Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1902-02-22
stopped abruptly and began


trumpet.
The guards who led it tugged man
fully at the chains which hung from
the Jagged metal collar round its
neck, so that the spikes ran deep
into its flesh, and reminded it keenlv
of its bondage. But the beasts ter
ror at the fire, which was native to
it's constitution, mastered all it's new
bought habits of obedience. From
time unknown men have hunted the
mammoth in the savage ground, and
the mammoth has hunted men; and
the men have always used fire as a
shield, and mammoths have learned
to dread fire as the most dangerous
of all enemies.
Phorenice's brow began to darken
as the great beast grew more FESTIVE,
and she shook her red curls viciously.
"Some one shall lose a head for this
laundering" said she. 81 ordered to
have this beast trained to stand in
different to drums, shouting, arrows,
sured me that all was done, and
brought examples"
7 slipped my girdle. Here" / said,
"quick. Let me lower you to the
ground"
She turned on me with a CLEAN.
"Are you fearful for my neck then,
Deucalion?"
81 have DO mind to be bereaved be-
fore have. tasted my welded life"
'Pish! There is little enough of
danger. I will stay and ride it out.
1 am not one of your nervous wom-
en-, sir. But go you, if you please"
"There is little enough chance for
that now"
Blood flowed from the mammoth 5
neck where the spikes of the collar
tore it, and with each drop, so did
the tameness seem to ooze out from
it also. With wild squeals and trum-
petings it turned and charged vicious
ly down the way it had come, scat
tering like straws the spearmen who
tried to stop it, and moving a great
swathe through the CROWD with it's
monstrous progress. Many must
have been trodden under foot, many
killed by its murderous trunk, but
only their cries came to us. The
golden castle, with its canopy of
royal snakes, was swayed and tossed
so that we two occupants had much
ado not to be shot off like stones
from a catapult. But I took a brace
with my feet against the front and
one arm around a pillar, and clapped
the spare arm round Phorenice, so as
to offer myself to her as a cushion.
She lay there contentedly enough,
with her lovely face just beneath my
chin, and the faint scent of her hair
coming in to me with every breath
took; and the mammoth charged
madly on through the narrow streets.
We had outstripped the faint of
smoke, and the original cause of fear,
but the beast seemed to have forgot
ten everything in it's mad panic. 1t
held furiously on with enormous
strides, carrying its trunk aloft, and
deafening US with its screams and
trumpetings. We left behind us
quickly all those who had trod in
eHdC Sh'l0iihS pageant, anu VIC "oiC
carried helplessly on through the
wards of the city.
The beast was utterly beyond all
control. So great was its pace that
there was no alternative but to try
and cling on to the castle. Up there
we were beyond its reach. To have
leaped off, even if we had avoided
having brains dashed out or limbs
smashed by the fall, would have been
to put ourselves at once at a fright
full disadvantage. The mammoth
would have scented US Immediately,
and turned (as is the custom of these
beasts, and we should have been