Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1891 — TREEING A WILDCAT. [ARTICLE]

TREEING A WILDCAT.

A Man Who Has Lost in Looks but Gained in Wiedom. John Dering, a young Ohio farmer who recently came to Texas and settled in Angelina county, was a pretty good nimrod before he came, but he knows more about hunting wildcats than he did, says a Lufkin (Tex.) correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-. Democrat. One day last week he and one of his neighbors, Anson Brown, were at work on a fence at the back of . his fields, when they heard the dogs running something in the bottom not far away, and it was not long before the excited bay of the hounds announced that they had their game treed. With the spirit of born hunters, both men dropped their work and went over to see what it was. They found the hounds leaping and barking around a small sweetgum about twenty feet high, and crouched among the branches near the top was a large wildcat, looking about as vicious as a wildcat can. Neither of them had a gun, and and it was a long distance to the house. Brown proposed to go for a gun, but Dering objected. ‘ I’ll tell you what well do,” he said. “I’ll tie my knife to a pole and climb the tree and punch him out and let the dogs catch him.” In vain Brown warned and protested. Dering laughed at him for being afraid of a poor little wildcat that he could manage with one hand, so the program was carried out —that is, partially. The knife, a good, longbladed one, was tied firmly to a pole about five feet long and Dering took off his shoes and started up the tree, telling Brown to “stand from under, as the wildcat might fall on you.” As he climbed he noticed that the cat was watching his motions with great disfavor, and was snarling and showing its teeth as he came nearer. He was not afraid, however. He went ptill higher, and bringing his pole into position gave the animal a stab ( that brought the blood. It also something else that was not on the program. The cat was expected to jump or fall from the tree and be instantly torn in pieces by the dogs. Instead it C&me down the tree like a flash, using Dering as a kind of ladder to come down on and scratching him in a hundred places at once, and when it was about four feet belov r him it stopped and looked up as though it were inquiring if he wanted anything more.

i Now he was in a fix! Up a tree ,with a wildcat, and a very bad tempered one, too, between him and the f round. Brown shouted to him to eep still, but the baying of the dogs and the growling of the cat drowned the sound of his voice. Dering turned his pole, bringing the knife downward, and made another frantic effort to dislodge the vicious animal. Again the result was not according to programme. The cat ran swiftly up the tree, running over Dering again and sinking its terrible claws wherever it touched. In an instant ■it was back at its old place at the top of the tree. Dering had had enough. He threw his pole off at one side and started earthward with all possible haste, but the cat, thinking he was about to attack it again, possibly, sprang at him and landed square on his shoulders. The effect was immediate. Dering lost his hold and they went crashing down through the branches together and were immediately turned into a wild chaos of cat and dogs and man rolling and tumbling over the ground in the most indescribable confusion. Brown had the pole and knife and was running around the scene of combat trying to kill or disable the cat, but could do nothing without hurting Dering. Finally Brown’s Juno, a very valuable dog, finished the fight and killed the cat, but not until it had killed Hector, Juno’s mate, and severely wounded two others. As for Dering, he crawled out of the melee witn a suit of clothes in ribbons and bleeding from head to foot, but none of his wounds were very serious. He says himself that he ain’t as pretty as he was before, but he’s “along sight smarter.”