Of Three Lions BY i H. RIDER HAGGARD | CHAFTGK III.—(CoirriHumo.) “ ‘She wilt be back again presently,’ 'I said; ‘look out, bat for heaven’s sake • don’t fire unless I tell you to.’ "Hardly were the words out of my mouth when back she came, and again passed the ox without striking him. “ ‘What on earth is she doing?’ whis kered Harry. “ ‘Playing with it as a cat does a mouse, I suppose. She will kill it presently.’ “As I spoke, the lioness once more ‘flashed out of the bush, and this time ■ sprung right over the doomed ox. It was an exciting sight to see her clear him in the bright moonlight, as though It were a trick she had been taught. “ ‘1 believe that she has escaped from a circus,’ whispered Harry; ‘It’s jolly to see her jump.’ “I said nothing, but I thought to my-, •self that if it was,. Master Harry did not appreciate the performance, and small blame to him. At; any rate, his teeth were chattering a bit. came a longisn pause ana i 'began to think that she must have gone away, when suddenly she appeared again, and with one mighty bound landed right on to the ox, and struck it a frightful blow with her paw. “Down it went,. and lay on the ground. She put down her wicked looking head, with a fierce growl of. contentment. When she lifted her muzzle again and stood facing us ob liquely, I whispered, ‘Now’s our time, •fire when I do.’ “1 got on her as well as I could, but Harry, instead of waiting for me as I told him, fired before I did, and that of course hurried me. When the smoke cleared, however, I was delighted to see that the lioness was rolling about on the ground behind the body of the ox, which .covered her in such a fashion, however, that tfe could not shoot again to make an end of her. " ‘She’s done for! she’s dead!’ yelled Pharaoh, in exultation; and at that very moment the lioness, with a sort of convulsive rush, half rolled, half, sprung, into the patch of thick bush to the right. I fired after her as she went, but so far as I could see without re sult; indeed the probability is that I missed her clean. At any rate she got i to the bush in safety, and once there, began to make such a diabolical noise as I never heard before. She would whine and shriek, then burst out into perfect volleys of roaring that shook the whole place. “ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we must Just let her roar; to go into that bush after her at night would be madness.’ - “At that moment, to my astonish ment and alarm, there came an answer , ing roar from the direction of the' river, and then another from behind the swell of bush. Evidently there ■ were more lions about. The wounded lioness redoubled her efforts, with the object, I suppose, of summoning the .others to her assistance. At any rate they, came, and quickly too, for within five minutes, peeping through the bushes of our skerm fence, we saw a magnificent lion bounding along toward us, through the tall tamboulln i grass, that ip the moonlight, V was now very like ripening corn.;* On he came in great leaps, and a glorious sight it was to see him. When within fifty yards or so, he stood still in an -open space and roared, and the lioness roared to, and then there came a third roar, and another great black-maned lion stalked majestically up, and joined number two, and really I began to realize what Jim-Jim must have under gone. “ ‘Now, Harry,’ I whispered, ‘what •ever you do, don’t fire, it’s too risky. If •they let us be, let them be.’ "Well, the pair of them marched off to the bush, where the wounded lioness was now roaring double tides, and the whole three of them began to snarl and -grumble away together there. Present ly, however, the lioness ceased roaring, and the two lions came out again, the 'black-maned one first—to prospect, I suppose—and walked to where the car cass of the ox lay, and sniffed at it. "‘Oh, what a shot!’ whispered Harry, who was trembling with excitement. " ‘Yes,’ I said; ‘but don’t fire; they might all of them come for us.’ "Harry said nothing, but whether it was from the natural willfulness of tyouth, or because be was thrown oft his balance by excitement, or from sheer > recklessness, I am sure I can not tell you, never having been able to get a -satisfactory explanation from him; but .at any rate the fact remains, he, with out word or warning, entirely disre garding my exhortations, lifted up his Westley Richards, and fired at the black-maned Hon, and, what is more, ' bit it slightly on the flank. j-vexi seconu mere was a most awful roar from the injured brute. He ^glared around him, and roared with pain for he was sadly stung, and then before I could make up my mind what to do, the great black-maned brute, ■evidently ignorant of the cause of his pain, sprung right at the throat or his companion, to whom he evidently at tributed his misfortune. It was a curl •■ous sight to see the evident astonish ment of the other lion at this most un provoked assault. Over he rolled with an angry roar, and on to him sprang the black-maned demon, and com menced to worry him. This finally ■ awoke the yellow-maned lion to a sense - of the situation, and I am bound to say that hs rose to the occasion in a most effective manner. Somehow or other 'be got to his feet, and, roaring and ■smarting frightfully, closed with his : mighty fee. . And then ensued a scene that absolutely baffles description. You know what a shocking thing it is to see two large dogB. fighting with aban donment. Well, a whole hundred of dogs could not have looked b&lf so ter rible as those two great brutes as they rolled tod roared- and rent. In their rage. It was an awful and a wondorful thing to see the great cats tearing at each other with all the fierce energy of their savage strength, and making the night hideous with their heart-shak ing noise. And the fight was a grand one, too. For some minutes it was Im possible to say which.was getting the best of it, but at last I saw that the black-maned lion, though he was slightly. the: bigger, was failing. I am -inclined to think that the wound in his flank crippled him. Anyway he began to get the worst of it, which served him right, as he was thq aggressor. Still I could not help feeling sorry for him, for he had fought a gallant fight when his antagonist finally got him by the throat, and, struggle and fight as he would, began to shake the life out of him. Over and over they rolled to gether, an awe-inspiring spectacle, but the yellow boy would not loose his hold, and at length poor black-mane ‘ grew faint, his breath came in great snores and seemed to rattle In his nos trils, then he opened his huge moiith, gave the ghost of a roar, quivered, and was ripnri “When he was quite sure that the victory was his own, the yellow-maned lion loosened his grip and sniffed at' his fallen foe. Then he licked the dead lion’s eye, and next, with his fore feet resting on the carcass, sent up his own chant of victory, that went rolling and pealing down the dark ways of the night in all the gathered majesty of sound. And at this point I interfered. Taking a careful sight at the center of his body, in order to give the largest possible margin for error, I fired, and sent a .570 express bullet right through him, and down he dropped dead upon his mighty foe. “At that, fairly satisfied with our per formances, we slept peacefully till dawn, leaving Pharaoh to keep watch in case any more lions Bhould take it into their heads to come our way. “When the sun was fairly up we arose, and very cautiously proceeded— at least Pharaoh and I did, for I would not allow Harry to come—to see if we could see. anything of the wounded lioness. < She had ceased roaring im mediately on the arrival of the two lions, and had not made a sound since, from which we concluded that she was probably dead. I was armed with my express, while Pharaoh, in whose hands a rifle was indeed a dangerous weapon —to his companions—had an ax. On our way we stopped to look at the two dead lions. They were magnificent animals, both of them, but their pelts were entirely spoiled by the terrible mauling they had given to each other, which was a sad pity. In another minute we were following the blood spoor of the wounded lion ess into the bush, where she had taken refuge. This, I need hardly say, we did with the utmost caution; indeed, I for one did not at all like the job, and was only consoled by the reflection that it was necessary and that the bush was not thick. Well, we stood there, keep ing as far from the trees as possible, and poking and speering about, but no lioness could we. gee. " ‘She must have gone away some where to die, Phara'oh,’ I said in Zulu. " ‘Yes, Inkoos’ (chief), he answered, ‘me has certainly gone away.’ “Hardly were the words out of his mouth when I heard a most awful roar, and looking around saw the lioness emerge from the very center of a bush just behind Pharaoh in which she had been curled up. Up she went on to her hind legs, and as she did so I saw that one of her fore paws was. broken near the shoulder, foi it hung limply down. Up she went towering right over Pha raoh's head, as she did so lifting her uninjured paw to strike him down. And then, before I could get my rifle round or do anything to avert the coming catastrophe, the Zulu did a very brave and clever thing. Realis ing his own imminent danger, he bounded to one side, and then, swing ing the heavy ax round his head, brought it right down onto her back, severing the vertebrae and killing her instantaneously. It was wonderful to see her collapse all in a heap like an empty sack. “ ‘My word. Pharaoh,’ I said, ‘that was well done, and none too soon.’ “ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘it was a good stroke, Inkoos. Jim-Jim will sleep bet ter now.’ "Then, calling Harry to us, we ex amined the lioness. She was old, if one might judge from her worn teeth, and not very large, but thickly made, and must have possessed extraordinary vitality to have lived so long, shot as she was; for, in addition to her broken shoulder, my express bullet had blown a great hole in her that one might have put one’s fist into. “Well, that is the story of the death of poor Jim-Jim and how we avenged it, and it is rather interesting in itr way, because of the fight between the two lions, of which I never saw the like in all my experience, and I know some* thing of lions and their ways.” “And how did you get back to Pil grims’ Rest?” I asked hunter Quater main when he had finished his yarn. “Ah, we had a nice Job with that,” he answered. “The second ox died and. so did another, and we had to get on as best we could with the three remain ing ones harnessed unicorn fashion, while we pushed behind. We did about four miles a day, and it took us nearly a month, during the last week of which we pretty well starved.” “I notice," I said, “that most of your trips ended in disaster of some sort or another, and yet you went on making them, which strikes one as a little oueet” “Tea, I dare say; but.than remem ber I rot my living for many years out of bunting. Besides, half the charm of the thing lay lit the dangers and dis asters, though they were terrible enough at the time. Another thing Is, they were not all disastrous. Some time, if you like, t will tell you a story of one which was very -much the re verse, for 1 made four thousand pounds out of It, and saw one of the most ex traordinary sights a hunter evef clapped his eyes on.” • - • REBUILDING NOStS.' Aluminium M > Foundation and How It Is.I'led. ■ In this era of reconstruction through which New York is passing even noses come in for their share of remodeling and rebuilding, says the New York Tribune.. So many people are afflicted' with a disfiguring disease which eats •away the nose and face that “plastic surgery" has felt called on to find means to restore' broken or decayed noses to their original beauty, or even to improve on that. Dr. Robert Weir .was among the first to discover a prac tical solution. He experimented with some success in transplanting bonea of living fowl to the human fade.. One .of his' earlier operations was conduct ed in a stuffy little Harlem fiat. His patient was stretched on the table un der ether; her face was laid open and streaming blood, but the duck, not re ceiving due attention, had escaped un noticed from the assistants “Now, doc tor,” said Dr. Weir to a'dignified par ticipant, “oblige me by half-killln'g that bird and let me have about three inches from its breast bone for thrs girl’s nose.” Amid the grewsome surround ings there were ten minutes of rigorous exercise'in catching the bird and re ducing it to a state of insensibility. Since then he'has dispensed with live birds and has turned his attention to gutta percha, rubber, silver and gold for nose bridges. All these failed be cause electrical action was generated, requiring further operations. Finally, pure aluminum was resorted to with satisfactory results. Now the nqse bone is made of that metal. It has a stout hook at the upper end by which it is secured to the base of the forehead, while the other end is held out from the face by two short legs terminating in sharp spikes which are anchored, in the bone. There is no necessity for ug ly scars, because the operation is par ried on entirely beneath the skin." A long incision is made under the npfier lip above, the teeth, so that the whole flap of the face can be turned back like a mask or an old glove. Then when the metal framework is secured the skin is drawn down again and the nose tis sue is shaped into a Grecian, Roman or pug nose, as desired. Seven years ago Dr. Weir got his first ideas from French publications, but has since made maiiy modifications and Improvements. Other prominent surgeons have followed his example, such as Dr. Abbe, Dr. Powers of Denver and Dr. Knight. The opera tion is comparatively simple and all have succeeded in restoring noses, which, if they are noft of service in distinguishing bad odors from good, are at least beautiful in looking nat< ural. STOLE A STONE WALL. It Surrounded • Cemetery—Lire Flfhee Alio Become Booty. - Two of the most unique cases of thieving on record are being investigat ed in Haverhill, Mass., says the New York Press. One is the stealing of 15, 000 live fish and the other the theft of a big stone wall surrounding the cem etery of the Hebrew Burial association. This is the first instance ever chroni cled of the larceny of’ a atone wall from a graveyard. Last fall Charles Goodrich, constructed an artificial lake on his estate and stocked It with “shin ers” which he Intended to. sell this winter. Yesterday he had the sale and went in search of the fish, but found that they had all gone. The lake was still there, and as there is no outlet there was only one explanation of the mystery. The Hebrew Burial association pur chased twenty acres of land near the Whittier homestead twO years ago. It inclosed the lot with a stone wall. The wall has taken wings Just as mysteri ously as did the fish in the artificial lake. •• *'• The members of the association claim that the stones were taken when the Millvale reservoir was built, and they say that they will bring suit against the water board. The members of the board, however, deny that they touched the. stones at all and say that they got their stone from a lot of land which they purchased. The stolen wall was about half a mile long. It Is estimated that there was nearly 1,000 cords of stone in the wall., Haverhill thieves have certain ly selected strange booty. What have they done with it? Where could they hide it? The folk of Haverhill say that a man who will steal the fence from a graveyard will hesitate at noth* ing. ,A Mmrrlad Man/ Merchant Tailor—Good morning, Mr. Truepay. What can I do for you this morning? Mr. Truepay—I want a suit of clothes. “Yes, sir. John, the tape and book, please.” “Eh? Heady made?” "Yes—a cheap one.” “Cer tainly—certainly. Right this way, please. I hadn't heard of your mar riage.”—New York Weekly. For Fun. Theatergoer (to piofessional claqueur) —Why don’t you applaud this piece? Don’t you think it’s excellent? “Oh, yes, but I am here only for fun to-day.” —Fliegende Blaetter. Major McKinley will be the third Methodist president.—Phlladelphi l Press. PUSHING THE TARIFF THE DINGLEY BILX THE CHIEF , - SUBJECT OF INTEREST. Working Men and Farmer^ Arguing It* Fauage -*-lmporter* . anil . Forelgnara Fighting It—A Great Boon for the. Working People. > v. The only persons who are- expressing dissatisfaction with the new tariff bill.. are the foreigners and Importers. Ger many, Canada, England and other for-' eign countries are scolding about the Dingley blU; so is the Reform Club of New .Yorhi, which Is made up principal ly of importers. The. chief objection. offered to the bill Is that it Is a bill. The people want it to become an act and that very promptly. Capital Awaiting Investment. Millions of capital Is now awaiting the action of Congress on the tariff bill. Its enactment will be a signal for activity among the factories of the cast, and the beet growing sections of the west, In the cotton fields and fac tories of the south, in the manufactur ing establishments of the Mississippi valley and on'the fertile fields of the, Pacific slope. ; Banting* Already Increasing. - One hundred thousand dollars a day Is a neat Sum to add to the earnlngB of the working people of one state in six months' time. 'The Labor- Bureau of Pennsylvania reports. one hundred thousand more men employed in that state today than were so employed prior to the election-of McKinley. This means one hundred thousand dollars a day increased earnings by them, to say. nothing of the Increased wages paid to those who were employed, or working on short time. Multiply this by the number of states or by their propor tionate populations and you get a prac tical demonstration of the imprdve-' meqt going on In business since the election of last November, w)>ich as sured a protective tariff and increase in employment. The Free Coinage Democrat* Depressed. Ex-Candidate Bryan, who has been In Washington the last few days, ad mitted to his friends that the silver developments of the past few months have been very damaging to the cause. Had they occurred In the five months preceding it, the4 collapse of their sil ver proposition would have been much j more complete and crushing than It was. ' Japan, Russia and China, to which they constantly referred as the chief props in support of tbelr silver theories; have all, since the election, announced their desertion of the sil ver standard. This leaves Mexico and South American countries about the only ones now maintaining the Stand ard of the white -metal and several of these are making preparations to go to the gold standard as quickly as pos sible. It was a mean thing on the part of the people of the empire of Japan to let the people of the United States go all through the agonies of the campaign, looking to them as a great silver peo ple, when they had already made up their minds to adopt the gold standard. The latest advices from that country show that the proposition for the adop tion of the gold standard had been un der ' consideration for two years and that' the officials of the nation had practical determined to adopt ft dur ing the very time that t£* people of this countiy were looking Upon t\em as the most ardent advocate/ of silver. , A hint,.as 46d their'plana would have saved much of the worry and speech making in the late election In the United States. Had Importer*. - The importers of the country are mad as so many wet hens. They expected to make millions out of their excessive importations prior to the Anal enact ment of the Dingley bilj, but the re trospective clause introduced at the last moment and passed by the house has upset their plans completely. Their hope of being able to Import hundreds of. milliohs of dollars worth of goods during the discussion of the bill in the senate is gone, and they will not be likely to add materially to the enor mous stocks of goods which' they had already brought in to escape payments of increased rates of duties. The South, for Protection. No tariff bill ever passed in Congress received as many southern votes as did the one which has just passed the house. Twenty-five -republicans, five democrats hnd one populist, from the south, supported the Dlngtey bill in the house, and the other populists from that section declined to vote against it. Protection in, the south has made won derful strides in the last few years and Wijl continue'in the same line. • Factory smoke breeds republicanism. The springing up of factories through out the south has been followed by a growth of protective -sentiment and re ! mbllcan. membership in congress from [ hat section. More than thirty votes rom the south were cast for a protec ive tariff measure in the house and :he southern states had ihjrty-three ■opublican members in last congress, while In no preceding congress had the jarcy been represented by more than naif that number from that section. VVbenDemocrats from North and South Carolina, Alabama. Mississippi, Louis!-, ina and Texas joined with the repub licans in’ supporting protective views and a protective tariff bill, there can remain no doubt of the growth of re publican principles in that section. G. H. WILLIAMS. Prosperity Is Returning.' rresperity cannot be restored to this i ov.ntry in a day, in a year—or per ■ars for several years. To understand -his fully, we should consider the great < Vatrucllonr. v.hich lie'in the pathway r Huso who have undertaken the her culean task of restoring tbe country to its normal conditions. The path way to success in (his effort Is render ed almost impassable by the wreckage of our industries; the arteries of trade and commerce are choked up with for eign and deleterious substances; the very life blood of the nation is poi soned -with .potions', administered by hllen- enemies. .* ■ We stand at the dead line of na tional bankruptcy and general demor alization. True, we have retraced our Bteps, under the guidance of a wise and skillful leader. But it is always easier to descend than tq, ascend a hill. It is a long and tedious road to the summit of Mount Prosperity. '.It was' a good deal easier for the Israelites ' to get Into Egypt than to get out again. So It was a good deal easier to ruin our Industries than It will be to rehabilitate them. Yet we have a Moses who will lead us safely through, the Red Sea, and although the Journey to the promised land may be attend ed with many dangers and hardships,' and though a silver calf may be set up to seduce people away from the true, way, or brazen serpents may be set up to avenge disobedience, our Intrepid leader will smite the rock for the thirs ty, and, if we are guided by the light of faith and intelligence, we shall event ually reach the land of jeorn and wine.—Cleveland World, Japan and' Silvan . In adopting a monetary system which will keep both gold and silver in circulation, Japan has destroyed the frightful proportions of the scare which the advocates of , free stiver coin age had prepared by representing that by being on a silver basis Japan would capture,our markets if we did not adopt sliver monometallism, which Mr.’ Bryan mistakes for bimetallism. A year ago quite a number of people were mystifle4, by the story of the great prosperity of Japanese manufacturers under a silver basis, and it was said that the same, prosperity would come to us if we should legislate so that silver would be the monetary stand ard. .Japan was paying much less wages in silver than was belrig paid in geld in the United States. Under" such conditions there could be no mystery in the statement, th^t .the manufacturers of cotton goods in Japan could make very much more money to each thousand spindles than was be ing made by manufacturers paying more wageB on the gold basis. It was not the mysterious potency of ■ silver which caused manufacturers to thrive in Japan, but the plain fact that in paying wages in stiver they paid In money of half purchase power. The manufacturers who have a market and pay only a quarter as much wages as their competitors will make money where the others will fall. And that was the reason for the prosperity in Japan for the limited number having capital invested In cotton mills. But for the thousands who worked in the mills nothing was said, but people were left to infer that they shared this prosperity when, as a matter of fact, they worked for very low wages and subsisted on rice and ' on otherwise scanty diet. AH this has been changed. Japan has declared for the coinage of both metals on the ratio of 33 to 1. The value of the silver wages of a year ago has been doubled.—Indianapolis Jour nal. . ' ! f : The Dlsglaj • TaVlff. ■" The punctual passage of the Ding- ! ley tariff by a solid republican vote, is something more than mere proof of the excellence of the party dis cipline. It is more than proof of ad mirable party leadership. It is a token of the splendid unity of pur pose of the republican congress men, who, differing, perhaps, as to some details of the Dlngley bill, are one in their loyal approval of it^ great principles and purposes. This absolute unanimity In support of a measure so complicated and so im portant is extraordinary-in the annuls of legislation.—Boston journal. Is the Interests of Honest Manufacture To build up the American manufac ture of woolen goods has been one of the hardest tasks met in all the thirty six years of protection. It is the Judg ment of the ablest and most experi enced men, after many years of only partial success, that there has never been a tariff on woolens which had not weak and vulnerable points. ' A duty of 50 per cent on steel rails cannot be evaded. But-a duty of 10 per cent on many kinds of woolen cloths is of no effect whatever, if the foreign maker can produce what appears to the ordi nary consumer tHC very same cloth, by use of shoddy, at half former cost.. It is the deliberate purpose of the Ding ley bill to make impossible this de structlon of American manufacture by importations of swindling products of shoddy.—New York Tribune. It Gnar