Schoolma'am Gets $100 for Slaying Five Lions

1919

Pretty Girl Did Not Know How to Load Gun Three Years Ago.

REDDING, Cal. — Miss Hazel Hightower, teacher of the Lone Pine School, is adding to her fame as a modern Diana. Miss Hightower called on the county clerk when she visited town the other day and was paid another $100, the bounty on five mountain lions she killed near her school.

Miss Hightower is making a specialty, out of school hours, as a lion hunter — or huntress. During the three years she has taught the Lone Pine school she has killed over a dozen mountain lions. The State of California pays a bounty of $20 for each lion killed and Miss Hightower, who says she expects soon to return to Chicago and get her aged mother to come to live with her, is putting by quite a "nest egg."

The pretty little school teacher did not know how to load a gun, let alone shoot it, when she came to this county, three years ago. A cowboy, who could neither read nor write, decided to go to school. He learned to read and write and Miss Hightower learned from him how to shoot. She can handle a revolver as well as a rifle. With a shotgun she is said to be hard to beat.