MAN BEATS A LION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14284, 27 August 1910, Page 7

MAN BEATS A LION.

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. A good knife, a cool liead, and plenty of pluck were all that saved a South African game-warden when actually being carried off by a lion. He was riding home at dusk through a game preserve, writes Lieutenant-colonel Patterson (author of " In the Grip of Nyika''), when a lion suddenly sprang at him from the bushes. It knocked him off his mount and then chased after the terrified pony, which was galloping off madly. As the man was picking himself up another lion pounced on him and gripped him through the shoulder. The game ranger was dazed for a few moments by the shock, but when ho came to his senses be found himself being carried off in the jaw of the lion, whose long tusks went through and through his right shoulder and rendered bis right arm useless. As he was being dragged off in this fashion, with his heels trailing on the ground, he gave himself up for lost, but suddenly bethought himself of an old hunting knife ho carried in his waist-belt at bis light side. The knife was so loose, in its sheath that it usually fell out on the least provocation, and even as the Ranger doubled his right baud behind back he had a hopeless feeling that the knife would not be there. Imagine his joy when he felt the hilt in' his desperate grip. In a moment the long, keen blade was poised, and a blow at the lion's heart, thrice rapidly repeated made the brute wonder what h~d hurt him. He dropped bis would-be victim, eyed him with astonishment for a second as he lay beneath him, and then staggered off into the bush. The moment- be was out of sight the ranger struggled to his feet and climbed a tree, and before be fainter!, strapppd himself on to a branch with bis belt. No SO.OAfT liprj .fog. <J 9fl a sp lifilj

number one appeared on the scene again having iailed to catch the pony. He remained at the foot of the tree until the ranger's dog came up and by his barking attracted the attention of some natives, drove off the lion and rescued the fainting man from the tree. brief .search disclosed the dead body of the lion that had attacked the ranger, stabbed to death through the heart.