58C 



quart ,.. ^aii just take it from me 



that the man never lived that never felt a 

 tinge of fear. If not at the first fire, he most 

 certainly did at some time or other and may- 

 be every time, although he won't admit it. 



"The first time that I ever was scared the 

 first time, mind 1 you was when I was let 

 me see I guess when I was along about 

 fourteefi years old, and my hair stood up 

 so straight and so persistently on that oc- 

 casion that I couldn't comb it for a week. 



"I was born and raised on a farm about 

 twenty miles west of Milwaukee at a little 

 crossroads near Essex. My parents had 

 moved to Wisconsin so long ago that the 

 Indians were still wont to comb a fellow's 

 hair with the edge of a knife, and bear and 

 deer were quite common, while wolves, lynx 

 and cats were somewhat of a nuisance. 



"Later on my parents removed to Essex, 

 which was so far within the pales of civiliza- 

 tion that an occasional fox was the most 

 dangerous animal that us youngsters came up 

 against, unless it might have been my father 

 with a harness tug, when necessity demanded. 



"So when a pair of lynx appeared in our 

 peaceful community and gathered a few stray 

 lambs, fowls, etc., consternation reigned 

 throughout that section of the country. These 

 varmints were seen in so many different and 

 widely separated localities at the same time, 

 that they enjoyed a reputation for shiftiness 

 achieved only by a well-established train rob- 

 ber in the west when business was good. 



"On a number of occasions one or the 

 other of the animals was seen, and even shot 

 at, but No. 8 shot at long range is not calcu- 

 lated to offer much resistance to the devilish 

 intentions of an outlaw with blood in his eye. 

 Wild animals that are frequently hunted or 

 trapped, soon come to believe that they are 

 immune and show in many ways their con- 

 tempt for man. But sooner or later, they 

 make a miscue and yield their lives as a 

 trophy to the superior mind of man. 



"One quiet and peaceful Sunday afternoon, 

 along in September, Mark Moulster was sit- 

 ting beneath the shade of the trees on his 

 spacious lawn on the outskirts of a little vil- 

 lage called Martin, about four miles west of 

 our place, and near where my adventure later 

 took place, reading the last Sunday school 

 paper. Suddenly the peace and dignity of 

 the day was broken by the baying of a pack 

 of hounds that was made up of all breeds 

 known to a man rolled into one vast batch, 

 like dough, and then cut off into dogs like 

 loaves of bread. 



"Even if these dogs did not have enough of 

 any one strain to call them a breed, they had 

 the grit, and before Moulster could straighten 

 up in the hammock, remove his glasses and 

 take an observation, that pack of mongrel 

 dogs were barking lustily beneath a sawed-off 

 maple tree in the front yard, in the lower 

 branches of which reposed a large lynx. 

 "Moulster's pursuits of peace were prose- 



cuted so thoroughly that any warlike attitude 

 that he may have ever had, was lost in the 

 misty past. So when big game thrust itself 

 upon him in this manner, begging to be slain, 

 he was almost up against it for a means unto 

 the end that is, the end of the lynx. 



"In one corner of the spare bedroom closet 

 stood an old muzzle loading shotgun that 

 perhaps ante-dated the civil war and had 

 been a stranger to the hands of man since. 

 He recalled that at the time Lee surrendered 

 the old gun had been used to fire salutes, and 

 there ought to be a little powder left over 

 some place. So he searched the pantry with 

 a thoroughness worthy of a better purpose, 

 and finally found about a spoonful in an 

 old indigo bottle back behind the spice boxes. 



"This was fed into the muzzle of the gun 

 and duly tamped 1 with a part of the aforesaid 

 Sunday school paper the better the day the 

 better the deed. But right here the am- 

 munition stopped with a suddenness that was 

 shocking. No shot no caps. This was a 

 dilemma, but the warlike spirit of a belligerent 

 ancestor, which had lain dormant for cen- 

 turies again asserted: itself and the day was 

 saved. With a hammer and cold-chisel Mark 

 chopped up enough nails to put the quietus 

 on a whale, and he rammed in a generous 

 quantity on top of the stale powder, capped 

 with some more of the story paper. 



"A cracking match in lieu of a cap com- 

 pleted the equipment, and thus armed he sal- 

 lied forth to meet the enemy, which the yip- 

 ping of the noble dogs told him was still on 

 the job. Mark approached for a direct as- 

 sault. When he had reached a point where 

 he was almost under the beast, he raised the 

 old fusee till its muzzle was not over six 

 feet from the target where he could not miss 

 and pointed the gun at the animal in a 

 general way, fixed the match on the nipple and 

 pulled the trigger. 'Roarin' Meg,' on the 

 walls of 'Derry, in all her glory never emitted 

 such a shock to the air as was administered 

 that quiet and peaceful Sunday afternoon in 

 the little village of Martin. Four separate 

 and distinct things transpired at one and the 

 same time with such rapidity that the question 

 of precedence has since been a matter of dis- 

 pute. 



"There was a roar that has been eclipsed 

 only by the explosion of the powdermill at 

 Pleasant Prairie. All agree that this hap- 

 pened first, but of the other three, no one 

 can tell. Used as the dogs were to rabbits 

 and squirrels, and the taking thereof, this 

 was too much for them and every one of 

 them faded away into the landscape at the 

 same time that both Moulster and the lynx 

 struck the ground with the reportorial 'dull, 

 sickening thud.' When Mark came back to 

 earth, he feebly inquired if he got the gun 

 wrong end to. It was only when he saw the 

 lynx within five feet of him, with a hole 

 in its forward deck, like the man on the 

 front page of the 'almanac, that he concluded 



