Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-01-14
MANS FIGHT WITH CROCODILE
Story of an Old Sailors Determination
to Bag His Game.

It is only a few months since the
incidents happened that I am about
to relate. My work took me on
visit up a river to one of those tim
Der cutting camps where are felled
and RATED the great hardwood logs
so valued in the Chinese market.
G., the white man in charge, was
a characteristic old hard case" who
had started life before the mast in a
sailing ship and drifted In a beach
combing fashion to our colony, where
he had been given, almost in charity,
a subordinate billet in one Of the
large timber companies. Arriving in
my boat at the little jetty or landing
stage, I was astonished to find G..
lying on a rattan couch within a few
yards of the bank with a heavy ex-
press rifle across his knees gazing in
tently at a rough pager or fence
erected in the stream.
Hanging from this fence and few
feet above the water were the corpses
of a monkey and several pariah dogs;
while a half dozen ducks, each tied
to the fence by the leg with a long
string, tapped about on the water
and quacked dismally in their ef-
forts to escape. I was just wonder
ing whether the whisky bottle or too
much solitude accounted for this
state of affairs, when I noticed that
G.'s leg was swathed In rough band
ages from the knee to ankle.
Throwing myself down near him in
the welcome shade. learned the fol-
lowing story: Two nights before G..
was sleeping peacefully in his little
palm leaf house in a clearing about
twenty yards from the river bank
when his dog began to growl and re-
fused to be silenced. G. turned out
and walked around the hut to ascer-
tain the cause of the disturbance, but
seeing nothing addressed himself to
the dog in his usual lurid and pic
turesque sailing ship language and
retired to bed again. Five minutes
later he was once more aroused by q
yelp from the dog, and this time
really annoyed he seized a stick and
sailed forth to inflict dire punish
ment on the disturber of his dreams.
Suddenly a dark form glided swiftly
from the shadows and G. felt himself
seized by the right knee as in wise.
STOPPING to free himself, he found
he was in the grip Of large croco-
dile whose teeth were firmly embedded
in his flesh and bone. Backward and
forward the struggle swayed, the
crocodile striving to pull its destined
victim to the waters edge and G..
hampered as he was by his impris-
oned leg, fighting for his life to
reach higher ground. At last the
beast, hurting its victim to the
ground with a shake of its powerful
head, began to drag him swiftly to-
ward the water. Poor G., feeling, as
he expressed it, that it was "all over
bar the shoutin'," determined to
make one last effort for his life, and
taking advantage of a momentary
halt as the brute was steering past
tree stump, he sat up and succeeded
in getting both his thumbs into the
reptiles eye sockets, the only vul-
nerable part of the crocodile's head.
The rest of the story Is perhaps
best told in G.'s own words, or as
nearly as circumstances (and the ed
itor) will permit: $50 soon as I gets
me thumbs made fast in is eyes e
opens is mouth to shout an lets go
my leg. Then first thing next morn
in the coolies lays is breakfast for
chair, an ere I stays If it's a month" :"
Vainly 1 tried to persuade G.. to come
away with me to the next station and
see a doctor. 1 argued with him, /
implored with him, but 1t was alb
solutely useless. He refused to move
from that chair till he had bagged
his crocodile, and was at last obliged
to leave him, having dressed his leg
and exhausted every known means Of
persuasion short Of brute force.
l met him again a week later In
hospital bed suffering severely, but
quite happy in the knowledge that
the bones Of that crocodile were
bleaching in the sun outside his house.
Poor old g.! Only few weeks after
ward the habit of clearing creepers
from his path in the jungle with the
butt end of his loaded and cooked
rifle proved fatal to him.-A. Caven-
dish in Chambers Journal.