The hunter soon noticed that the gun-barrel began to swell. He watched the gun until it swelled so big it scared him, and in terror he fled over the prairie and never went near the spot again. Years afterward miners prospecting for mineral found an old cannon shaped like a musket-barrel. It was the old gun, grown to be a foot in diameter.--_Correspondence in Chicago Inter-Ocean._ DISCRIMINATING SPARROWS. An Atchison man planted lettuce, but as fast as it came through the ground the English sparrows ate it off. He finally got a few small flags and stuck them in the lettuce-bed, and not a sparrow will consent to touch that lettuce as long as Old Glory floats over it.--_Atchison (Kansas) Globe._ A GUN'S SELF-SACRIFICE. Not long ago an ex-Governor of Michigan, a Cleveland capitalist, and several friends were in the big woods near Turtle Lake, guided by Sam Sampson, a famous hunter and trapper. Sam possesses a gun with a barrel five feet long, but once, according to his story, he had a still longer one. "It was a wonderful gun," he said to the ex-Governor. "I could kill a b'ar as fur off as I could see 'im, an' that gun was as knowing as a man. If it hadn't been fur that, it would never ha' busted!" "How did you break it?" asked one of the hunters. "I strained it t' death," said the old guide soberly. "I was out hunting one day when I seen a buck and seven does a-standin' close onto me. I pulled up old Beetle--that's what I called th' gun--and was jest goin' t' let go when I heard an awful funny noise over my head. "I looked up 'n' there was more'n ten million wild geese a-sailin' over me. There I was in a predicament. I wanted th' geese 'n' I wanted th' deer. "At last I aimed at th' geese an' let sliver. Beetle must ha' knowed I wanted both, fur that was th' end of the old gun. The strain on her was too much, an' both barrels busted. "Th' shot in one of 'em killed the buck, th' shot in th' other killed ten geese, and when Beetle died she kicked so hard I was knocked into a crick. But when I come out my bootlegs was full o' fish. I ain't never seen another sech gun as Beetle."--_Lippincott's Magazine._ A POWERFUL SALVE. A man in Nebraska has invented a new powerful double-acting salve which shows powers never before exhibited by salves of any kind. The inventor accidentally cut off the tail of a tame wolf, and, immediately applying some of the salve to the stump, a new tail grew out. Then picking up the old tail, he applied some of the salve to the raw end of that, and a wolf grew out; but he was a wild wolf, and had to be shot.--_Chicago Tribune._ HOW THE PACK WAS PACKED. A red-faced man was holding the attention of a little group with some wonderful recitals.