The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-02-28
THE ''LION-JAQUAR."
An Adventure With a Beast of Mystery
in Patagonia.


Some years ago, when they found
the hide of a mysterious monster in
Patagonia and scientists finally de-
clared that it was undoubtedly the
skin of mammoth sloth which had
been supposed to have become extinct
ages ago, was one of those hunters
who went into the primeval forests Of
the Cordilleras to hunt for a living
specimen of the creature.
I arrived in the country shortly
after Ramon Lista, the great South
American explorer, had shot at a big
animal in the dusk. and failed to stop
it because its hide actually turned. the
bullets from his heavy express rife.
This, with the absolute verdict of
many noted biologists that there was
little doubt that this giant sloth, which
was called the mylodon, was still alive
and roaming the unknown forests of
western Patagonia, filled me with keen
desire to get into the wilderness and
search for the wonderful brute.
Think what a prize it meant for
sportsman Here was a creature that
survived from an epoch so far away
that the human mind cannot grasp it.
Ten or more feet high, almost as big
as an OK in girth and weight with a
hide full of small bones that formed
an arm or-an animal that walked the
earth before the Hood and may have
/ been a companion of dinosaurs and
/ pterodactyls.
Ramon Tsista never came out Of the
wilderness alive. so we did not learn
| more a bol1ts the beast at which he had
shot than the brief note that he pen
ciled at the camp fire and sent to civil
/ ization on the night after his advent
ure. But there was the hide that had
/ been found at Ultima Esperanza, and
/ so we pressed into the forests full of
hope
Well, none of US saw a mylodon nor
4 did any of US even see any track of 1t.
But, after all, we hunters were SO few
and the country so vast and so tightly
sealed that there may be many great
/ creatures there for all that
Though we found no mylodon, we
did hear a. lot of stories from the IN
dams about a great creature that
/ broke through the earth and bent
/ trees down when it moved and that
could not be killed because its hide
/ turned even the best arrows. And an
other story that heard was that there
was still more dangerous creature in
| the woods. which the Indians called
4 lion. AS they described it, it seemed
/ to be a jaguar of a size and kind utter
| ly unknown to science jaguar with
| vast head and a body ten and more
/ feet from the tip of the nose to the
end of the tail--in other words, a
beast as great as the royal Bengal
tiger.
The Indians were such liars in other
ways that I did not pay much atten-
ton to their yarns. especially as I had
neevr seen the trail of any cat except
that Of jaguars of ordinary size, say
/ five feet long over all. SO when I
found myself alone in the forest one
night, too far from camp to get there
/ in the dark, I camped under a big
mahogany tree without a second
thought. and went to sleep almost i'm
mediately after having seen that the
| fire in front of me was burning well.
I awoke suddenly with a feeling
/ that something was looking at me
stared into the darkness beyond the
/ fire and saw two shining spots which
| I recognized at once as the ewes of a
| big cat. But such a cat! The size Of
those eyes and the space between
them showed me at once that they be
! longed to a cat animal at least as big
as any that I had ever seen in the
western hemisphere.
thought instantly of the stories of
the great Lion jaguar" and lifted my
rifier, eager not to miss the wonderful
change. Almost simultaneous with
the shot came a fearful scream from
the beast and the next moment a big
form, shining golden yellow in the
! light of the fire, leaped clear across
! the fame and on me.
It bore me down before I could get
aim for another shot, and then the
/ thing stood over me, staring into my
face with its terrible eyes. Instantly I
/ took Jack all that I had ever thought
about the untruthfulness of my IN
dians for the beast as it stood there
was so huge that though its face was
/ just above mine its hind legs were be-
4 low my knees. I have shot some extra
+ large tigers in India but I never
shot a brute as large as was this I'M
known jaguar.
I lay perfectly still because there
was nothing else to do. The monster
sniffed at me and then paved at its
head where my bullet had struck.
saw that the projectile had hit full and
fair but that it had been turned by the
frontal bone and had merely made a
tiny flesh wound and then dropped
harm1essly out again. Considering that
I had missed killing the brute it was
as we'll that the bullet had not done
more harm for otherwise the animal
would have been savage and would no
doubt have mauled me to death then
and there.
AS it was the cat seemed to be more
puzzled than angered. once 1t made
as if to pick me up and carry me OF,
but it dropped me again almost before
it's Jaws had closed around my clothing.
/ Afterward I recollected that the jaguaT
had taken hold of me just where my
tobacco pouch was slowed, and I have
kno doubt now that the smell of the to-