Show ENCOUNTER WITH A CALIFORNIA LION A Narrow Escape From One of These Ferocious Beasts I The Alpine Cal Argus says On Wednesday Wed-nesday of last week D R Hawkins had a narrow escape from death in an encounter with a California lion He was returning to his place on the road between here and Woodfords from a sheepcamp near Hawkins peak having been to see the owner on business When coming through a narrow canyon thickly covered with underbrush he heard a slight rustling in the bushes as if caused by quail Previous Previ-ous to this he had noticed the footprint of some large animal in the path and I being on the lookout for the animal j itself he quickly looked in the direction II di-rection from whence the noise proceeded pro-ceeded Imagine his surprise on seeing a huge California lion creeping stealthily upon him and not more than eighty yards distant With wonderful presence I of mind Mr Hawkins eyed the animal steadily and shouted aloud to it This I intimidated the t lion and it stopped suddenly sud-denly to watch its intended victim For a moment Mr Hawkins took his gaze off the animal when it again began to approach ap-proach him but was haled as before > Feeling that his situation was becoming I j critical Mr Hawkins sprang upon a log j that was close by and removing his jumper while watching the lion all the time he began to wave it about furiously and shout at the top of his I voice Such actions served to keep the I animal at bay actous it seemed not inclined j to be thus robbed of its prey for it still remained about seventy yards distant glaring at Mr Hawkins He had a revolver re-volver with him but refrained from i shooting the animal fearing that he might only inflict a wound that would madden it but he now fired one shot over the animal which frightened it and it bounded away into the bushes Mr Hawkins came down from thelog and did not linger long in the vicinity He describes I de-scribes the animal as being one of unusual un-usual size as it stood about three feet j hitrh He thinks that it was an old lion hih from its grayish color II I |