Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1890 — A HARD STRUGGLE. [ARTICLE]

A HARD STRUGGLE.

Saved by an Outlaw Prom an Infuriated Bull. Dodging Behind Trees to Escape the Terrific Charges of the Mad Brute—Felt Sure He Was Doomed—Magnificent Exhibition of Horsemanship. I had ridden out to a ranch says a Texas correspondent to the Atlanta constitution and was returning when I met a Mexican with a broken arm hobbling along the road, who told me that a bull had charged him the day before and flung him into a water hole, breaking his arm and bruising him severely all over.

The Mexican warned me that the bull was doubtless still in the neighborhood and that it would stand me in hand to keep a lookout for him. I had ridden a mile or two when I dismounted to drink of a little running stream I had reached and to eat my lunch. My horse I left standing without taking the precaution of tying him, though without unsaddling him. He was a young mustang, as nervous as a woman, and without any apparent cause that I could discover threw up his head all of a sudden and broke down the valley in a mad gallop, carrying of course, my saddle, with my belt containing my pistols, which I had rather foolishly removed from my waist an hour or two before and hung from the horn of my saddle. 'There was nothing lor it but to follow the horse on foot so off I put in as bad humor as you can imagine, for I was already fatigued by my long ride, and a tramp of perhaps miles was anything but inviting. I trudged on for an hour or two, until my feet were cut and blistered by the sharp rocks, and had sat down to rest near a clump of cottonwood trees, one of great size, and the rest of them mere saplings. At that moment I heard a loud roar and a crash in a bush behind me, and out rushed at a terrific pace a large bull charging straight at me. I had only just time to throw myself to one side flat on the ground as he thundered by me. My next move was to make for the clump of cottonwoods, which I succeeded in reaching just as the bull turned again. My hat had fallen to the earth as I ran, and this the animal now attacked with a ferocity and maddened rage that showed how little mercy would be shown the man when his turn came.

Having torn the hat to pieces with horns and hoofs, and having smelled me out, he commenced a circuit around the tree, stamping, pawing and bellowing frightfully. With, his bloodshot eyes and long, sharp horns he looked like a demon. I was quite unarmed, having by some unlucky chance neglected to put in my knife in leaving home, and my pistols, as I said before, being in my saddle, and I was wearied unto death. The situation was a desperate one, and my only chance consisted in dodging the bull round the tree until he should be tired out, and this was indeed a faint hope, for the animal seemed fresh and warranted to outlast the strength of ten men. The bull charged again and again, sometimes coming against the tree with such force that he fell on his knees, sometimes bending the saplings behind which I stood until his horns almost reached me. There was not a branch of the one large tree low enough for me to seize and climb up, and I had no time in which to scale it between the bull’s charges. How long this awful game of “touch wood” lasted I cannot tell, for after the first excitement of self-preserva-tion passed off weariness again took possession of me, and it required all the instinct and love of life in me to keep me on my feet. Several times the bull left me for a few seconds, pacing suddenly away, bellowing his malignant discontent of my refusal to come forth and be trampled and gored to death, but before 1 could cross to a better position he always came back at full speed. My tongue began to cleave to the roof of my mouth, my eyes grew hot aud misty, my knees trembled under me, while a ringing in my ears warned me that nature was exhausted, and I felt it impossible to hold out until dark.

At length I grew desperate, and determined to make a run for the opposite covert the moment the bull turned from me. I felt sure I was doomed, and thought of it until I actually began to welcome the idea of its ending in any way. The bull seemed to know I was worn out, and grew more rapid and fierce in his charges, but just when I was going to sit down under the great tree and let him do his worst, I heard the rattle of a horse among the rocks above, and a shout that sounded like the voice of an angel. Then came the barking of a dog and the loud reports of a stock whip, but the bull, with his devilish eyes fixed on me never moved. Up came a horseman at full speed, and crack fell the lash on the bull’s black hide, while the blood spurted out in a long streak. The animal turned savagely and charged the horseman, bellowing with astonished rage and pain, but the horse wheeled round just enough to baffle him—no more—and again the lash descended, cutting like a long flexible razor; but the infuriated hull was not to be beaten off with a whip—he charged again and again. But he had met his match, for right and left, as needed, the. wiry Spanish mare turned, sometimes on her hind, sometimes on her fore legs. It was the most magnificant exhibition of equestrianism I ever saw, and I actually forgot my fatigue and exhaustion as I watched it My rescuer now shouted something, leaped from bis horse and strode forward to meet the bull with an open knife between his teeth. As the beast lowered his head to charge, he seemed to cateh him by the horns. There was a struggle, a cloud of dust a stamping like two strong men wrestling. I could not see clearly, but the next moment the bull was on his back, with the cloud welling from his death. The stranger, covered with dust and blood, came up to me then, saying, apparently as unconscious of triumph as if he had been killing a calf in a slaughter-house, “He’s dead

< * - enough now, Bir; he won’t trouble anybody any more.” I walked two or three paces toward the dead beast, when my senses failed me and I fainted. When I came to myself my horse was standing near me, tied to a bush, and my strange rescuer had withdrawn a few feet and was watching me intently. 1 went up to him, and thanking him for the service rendered me inquired the name of him to whom I owed my life. He was an outlaw and a fugitive from justice, but he certainly saved me from a cruel death, and he was the finest horseman I ever saw.