STORIES OF LEAPS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8788, 16 April 1907, Page 3

STORIES OF LEAPS.

Tlie most surprising jump made in Ireland was one achieved by the late Empress of Austria. After a desperate chase a fox leapt the wall of Mayuooth College, where the students were meditatively pacing to and fro, deep in contemplation. As the fox scurried across the ground, the young clericals, it is said, were about to take up the chase themselves, when a beautiful woman, superbly mounted, .cleared the wall in pursuit of the quarry. It was the Empress. Dr. Walsh, the present Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, received his unexpected guest with gracious courtesy. The chase had taken her through deep water, aud her wet cliugiug garments suggested the desirability of a change. But there was not a shred of female attire at j Mayuooth College. They got out of j the* difficulty by the Empress throwing over her 'shoulders au academical gown helougiug to Dr. Walsh, ' aud iu this’shc rode homo after a pleasant chat with the president aud professors. In exchange for her welcome wrap the Empress pressed upon the future archbishop a beautiful diamond ring. Nor did that end her expression of gratitude. Upon her return to Austria she sent to the college a superb statuette iu solid silver, of St. George and the dragon, and for Dr. Walsh vestments of silk aud gold worked with shamrocks in green silk. The best story of a horse’s jump which comes to mind is that of a Californian cowboy. He was taking steers to Leadville and had camped for the night on Boar River, near its junction with the Little Snake. In the middle of the night some thing occurred to stampede the cattle. The man mounted his broncho aud rode hither and thither on the flank of the herd until .their fright had died away. Four or five times the rider felt his horse gr\o tremendous leaps, and with daybreak he discovered the cause. The cattle had climbed on to a level plateau, which is intersected by a canyon four miles long aud from 1500 | to 2000 ft. deep. Its walls incline

towards each other at the top, where the distance is 15ft. or 20ft. In riding, the man had kept the steers circling about this plateau. A dozen of them, ho found, had fallen down the canyon and been killed. Hoof marks showed him' that the great jumps made hy his horse were occasioned by the animal’s clearing the canyon each time it came to the taking off point.