by the time
l had fully recovered from my encoun-
ter and Hagenbeck traded him to the
menagerie here in part exchange for a
baby hippopotamus. You may not
think it, but man has weakness for
the welfare of animals he catches. |
happened to be in New York and to re-
member that my friend the tiger lived
here, and that L might look upon him
to see what kind of Il chap he made.
by the middle of the afternoon |
had seen what | wanted of my land
and was ready, accompanied by my
| two men, to return to my bungalow.
One of these l had left with my horse
about a mile back, where there were
shade and grass; the other l now sent
| to the rear to notify the man with the
| horse to bring the animal around by
the road to a point where | would meet
them. | went my way, picking it along
a jungle trail to the point designated.
Along the sides of the trail was bamboo
grass higher than my own head, and to
make the thicket even denser there
were interspersed with the grass
clumps of bushes and lew-topped kor-
india, and here and there trees.
Il had left my rifle with the man
with the horse, and it was not until
now that feeling of uneasiness crept
over me, and | felt that | would be
bit more confident had | the weapon
with me. | argued down my fears, how
ever, and was strolling along the trail,
when, without an instant's warning,
there was a tremendous commotion In
the tall grass. The bushes directly in
front of me moved violently, then part
! ed, and before | had time to realize
fully there was a vision of yellowness,
a deep-throated roar, and tigress had
me, her hot, ill-smelling breath brushed
my face, and she fastened her jaws into
my shoulders in single mighty
crunch. Just then there was a nose in
the roadway and the animal raised her
head. In another moment she had
swung me clear of the ground. and car
rying me by the shoulder bounded off
In great leaps.
THE tigress carried me all of fifty
yards before she set me down in her
home, where there were two tiny cubs,
their eyes not yet OPEN The tigress. re-
treated, crouching, and gazed at me
from springing distance, as if she was
praying for me to make a move for the
| 10 Of ap1ixnpinn ha fi1n
sound broke the stiffness. | saw the
brute whirl toward the direction from
which it came and she rose to her hind
feet. But before she could make a
move a shot rang out and a bullet
crashed through the tlgress' heart. She
fell, turning a half somersault, and lay
still. An East Indian tiger hunter
Dassa Balhua, came toward me from
out of a tree, where he had been lay
ing for the tigress for many day.
''Dassa caught both of the kittens in
his arms and they nestled close, poor
orphans, searching about his brown
body for the dinner which they thought
was long coming. l was borne to the
hut of Dassa, and in three weeks.
when l had somewhat recovered, was
! taken to my own bungalow, where, un-
der skillful treatment, my wounds re-
paired as much as they will ever repair.
! "Dassa raised both kittens until they
were able to eat solid food when one
night one of them broke a chain and
escaped. The other he presented to
me, for we had come to know each
other well and had by that time hunt
ed much together
The stranger opened a loose outing
shirt. drew the shirt partially off and
showed the gnarled and purple marks
deep in his shoulder and the upper
part of his arm.
There are the scars of that days
work and the little tiger is now the big
one in the cage in the lions house
You see the scars and you see the tig
er in the cage. See for yourself If the