The Arizona sentinel., 1888-10-20

in girt of the stable, and by mean:
 of piece of clOthesline I drew the
 other end back until the wood would
 stand no more. In front of this bow
 or sweep I rigged a cord running
 across the vestibule. It ran up 6
 partition and then down to the end oi
 the sweep, where rigged a catch.
 about four feet inside the door and
 across the way to the stalls. The cord
 ran across knee high, and moderate
 pressure against it pulled down the
 catch and let the DOW spring back,
 This bow was arranged at height ot
 five feet from the floor, and, after a
 few experiments, 1 was satisfied that
 it would work all right. From the
 end of the bow, as it was bent back,
 rama string over the hen-house and pig
 pen to my chamber window, two hun l dred feet away. 1 there fastened it to a
 bell, and ring of the bell would mean
 that the bow had been sprung. The hired man slept near by, and both of
 us had firearms. My father, who
 drove home each night, was quite taken
 with the invention, and was to turn
 out with us at the alarm.
 Four nights passed without an alarm.
 On the fifth night it was dark and
 rainy, and felt so sure that some body would come that l did not undress.
 Neither did the hired man. We sat
 reading, when, at a quarter to twelve,
 the bell suddenly rang and lifted us
 off our chairs. We seized our guns,
 ran down and awoke father, lighted the lantern, and in four or five min utes the three of us were at the barn. The stable door was wide open, and on the ground outside was the body of man. He had picked the locks and entered, and he had struck the cord and sprung the sweep. It had caught his throat, and he was as dead as herring. He was man of about thirty, well dressed, and had about sixty dollars in his wallet. From let ters found on him there was no doubt that he was one of the agents of an or ganized gang. Indeed, there were two of them. The other sat in buggy in the road, and as we came out he drove off. No one could identify the dead man, and, after an inquest, he was buried in corner of the village grave yard.
 The papers had a good deal to say about the adventure, and of course gave away my invention. The next man who came would be informed, and would take care to avoid it. I must, therefore, have recourse to something else. 1 sent off to St. Louis for bear trap, and as soon as it arrived we planted if in front of the stable door, It was a monster trap, intended to hold any thing which got its foot between the jaws, and we had to use levers to bear down the springs. Not one of our neighbors nor one of the day workers on the farm knew of the arrival of this trap; but all knew that the hickory spring had been done away with in the stable. We intended to believe that the one lesson would keep the fellows away for months to come. One day, about three weeks after the burial of the hOrse-thief, man who had come along and hired to us to dig a ditch to drain pond made an excuse to visit the horse barn. was asleep at the time; but the hired man reported that his actions were suspicious. He proba- ply wanted to see if any further pit falls had been prepared, and he was doubtless gratified when he found the way to the gray horses clear of danger
 One of the jaws of the trap when set was toward the house. 1 fastened the bell string to this, and whenever the jaws sprang the bell would sound an alarm as before. The ditch digger slept in room on the other side of the house, and we did not set the trap until he was in bed. On the third day after his inspection of the stables, he an- nounced that he must go to the village in the evening to make some purchases. We set the trap at nine o'clock and at half-past ten the bell rang. We were waiting for it and we were out in two or three minutes. The bear trap had its victim, and the victim was our ditch digger. Of all the bowling. yelling, cursing and praying you ever heard mixed together thls fellows took the cake. He was caught by the right leg, and such was the pain that he was almost crazy. He | had unlocked one of the big padlocks | on the door, and had a bunch of about fifty keys with him. The sudden sur | prise and the pain broke him in two, | and even before we got him out of the | trap he confessed that he came to work | for us with the sole idea of stealing the | gray horses. He was sent to jail, and | when his trial came on he went to | prison for three years. That was not | his full punishment, however. His leg was so injured in the trap that it had to be amputated to save his life.
 The papers gave my bear-trap away, as matter of course, and I must now look for some other defense. The | thieves would hereafter keep clear of the stable door. October had now come, and the long nights were the glory of the horse-thief. There was an underground stable to the horse barn, and the doors of this were never locked, as we were not afraid of | our COWS being taken. The only doors to the barn proper were pair of big doors and the stable door. The big doors were so well fastened on the in-