Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1910 — A WAKING NIGHTMARE. [ARTICLE]

A WAKING NIGHTMARE.

A chance visitor to a Chinese timber camp has'related, in Chambers’ Journal, an extraordinary adventure with a crocodile, In whlqh the crocodile came very near having the best of It. "Arriving boat at th) little jetty or landing place, I was astonished to find Grabam, the white man In charge df the camp, lying on a rattan couch within a few yards of the bank, with a heavy express rifle across his knees, gazing Intently at a rough pagar, or fence, erected In the stream. "Throwing myself down near him in the welcome shade, I learned the following story: Two nights before Graham was sleeping peacefully In his little palmleaf house, In a clearing about twenty yards from the river bank, when his dog began to growl, and refused to be silenced. / 1 "Graham turned out and walked round the hut to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, but setng nothing, addressed himself to the dog, In his usual vigorous sailing ship language, and retired to bed again. "Five minutes later he was once more aroused by a yelp from the dog, and this time, really annoyed, he seized a stick and sallied forth to inflict punishment on the disturber of his dreams. Suddenly a dark form gilded Bwlftly from the shadows, and Graham felt himself seized by the right knee as in a vise. “Stooping to free himself, he found he was In the grip of a large crocodile, whose teeth were firmly embedded in the fleßh. “Backward and forward the struggle swayed—tile crocodile striving to pull Its detlned victm to the water’s edge, and Graham, hampered as he was by hs Imprisoned leg, fighting for his life to reach higher ground. At last the beast, hurling Its victim to the ground with a shake of its powerful tall, began to drag him swiftly toward the wator. "Poor Graham, feeling, as he expressed it, that It was ‘all over, bar the shouting,’ determined to make one last effort for his life, and taking advantage of a momentary halt as the brute was steering pust a tree stump, he sat. up and succeeded In getting both hlB thumbs Into the reptile’s eyesockets —the only vulnerable part of a crocodile's head. "The rest of the story Is, perhaps, best told In Graham's own words, or as nearly as circumstances will permit: “ ‘As soon as I gits my thumbs made fast In 'ls eyes, 'e opfens 'ls piouth to shout, un* lets go my leg. Then, first thing next mornln,’ the coolies lays ’ls breakfast for 'lm, as you see, an’ I gets Into this chair, an’ 'ere I stays, if It’s a month.’ “Vainly I tried to porsaudo him to come away with me to the next station and see a doctor. I argued with him, I implored him, but It was absolutely useless. He refused to move from that chair till he had bagged his crocodile, and I was at last obliged to leave him, having dressed his leg, and exhausted every known means of persuasion short of brute Vorce. “I met him again a week later In a hospital bed. suffering severely, put quite happy in the knowledge that the bones of that crocodile were bleaching In the sun outside his house."