Catching sight of the kneeling youngster, with the muzzle of his rifle still smoking, he plunged toward him.

He took a couple of steps, swayed to one side, moved uncertainly forward again, then stopped, tried to steady himself, and finally went over sideways, like a mountain, crashing the saplings and undergrowth near him, and snapping one of his magnificent tusks into splinters.

He was dead.
When the boys fully comprehended what had taken place, they were not a little alarmed and puzzled, and started home, wondering whether their game was a descendant of the creatures that used to inhabit that section, or whether he was a visitor to these parts.

They had not gone far, however, when they met the attaches of the menagerie and circus to whom they related what had occurred.
The proprietors were relieved on learning the whole truth, for there could be little doubt that the sudden ending of the career of Vladdok was the means of saving more than one person from death.
As for Jack Norton and Billy Wiggins, it was generally conceded that they spoke the truth, when they declared: "Our fathers wouldn't let us go to the circus that afternoon, but I guess we had a bigger circus than any of you all to ourselves." LOST IN THE SOUTH SEA.
Captain William Gooding was commander of the _Tewksbury Sweet_, of Portland, Maine, and was lost in the South Pacific in the spring of 1889.

This fine American bark sailed from New Castle, New South Wales, on the 17th of March, bound for Hong Kong.