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- 



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 



