Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1911 — CAT THAT DID NOT COME BACK [ARTICLE]

CAT THAT DID NOT COME BACK

In Foraging for Hl* Breakfast Tom Ventured Too ffar Into Bruin's Cage and Nine Lives Are Lost In a Twinkling. New York.—This is the story of a cat and a rat and a polar bear. It happened at the Bronx Park zoo. The rat and the polar bear are still alive. But the cat is not. And if you doubt the'tale that follows, most any keeper at the zoo will conduct you -to the bear dens and say: “There is Silver King, the polar bear. I offer him in evidence." Should curiosity, or skepticism, prompt you to Inquire about the cat, thk keeper will tell you that his grave is down under one of the big oak trees near the duck pond. Every one who has visited the zoo recently knows all about Silver King. He's the very first thing to which the keepers call your attention. But the cat and the rat are not so well known. In fact, neither of them really belonged to the zoo at all. They had Just wandered in and acquired squatter’s rights. The. cat was a battle-scarred old male, rHe crept into the reservation one day when no one was looking, and proved himself quite a rat catcher. Had it not been for that, Tom would have been promptly ejected from the zoo. But rats have Jjeoome a pest near some of the animat houses. Tom soon became one of the regular fixtures. He slept in a little fissure in thS rocks to the east of the bear dens. Sometimes the cat would creep through the bars and snatch pieces of bread or meat left by the bears. Tom waxed fat and. sleek from his foraging. But Tom never lost his fondness for rat meat. He preferred to kill them himself, too. One morning recently Tom, the cat, was very hungry. The long rainy days had kept him confined to the cleft in the rock. No rats ever ventured there. But on the''morning in question the sun was shining. Tbm ventured out to hunt for his breakfast. Along the stone wall which forms the base for the rows of iron bars in front of Silver King's den there ap- . pea red a rat, a large, fat one, which looked as though it couldn't run very fast. Tom saw it Creeping along, with his body close to the ground.

Tom drew close, close enough to Bpring. And suddenly, like a catamount launching upon its' prey, Tom hurtled through the air. But the rat saw him just in time, and tumbled off the wall and into the den of Sil-. ver~ King. Hunger had apparently made Tom reckless. Into the bear den he sprang, and skurried across the floor after the hit. And then Silver King took part in the Chhse. The keepers say that probably Silver King only wished to play. But after the cat, which was after the rat, went thp big polar bear. And into the cave of Silver King went the- three animals. A moment passed, and out from the cave ran the rat. The cpt was close behind. Silver King was still bringing up the rear, but gaining fast At the edge of the bear tank the chase ended. One of Silver King's big paws came down squarely upon poor Tom’s back, and Tom’s nine lives ’passed out in a tvfinkling. The rat, of course, escaped. One of the keepers who had witnessed the chase and its tragic ending procured a long pole and fished Tom's body out. And later he buried the cat beneath the tall oak tree.