MAN AND PUMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14787, 16 September 1911, Page 5 (Supplement)

MAN AND PUMA.

A FIGHT TO THE END.

Suddenly something Lawless, saw made him lurch backward. At an angle in almost equal distance from Him and Shon, upon a small peninsula of rock, a strange | thing was happening. Old Pourcetto was kneeling, engaged with his moccasin. Behind him was the sun, against which he was abruptly defined, looking larger than usual. Clear space and air soft with colour were about him. Across this space, on ft little eloping plateau near him, there crept an animal. It seemed to Lawless that he could see the lithe stealthiness of its muscles and the ripple of its skin.. But that •was imagination, because he was too far away. He cried out, and swung his gun shoulderwards in desperation. But at the moment Pourcette turned sharply round, saw his danger, caught hia gun, and fired as the puma sprang. There had been no chance for aim, and the beast was only wounded. It dropped upon the m-m. Ho let the gun fall it rolled and fell over the cliff. Then came a scene, wicked in its peril to Pourcette, for whom no aid could come, though two men stood watching the great fight JTGann, awake now, and Lawless—with their guns silent in their ''hands. They dare not firs, for fear of injuring the man. and they could not reach him in time to be of help. -

There against the weird solitary sky the man and the puma, fought. When the animal dropped on him, Pourcett-e caught it by the throat with both hands, and held back its fangs; but its claws were furrowing the Mesh of his breast and lege.' His long arms were of immense strength, and Chough the pain of his torn flosh was great, he struggled grandly with the beast, and bore it awny from his body. As he did so he slightly changed the position of one hand. It came upon a welt—.a scar. When he fielt that, new courage and strength seemed given him. He gave a low growl like an animal, and then, letting go one hand, caught *.t the knife in hie belt. As he did so the puma sprang away from him, and crouched upon the rock, making ready for another leap. Lawless and Shon could see its tail curving and beating. But now, to their astonishment, the man was the aggressor. He was filled with a fury which knows nothing of fear. The welt his lingers had felt burned them. .

He cam© slowly upon the puma. Lawless could see the hard glitter of his knife. The puma's teeth sawed together, its claws picked at the rocks, its body curved for a spring. The man sprang first-, and ran the knife in, but not into a mortal corner. Once more they locked. The man's fingers wero again at the puma's throat, and they swayed together, the claws of the. beast making surface havoc. But now as they stood up, to the eyes of the fearful watchers inextricably mixed, tho man lunged again with his knife, and this time straight into the heart of-the murderer. The puma loosened, quivered, fell .back dead. .The man rose to his feet with a cry, and his hands stretched above his head, as it were in a kind of i ecstasy.—From "An Adventurer of the North," by Sir Gilbert Parker,.