Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1891 — Brave Boy. [ARTICLE]

Brave Boy.

Somo years ago, says the author of “Big Game of North Amoriea,” three children who lived near Olympia, Washington, were returning from school, when Walter, the eldest, a boy of 12, noticed what he thought to be a largo yellow dog trotting in the road behind them. They paid no attention to It, as large mongrel dogs of this color abound everywhere In tho vicinity of Indian camps, but Went playing leisurely along. Suddenly tho youngest, a chubby chap of 6, who was behind his brothers, came running to tho front, and a moment later tho animal, seen now to be a cougar, sprang over the heads of tho two astonished boys, seized the little fellow in his mouth* and with a spring vanished in the bushes.

The elder brother did not stop to deliberate. Ho had for a weapon only an empty bottle, in which he had carried milk for his dinner, and with this he rushed into the bushes. His little brother was lying prostrato, grasping a small tree with both hands, and holding on with the strength of ddspair, while the cougar, his fangs luckily imbedded only in tho child’s clothing, was trying to break this death-liko grip. With a scream, Walter threw himself on the animal, beat it over the head with the bottle until the glass was shattered in fragments, and then, with the ragged edges of the bottle's neck, he endeavored to cut out the cougar’s eyes. At last the cougar, with a yell of rage*, dropped his hold on the child and ran up a tree near at hand, whilo the heroic boy, lifting his brother in his arms, carried him into the road, and fell fainting upon him. Meanwhile tho other brother had fled screaming up the road, and fortunately met two men who had been chopping near by. As soon as ho had told the cause of his fright, they rushed on, to find tho little hero senseless, still tightly grasping the neck of the broken, bottle. The cougar’s victim was too much horrified to speak, but pointed to the savage beast, lying on a limb in full view. One of the men had a pistol, aud with a few shots the animal was killed.