The Young Hunter of the Natchees
A twelve-year-old boy proves his mettle by taking down a lynx to save his father's hunting dogs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
While Captain J. T. Simmons was working on his place, a mile and a half from the city, in company with his twelve-year-old son and T. L. Bounds, the baying of dogs was heard in the bottom along the Naches. Thinking the dogs had flushed some partridges, young Simmons asked his father for his Winchester. The captain demurred, as the boy had little experience with the rifle, but finally yielded. When the lad reached the scene, he found the dogs had treed a big lynx. The little fellow was startled but took deliberate aim, wounding the 'varmint' in the leg. When the dogs pitched in and began to lose the furious battle, the boy moved up close and put a deadly bullet between the eyes of the lynx. Captain Simmons, in recounting the event, said: 'The young rascal is as proud of his success as he would be if he had killed a bear.'
“The young rascal is as proud of his success as he would be if he had killed a bear.”
While wildlife encounters are less common in urban Yakima today, this story captures the frontier spirit and the local proximity to the rugged Naches River valley, a landscape that remains a defining feature of the region's geography.
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