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Show THE BOSS MONKEY. How M. Faul DuChalllu Met 111 Flrnl Gorilla. DuChalllu was walking, as was Lit custom, some distance in advanoe ol his companions, ranged in single file, when his ears were saluted by a strange, hitherto, unheard, sound, says Lippincott's Magazine. It riveted his attention at once. Could it be tho noise of some cannibal tribe preparing for combat, or of an elephant disturbed by his approach? Ho cast himself down and with ear pressed to the earth listened breathlessly. Once more the oppressive silence was broken, this time by a sound of snapping timber, loud as a gunshot and then there came crashing to the ground a great branch of a tree so big that he said to himself: him-self: "Goodness! These must be giants!" Another bough was pitched down, and it was plain that if ho cauld not see the enemy, the enemy could see him. Then from somewhere aloft there issued a prolonged, guttural growl full of mischief, a blood-curdling sound never to be forgotten: Cr-r-r-r-r-r! Gr-r-r-r-r-r! He stopped and mado the native signal of danger a peculiar clicking noise of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. He got his rifle in readiness. readi-ness. The bombardment of boughs had now coased; there was absolute silence, save for the thumping of his heart against his ribs. It thumped so loud that he feared it would betray him to the unseen and unknown foe. "Wait a little, Paul! wait a little!" he said to himself. "You are not ready to fight quite yet." Peering into tho twilight around and above him, he was suddenly aware of an , object in his immediate neighborhood. neighbor-hood. A short, hairy, manlike creature, crea-ture, with a black, hideous visage, i fierce, staring eyes under low brows, and enormous mouth, with huge, citnino teeth; this head set on an enormous chest and paunch mounted on short, crooked legs and furnished with a pair of arms long and muscular enough to squeeze a lion to death. This was the being he had come so far to behold; this was tho creature that no white man, unless it was Hanno, 2.000 years ago, had ever seen. -liftf was the gorilla. ' '""A, The brute was near him before he saw it, and now it thumped on its chest and emitted another long-drawn, ter- rifle yell resembling the sound of thunder thun-der in the sky. It advanced; its black lips curled away from its long teeth in a savage snarl. It was not going to wait to bo attacked. It was eager for the fray, and advancing beat its breast with sounds as from a big drum. DuChalllu was alone. He drew his rifle to his shoulder. He said to himself that the nearer the creature came the better would be his chance of giving it a fatal wound. Savage though it looked, it must have a vital part. He waited until its hairy body was less than twice tho length of his rifle from the rifle's muzzle. Then he pulled the trigger, aiming for a spot of the heart. It wa9 a shot upon which a good deal depended for the yo.ing explorer not to mention the gorilla. The smoke hung in the still air, but he saw that he had succeeded. The animal ani-mal lifted its long arms and bent forward, for-ward, uttering groans that were human but full of brutishness. It stumbled forward and fell on its ugly face, and was dead in a few minutes. "For," observed DuChalllu, "it is lucky, though they are so strong, they die very easy." Such was the end of his first gorilla. |