CAMP NOTES-STALKED BY A LION.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2604, 30 November 1867, Page 6

CAMP NOTES-STALKED BY A LION.

[From Chambeus's Journal.]

• The other night,' said I to Frazer, ' you spoke of a puma following your trail for two or three days. If the story is not " Sabbath gas," I should like to hear it, for, though they tell a similar tale of lions in Africa, the fact has always seemed doubtful to me.'

' I've piped off Sabbath gas in my time, 1 don't deny, but uuder the woods we mostly tell truth. Them stories you may swear upon ; I've been tracked myself, an' so has Pike County. He's just a hairy devil, yer yuma, playful, an' cowardly, an' cruel, like some women as one sees. Bring him up from a kitten, tame him as thoroughly as you will, stuff his skin till he nigh explodes, an' still you can't trust a child within his sight, nor turn your back upon him safely.

1 The ugliest skrimmy I ever had with lions* was down the Serebpiqui, after that etarnal raid of Sclilesiuger's upon Costa Kica. We didn't travel far, sir, as you know, for the Greasers gave us the durndest whipping at Santa Itosa that ever I had since my old grandmother deceased. How they did it, or what was the sign that scared us, no one could plan out, an' I believe — ay, by the Etarnal, I believe — some of our boys was witched! It was a right- down whipping, anyway ! There was a couple of hundred of us in the corral [cattle-yard] — every man ready an' droughty to face ten Greasers, bragging all his pile upon the trick : there was nary one among them boys bnt had been suckled on a six-shooter, an' vaccinated with a bowie ; but we ran, sir, every man of us, before a hundred an' eighty Greasers ! We did so / The yeller-faced cusses was heard in the brush five minutes before they broke out, an', as far as I could see, every man of us was at his post. Naow, it's no good blowing, Beasley ! we were fairly whipped, an' you an 1 1 ran with the rest ; so what's the use of gas? I say we were mostly all at our places by the palisade before they charged across the open. My man fell clean an' pretty, with the bullet fair between his eyes, ■where a ranger's bullet should be ; an' then, before the smoke had cleared away, they were over the fence, an' swarming down among us. Twenty of us rangers would have ruus3ed-ay, an' had done an' did after — the whole durned drive of 'em ; but — but, cuss it, we ran like sheep! Who led the way, I don't know; they said Schlesinger, but I did't see him. I only tell there wasn't twenty of us killed, no, nor yet disabled, when we cleared out. Eh ! one feels mad yet, a- thinking of that dhy. Us— the pick of Walker's army, Wester-ny men two out of three on vs — to stampede before a drive of Greasers ! I see men cry that clay as hadn't cried since they wore out their cradles ! Wo had our turn with the Costa liiean cusses many a time after that, but there's never a man with us can think of Santa Rosa without feeling wolfish. Ay ! an' that were Walker's first check, too ! If we'd taken Cartago or San Jose, he might have been president of Central America now, maybe; an' JBeasley an' I been high-Greaser generals, with fifty dollars pay per annum, finding our own gold buttons.'

•But, man,' I said, ' San J'osd has seven thousand inhabitants, and Cartago has twelve thousand, and the two cities are not fifteen miles apart. Were you going to attack those mountains with two hundred men ?'

' Guess we were,' returned Fraser composedly; 'leastwise so we thought in the army, an' I never heord that Schlesinger's instructions was different. But you see a hundred an' eighty Greasers was enough to turn us about an' send us into tho woods with the loss of all our plunder. Yet you know how they stood against us at Kivas'an' Granada, an' I guess we'd 'a stepped out just as free for San Jose — eh, Beaseley ?' ' Guess we would so, hoss ! But Santa Rosa took all the stiffening out of my neckcloth. Lo'l O lo' I a hundred an eighty Greasers !'

' Wai, some of us surrendered on good terms, an* some made straight tracks for the

* Throughout America, the puma is called 'lion,' and the jaguar, a much more dangerous animal, ' tiger.' It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that all the species of Tropical America differ from those of tsho Old World.

San Carlos, an' some kept down the river. Jem, there, was one of those that made for San Carlos, an* a queer story he'll tell you of his voyage, if you can squeeze it out of his modesty some night. As to whether it's true, I don't give no opinion, but it kinder does one's ears good to hear.'

' Why, did yer fall in with the Guatusos,* Pike ?' asked Vansten laughing.

' That's just what he did,' said Frazer solemnly. ' An' stranger things than Guatusos there is in that wild Frio country.'

' There was five or six of us started together down the river bank, walking through the shallows, an' cutting our way where the water was too deep. Now, I guess I've seen the tropics mostly everywhere. I've travelled the East Indies and the West Indies, an' round about the islands, but never yet did I sot eyes on such a forest as stands round the head waters of the Serebpiqui. The only place that can hold agin ifc for beauty is Ceylon, an' one an' t'other should be put under glass, an' kept for sinful folks to stare at. There's no trees here as on them'Jiills, nn' no such ferns, nor lianas, nor flowers. Where we struck it first on our retreat, the Serebpiqui is a little tumbling brook, all full of purple stones, an' fringed with great leaves an' fern. The water leaps and foams through the bamboo thickets sin' the valleys, so that its spray hangs above it like the spray of breakers on a sand-bar. Overhead, the forest pal ids join their shining tops ; an' big treeferns, crowding to the brink, shake feathery heads all day long to the quick beat of the water. The shallow banks are thick with flowers, the wet moss sparkles like jewels, scrub palms and climbing vines cover the rocks like a hanging carpet. There's the greatest variety of painted leaves there that I ever see, much greater than in Borneo, where they do good trade in such plants. I tell you, sir, the Serebpiqui runs through a fairy land, such as few could pictur 1 , an' I guoss the hardest couldnt't go along that trail without feeling kinder grateful there was so much beauty left on earth. I can't describe them to you, an' no man could — the flowers, an' golden leaves, an' happy sunshine. Jem can run off high-prime gas sometimes, but my father never gave us a chance to learn accomplishments. The minister, says he, may flourish any way, because he daren't reel off his feelings manlike in honest swearing ; but don't yer give us anything of that sort, my son, because, if yer do, I'll apprentice yer to the county newspaper, an' make yer responsible for the weekly poetry. 'We didn't take much pains to keep together, for all was good woodsmen, an' the Serebiqui track was more lonely then than even now, so it was little danger of meeting enemies. Nor was there fear of starving, either, for the fish lay in shoals under every rock, an' all had their rifles an' lots of ball. Empt) r , very empty, as we were, six or seven days should have taken us to the San Juau mouth, so we hung back in twos an' threes, prospecting for gold an' all that. 'At the end of three days from Sauta Eosa, Jed Smith, an' Gregory of Galveston, an' I found ourselves alone. Jed notioned that whatever gold might be in the stream would be found afc the mouth of it, an' we pressed on, thinking to get down first. None of us knew there was any micelle [place of embarkation] at all upon the river ; we thought its banks was uninhabited the whole way down. It wasn't worth while to make a dug-out ; an' besides, the rapids would have been right-down dangerous to such a craft ; so we held on to tho water course, an' went into the woods when needful.

' I can't rightly say where we were about the sixth morning after taking the forest; but on that day we sat to breakfast, of cold monkey an 1 lizards' eggs, just at the head of a thundering rapid, that skirled and whizzed in a manner quite pretty to look at from the bank. I can't help thinking the muelle hag been changed of late, for they tell U3 there's a big rapid just below as it stands now, an' I kinder fancy that's the spot wo chose to breakfast in.'

' The present muelle of the Serebpiqui,' I said, ' has certainly a big rapid just below it. The channel is hard under the left-hand bank, an' there's quite an island of snags in mid-stream.'

' That's the golfired place ! I remember them snags well, all twisted up together like a net, an' holding long gray reeds that twine like rock snakes in the water. We were sitting, as I said, upon a fallen tree that overstood the river some-way. It didn't rest flat, for the broken crown held it up ; in front was a thick curtain of snags and floodrubbish, not solid, but nigh so. Suddintly, as we sat thero— Jed and Gregory smoking an' laughing at one end, while I baited for guapotes at the other — three or four rifles cracked 011 the other bank, an' I heerd the " swish " of a bullet mighty close to my pictur'. 0' course we dropped straight, for, hit or missed, that's allurs the safe thing to do when there's shooting round in which one don't take no interest; but poor Jed and Gregory never rose agin. Gregory fell baekwnvds off the log dead as a parish ghost ; while poor Jed fell on his face into the water, an' plunging about, got swept into the current an' down the rapid.

' I wasn't hurt a mite, but I felt kinder mad ; so I slipfc down beside Gregory's body, got all the rifles into my claws, chose a loophole through the drift, an' waited. Thunder! I seem lo look on that reach now, just as it were while I 'possumed for them murdering Greasers ! The day was deathly still, aa on those levels it mostly is at noontide ; there wasn't a breath stirring in the thick-pressed li-ayes, nor a motion, except where a bough dragged in the racing water. Up the stream an' down, nothing but blue sky, an' gleaming swirls, an' leaves that glittered in the still sunshine. No bird nor beasfc came out in those hours of silent heat. Great fish swam slowly round in the dead watpr by the bank, under shade of rocks an' glossy boughs : one would hnve taken oath they were the 011I3' waking things for miles. I heerd no noise except the beat an' the shrieking of the rapid, an' presently the sharp buzz of flies already clustering round.

' But here an' there, the sun-rays shot through overhanging boughs into deep hollows, where the b.io'c eddy slept an' rotted from Hood to flood. In such a gleam, after ton minutes of ghastly silence, made more stilly by the roaring of the rapid, I stiddintly caught sight of a pallid face, that looked as scared as a Padre's in an earthquake. Then a head was pushed through the leaves, an' a pair of yellow eyes stared across — a green facer! cuss! There's two more of you somewhere, I thought — bound to be ! An' I'll mark evpry mother's son ! So I waited. Presently, a small canoe came pushing out from a whito flowering bush. Three of 'em was in it; an' ihose Greasers made more noise about crossing a brook than all Walkers' army would h;ive ruised in shooting the rapid. But il was all as paddles could do to take 'em over, for the stream was sluicing down like a millrace ; but at last, keeping her bows allurs up, an' working for life, they cot into dead water, an' came towards me larfing.

* OF this mysterious tribe of free Indian?, I shall hope to speak in a future paper.

1 About a yard from shore, two of 'em shipped their paddles, au' the bowman stood up. That was my count. I took the steersmau first, to overset the canoe, an' his forehead I marked as right as a compass. He threw up the paddle, swung over the canoe, an 1 was swept off slick. The other two were not so much in the stream, but before they reached shore I droppod another. The third rifle, which was Jed'a, missed fire. I pulled agin, an' missed agin, an' by that time the Greaser had touched ground, His gaspipe [rifle] had gone with tho canoe, an' he stood lookiug the durnedest fool, that I larfed out. But the cuss began to handle his machete ugly ; an' so, not to waste time, I gave him a "New Orleans slipper between his eyes. The good old bowie whizzed like a Pawnee arrow, and sliced his headpiece up to the 'i/.' ' ' Why not handle him with yer clubbed rifle P asked Vansten.

' Durned good reason for that, Yank ! There's few would stand a chance so agin one of them Costa llican peons with his machete— l'll say that for 'em. It's a weapon I don't make much 'count of, is a clubbed rifle.

' Wai, tho Greaser dropped in his track, an' I had to pull hard to get the old knife out. Then I took his machete an' two or three gold dollars he had about him, an' pitched his body into the stream. Heavens ! how slick it flashed an' rolled through rocks, an' snags, an' dashing water ! After that, I picked up poor Gregory, stretched him on the trunk, piled all the drift around, an' set it afire. I knew 'twas dangerous, for there's keen woodsmen in Costa Hica ; but I couldn't leave an old mate to the turkey-buzzards. When the wood was fairly blazing, I made into the forest, an' sat down to think.

' There wasn't much choice of roads, so I struck out a straight course for the San Juan. Three days I kept steadily northward, an' nothing particular happened ; but after the very first night, I felt there was something on my track. I hadn't seen living man since I left the river ; I wasn't much afeard of Guatusos in them parts, an' more'n that, I knew any Ind'an would have fixed me long since, lint I was sure, though I had sot eyes on nothing nor heerd any sound exactly, I was sure my trail was followed ; we've lived too long among Ind'ans not to know the signs of that knowledge, which is more than eyesight or hearing. How can I say what it is ? But this I tell you— if any man means to do well in the woods, an' to keep his life in, he must have some sense more than eyes or ears to trust to ; an' that sense warned me now. Perhaps I'd seen the waving of the bushes in my track, when no wind stirred in the hollow wood ! perhaps I'd thought to hear the crack of broken sticks as a heavy foot pressed on them ; perhaps, through my shut eyes at night, I'd seen great green lamps glaring on my face, an', wakening in the black stillness, had heerd a stealthy rustle of undergrowth. On the third morning, I said to myself : ' You're tracked by a lion, boy ; there's a lion on your trail at this moment !' An' I turned cold all over. I went round on the back track. It weren't needed to go fur. Within ten yards o' the camp, my footprints of yesterday were hidden by a broad round pad, with a little heap of soil thrown behind.* Last night's trail, too, for dew still lay in the deep hollow. I took the back track for a mile, maybe, thinking as like as not there were two of the varmin. Once or twice, the prints seemed confused an' tangled, as if the beast had gone into the bush, an' come back to roll himself an' paddle all about ; or else it had been a pair of them at play. After half an hour, I turned round, feeling more like a sinner than other men, an' most greatly in want of praying for. ' About a hundred yards from the turn, my eyes suddintly got a sight that stopped me dead like as Ind'an sign on the Prieto — there was new prints atop of the old track, an' turned the other way ! Great thunder ! the varmin was on my trail agin — at that very minute he wad watching me from out of some black bush. I went on after a while, for, yer see, it were nothing worse than I knew already, only more startling like ; but before reaching camp, on throwing a look behind, I saw — thunder! it were an ugly sight — I saw the bushes waving gently along my trail ! It were ugly to see— that's what I thought it, boys. Half an hour I sat by the fire scheming, while the red ' brute glowered at me out of sight, or rolled about with his mate : at last, I drove nay boot into the logs, for no two plans could I hammer out, an' the day was slipping on. First thing wanted were a ' congo,' for the lion likes them noisy baboons above everything. After an hour's tramp — an' you may swear my head was over my shoulder pretty constant — I heerd one of them howl, an' in a very fow minutes a ball was through his head, his throat was sliced, an' the body trailing behind me. The report, I knew, would stop the cowardly beast for a quarter of an hour, an' meanwhile I reached a small glade, some thirty or forty yards across, in the middle of which I threw down my Congo, making a splash of blood all over the soft moss an' many-colored carpet of convolvulus. Then cutting sharp across the trail, but keeping my feet clean, I got behind a tree an* waited. ' ' Why not round beside the track ? What use was the congo ?' I asked.

'You don't suppose ft lion is such a golfired fool as a human ! If I hadn't stopped the eretuv with the crack of niy rifle, bed never have given me time to get far from his sight, an' without the 'tico of that bloodsmell, he'd not have shown on any clearing ; of that you may take oath out loud. • Five minutes after I was stationed, the bushes moved this way an' that, but he was too cunning an' cowardly to shew himself. Now an' agin, I caught sight of a red hide an' palo throat shiftingly ; but at length a breezy gust carried the reek of that congo so strong into his nostrils that he thrust his head right out, and sniffed with his eyes half shut. A pretty-looking beast he were ! But I shot snapping, cut his jug'lar, an' he rolled into Hie open, pretty nigh dead. I was loading again, mighty lively, I tell you, when the varmin stopped struggling, an' broke into a low soft cry that I've heerd limes an' agin, an' allurs with a thump of the heart. It's a sweet sound enough, sir, isn't it? — sweeter than one could have expected from such a throat — but it's been the deathcry of many a stout tit/rero — the last sound he's heerd on airth. I pushed the ball down with a jerk, an' my ramrod snapped ! The lion lifted his beautiful head, all stained with blood an' foam, an' called agin faintly ; then his great green eyes opened an' closed, an' his head fell backwards heavily. I drew my

♦Although the puma is an animal very much Birmller than tho jngiinr, its paws are gonerully us large. Tho only difference, po far as tho author could ever note, between the track of tho one an^l tlio other is a small, very email, heap of earth which tho puma always throws behind each footprint. This peculiarity is not very generally known, except among wood3inen ; and some of our nafcuniliata have expressed doubt about the fact. The author, however, can certify it ; ho has si'vcral times watched the peculiar gait of the puma, and marked the manner in which the earth is thrown up.

machete, an' tried to slink through the bushes ; but as I turned, the cry waa answered, and his mate bounced into the clearing, eyes all aflame like lamps, an' hair bristling from nose to tail. She smelt tho blood, an' lapped it, rolled her mate over, an' dashed about roaring. Ay, that would ha' been a fine sight in a cage ! ' I said to myself. ' Your father's son, Jos Frasei 1 , should have spunk as good as a dirty Ind'an.' Then I drew a long breath, took my bowie in my teeth, wiped the handle of my machete, an' stepped clear of the bushes. She roared like sudden thunder, then crouched closely down with her belly to the ground, and tried to get behind me. I stepped on. She stretched her tail straight out, an' strained down closer. I planted my right foot fast, au' leaned forward. With a roar like tho shout of an earthquake, she sprang up, claws outstretched, an' big mouth gaping an' bloody. I struck fair as an Ind'an tiyrero, an' cleffc her skull like an apple ; but she threw me over, an 1 cut my legs an' shoulders badly before I could push from underneath. It were a near thing, boys! ' That's how I was tracked ou the Serebpiqui, sir. I carried the skins to Greytown, got the reward, au' sold 'era. But such a scare as that is dear at twenty-five dollars !'