The Jasper Weekly Courier

Battling With an Octopus.

Hon. Edward Eddy is, according to all reports, having a grand time upon his Eastern trip. Last Sunday he joined the immense crowd that was en route to Coney Island, and ere long it became noised around that there was in the party the champion swimmer of Colorado. It was a proud moment for Mr. Eddy, but perhaps not prouder than that in which, attired in his yellow bathing-suit, he issued from the bath-house and walked majestically down the pebbly beach toward the raging surf. With a wild snort, Mr. Eddy plunged into the seething billows, and at once commenced a series of antics and pranks that were absolutely bewildering. He was just about to execute that acrobatic aria whereby his head and his heels would change places, when he felt something sharp and slimy and cold seize him by his left big toe and begin pulling him out into deeper water. Mr. Eddy gave a kick in the hope of shaking off his unknown assailant, but the lifting and pulling continued—in fact, the unknown assailant refused to be shaken off. The awful truth then flashed upon Mr. Eddy that he had been attacked by an octopus. The octopus is the most ravenous and cruel of natural monsters. It coils about its prey, crushes his bones, sucks the juices from the mangled mass of pulp, and finally leaves the dry and quivering corpse in purple shreds for the fishes to nibble at and the tides to toss hither and thither until no remnant remains. All this horrifying truth passed through Mr. Eddy's mind with the velocity of an electric current. Mr. Eddy is a strong man, and when we say he struggled fiercely to regain the surface of the sea, we would have the reader duly impressed with the magnitude of that struggle. The octopus pulled hard, but with Mr. Eddy it was a case of life and death, and it was entirely to Mr. Eddy's credit that he pulled a trifle harder than the octopus.

While thus battling Mr. Eddy was again drawn under the water and he then thought his last hour had come. His past life passed like a momentary panorama before his mind, but there was nothing in it to occasion him remorse. Should he suffer himself to be carried off and devoured by a dirty, soulless octopus, an inappreciative, plebeian cuttlefish? No, he would die rather than be slain by such an ignoble reptile! Yet he felt he was growing weaker and weaker, an awful chilliness swept up and down his veins and his brain seemed to reel. He made another attempt to rise to the surface. The octopus clung to him like grim death. "Help! help! help!" shrieked Mr. Eddy once more, and then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Mr. Eddy was lying in a life-boat when he came to his senses, and strong men were chafing his benumbed limbs and pouring brandy down his throat.

"Thank heaven, I am saved!" he murmured. "But where is the octopus?"

"There," said the Captain of the life-boat, pointing to the insatiate monster that writhed in the agonies of death near the hawser mainsail of the larboard watch.

Mr. Eddy looked at the hideous creature. It was a soft-shell crab. -Denver Tribune.