The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1906-01-12

| girl gave herself over to a fit of hope
lessness. But after a week of living on
the drowned fowls and sea biscuit Liela
suddenly aroused herself and deter
mined to live. Young, strong, athletic.
full Of life, she rallied from the shock
and the despair and set to work.
Her first care was for food, and h
began to set snares' for turtles, and
from the cordage that had come ashore
| she began to knot together a seine with
which to catch fish in the lagoon be-
tween the island and the reef.
Also from her scant supply of pins and
hairpins she fashioned little hooks that
she set to catch gulls.
Burns Seaweed as Signal.
For nearly three weeks she lived with
out fire. Again and again she tried to
make fire by rubbing sticks together,
as she had heard of savages doing, but
she failed, and she was in despair. Eat
ing raw fish and chewing on the roots Of
unknown plants that she found began
to pail upon her, and she determined
to have fire at any cost. She hunted the
island over for stones that would make
sparks when she struck them together,
and finally on the beach she found two
large pieces Of flint. 1t took two days
for her to set fire to a little bunch of
dried, cottonlike pulp from a weed she
found, and then she blew and famed 1t
into a flame and fed it constantly.
The evening that she got fire she was
happy, and she declares that she be-
lieved her battle won. Wood was scarce,
but she resorted to dragging seaweed
from the lagoon and leaving it to dry
on the beach, and over the burning sea-
weed she piled wet seaweed and kept
a great smudge burning at the highest
point Of the island.
Mons-the lion--kept her from be-
coming desperate from loneliness, but
after a month he became dangerous.
The diet of raw fish and oysters and
| pieces of sea gull did not suit him. And
then followed the widest adventure of
all.
Liela was sleeping. 1t was neal morn
ing, for the stars were beginning to grow
dim and the roseate light was showing
in the east when the girl was awakened
| by a strange, suffocating sense of dan
ger. In an instant she was ON her feet.
Days before she had prepared a great
stick for use in defending herself, and,
grasping this, she backed into the r
of her frail hut, ready to strike.
A moment later she recognized her
pet, and called him. An angry snarl
answered her, and the beast leaped.
The girl realized at once that the saw
age instincts of the brute had been
aroused, and that he had turned upon
her to kill and devour her. Like a flash
she swung the club, and there, alone on
the island, thousands of miles from
friends, the two that had been friends
fought a duel to the death.
Battle with Pct Lion.
Again and again the maddoned beast
leaped for the white throat of his mis-
tress, and each time was driven back
by a blow, and finally, as her strength
was deserving her, Liela swung the club
with an effort born Of despair and laid
the half grown cub senseless, and, be-
fore it could recover, she killed 1t, and
then sank down sobbing beside its
body.
Her last friend was gone, and she was
alone. So she sobbed until daylight, and
then with sharp stones she skinned the
beast, and cooked part OF It Tor her,
! hraakfant.