Regina Collegiate Institute - Souvenir Yearbook (Regina, Saskatchewan Canada)

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seemed to bore into my very soul. I was trapped with some wild beast! Perhaps the very one I had set out to destroy! As I realized my plight I cowered into a corner of the pit, moaning. All the answer I received was a snarl of rage and hate, and thc dull thud and scrape of the great, ripping talons, as the beast struck out right and left at the raw earth of the pit's sides. I stared, fascinated, at the eyes g so evil, so cruel, so implacable, I turned my face from them, but their malignant glare seemed to pierce my very skull, turning my brain to fire. Why did he not spring, and put an end to my suffering? It would be so very easy! As I lay there, with the blood dripping from my wound, I prayed for death as I had never prayed for any thing before. I do not know whether or not I became unconscious, but the next event of which I have any remembrance, was of being lifted gently from the pit. Weeks later, when I had recovered from the fever brought on by the shock and exposure, they told me that a search party, lead by the old guide, had heard my delirious cries and had found me crouched at one end of their pit-fall, and, at the other, the body of the black leopard, impaled through the loins by one of the stakes. That is all, said Winslow rising, save that I left the country as soon as' I could wind up my affairs. Since that time I have been a changed man 5 the savour has gone out of life g so saying, he turned on his heel, and entered the grill. As I sat pondering over the strange tale, my friend Wilmington came towards me. Ah! said he, I see old Winslow's been yarning with you, stuffing you too, I'll warrant! I caught him showing you those scars 3 that's just a little way of his with new members 5 whenever he sees one he button-holes him, and feeds him some yarn as to how he came by them! It's a different one every time, too! But, I put in feebly, how did he get them? Oh, answered Wilmington, an operation for gout, or some such ailment. You needn't feel cheap over it. The old boy's an artist at the job, and has taken in many a better man than you or me. -F. ARNOLD, III A. 37

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friend had had the audacity to carry off a child from an outlying hut 5 he must have been hard pressed by hunger to have done such a thing, for gentlemen of his ilk usually have a profound respect for man, and all his ways. In fact, I was extremely sceptical as to its having been the same beast at all, but the child's parents were firm in their assertion that they had been awakened by the child's scream, and had opened their eyes just in time to see a monstrous black shape bound across the com- pound and scale the zareba, or thorn fence, the child dangling from its jaws. You can imagine that, determined as I had been before, I was now doubly desirous of killing the beast, and I set out at dusk for my machan, where a kid had been tethered during the day as a lure for the brute, fully determined to have a shot at him if I had to sit up all night. I was accompanied by my gun- bearer and an old native named M'Bonga, who was to guide us to the machan, and then return to the villagef We wound in and out through the maze of undergrowth in perfect silence, broken only by the occasional snap of a twig under my boot, or the drip of moisture from the leaves overhead. Gradually I became immersed in thought, walking along and mechanically brushing aside the Creepers which obstructed 1ny passage. Suddenly I came to the realization that I was alone! In my abstraction I had not kept to the narrow trail my comf' panions were following, but had wandered off down one of the innumerable game-paths which intersected it. In vain I shouted 5 the sound rolled back from the surrounding wall of verdure as from the bottom of a well. I became panic-stricken, as a man will under strange and terrifying conditions, and commenced wildly to force my way through the tangle of jungle growth. But already it was too dark to see the path beneath my feet 5 the thorns cut my body cruelly, the creeping plants tripped my blundering feet. Anything, I thought, was preferable to spending the night alone, in the 'midst of unknown dangers. At last I came upon a little clearing, formed, perhaps, by the fall of some giant of the forest. With a shout of joy I rushed forward, hoping now to get my bearings from the stars. Suddenly the earth melted under me, and I was precipitated into a pit, such as the natives dig to snare large animals. Luckily for me I did not fall squarely upon any of the stakes with which the bottom of the pit was set, but I bear to this day the mark of one jagged sliver of bamboo which slashed my arm from.wrist to elbow. He pulled back his cuff over his forearm, and disclosed a frightful scar, livid and puckered, seared deep into the flesh. For a moment I lay, stunned by the fall. Then, as my mind cleared, I was aware of a pair of eyes, like glowing coals, which 36

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