HIS HORNS PIERCED THE TAWNY SIDE
The next moment, heavy as he was, he was hurled ten feet in the air, and when he fell it was only to be tossed again. A dozen or twenty times he was thus thrown aloft, although after the first minute he was evidently as dead as he ever could be.
After this the old Jersey appeared to enjoy much in pitching him along the ground to a considerable distance, following up the body as it fell, and sending it on before him as if it had weighed no more than a dead cat.
We were glad to witness this performance, as it occupied the old fellow’s whole attention, and so gave us an opportunity to slip away unnoticed, which we very quickly did.
No grass grew under our feet as we ran over the high ground between us and the house, which, as the plantation was quite large, was nearly a mile distant.
With scarcely breath enough to relate our story, we told it, to the astonishment of Harold’s parents, whose thankfulness for our escape, when they had learned how narrow that escape had been, was inexpressible.
It required a considerable force of men and boys to recover the body of the slain tiger in face of the bull’s threatening demonstrations; but it was nevertheless secured and brought home. It was then found, upon examination, that our charges of buckshot had undoubtedly done the business for the fierce brute, so that he must have been nearly dead when caught upon those stout horns.
“A tiger in the State of Georgia,” said Uncle Hayward; “a true Bengal tiger! Well, I must own that I was wrong; I thought this morning it was only a silly story. Boys, you and the bull have done a great thing for the community!”
“But, oh, the peril!” said Harold’s mother: “suppose we had known it at the moment! It was a double danger.”
“Yes, mother,” replied Harold; “it was double, but it was that very thing which saved us. If we hadn’t waked up the Jersey, the tiger would have had us very soon.”