Cherry County independent. (Valentine, Cherry Co., Neb.) 18??-1896, 1892-12-22
SOMEWHAT STRANGE.
ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF
EVERY DAY LIFE.
Queer Facts and Thrilling Adven-
lures Which Show That Truth is
Stranger Than Fiction.

gtACOI ahN
lures Which Show That Truth is
Stranger Than Fiction.
A BEAR hanging by his paws from the
crotch of Il large oak tree in the woods
on Nettle Ridge near Scranton, Penn,
scared Ora Becker's spaniel Topsy half
to death at sunrise or a recent Monday
morning, Becker was on his way to
Racket Creek to hunt grouse, and Topsy
had run ahead of him so far in the woods
that she was out of sight when she begun
to yclp furiousIy and canter toward him.
He made her stop her noise when she
reached him, and then he heard a bear
believing and bawling some distance to
the south. Becker cooked his gun and
hurried toward the place, but Topsy was
so badly frightened that she wouldn't
accompany him. The bear had both
paws in the jaws of a trap twenty-three
feet from the ground, and he was dig
ging into the bark with his hind claws
and doing his utmost to keep his weight
from pulling down OF his imprisoned
paws. He yelled and suarlcd with pain
as he climbed and twitched, but the trap
was fastened to a limb with a log chain,
and the bear stood no chance at all of
yanking himself loose. Becker had a
charge of buckshot for wildcats in one
of his barrels, and he put an end to the
bears suffering by shooting him in the
head. Then he got Topsy and started
for the valley to find out who owned the
trap. 1t belonged to Edgar and Amasa
Morehouse, who set it in the crotch of
the oak tree Oh Sunday and daubed it
over with two pounds of honey. There
was a colony of wild bees in the hollow
trunk, and the Morehouse brothers dis
covered that a bear had been clawing and
biting the wood where the bees went in
and out. They made up their minds
that the surest way to get the four-fOoted
lover of sweets was to bait the trap with
honey and fasten it in the crotch of the
tree, but they didn't expect to capture
him so soon, and so they didn't 60 to
look at the trap the next morning. The
bear weighed 313 pounds, and the More
house boys gave Becker one-half of the
carcass for shooting him: Amasa brought
the skin to Scranton and got $24 for it.
Mrs. JAMES HINCKLEY of Walnut
Hollow. Conn, had an encounter with a
hen hawk recently that nearly caused
her death. Mrs. Hinckley is a widow,
and manages a farm with the assistance
of her only child, a 15-year-old girl.
While she was throwing corr to the
fowls an immense hawk swooped down
and caught a hen in its talons. Without
experimenting the danger to herself, Mrs.
Hinckley picked up a stone and threw it
at the hawk. The missile struck the
bird fairly and seemed to madden it, for
it flew at the woman. Mrs. Hinckley
WIS unable to get hold of anything with
which to defend herself. With the idea
of attracting some one to her assistance,
she screamed at the top of her voice, but
her daughter had gone on an errand
more than a mile distant, and her cries
were unheard. The hawks anger was
apparently increased by the woman's
cries. 1t aimed to get at the woman's
face, which she protected with her hands
and arms. From her arms and Shout
ders her dress was torn to shreds, and
the flesh was lacerated so badly that her
clothing was saturated with blood. For
twenty minutes the bird fought the
woman all over the yard until she fell in
a f%ainting condition. She would proba-
bly, have been killed by the bird had not
her daughter arrived just as she fell.
The girl is vigorous and fearless. TAX
ing in the situation promptly, she secured
a piece of heavy log chain that hung on
the fence. The hawk turned it's atten-
ton to the girl, but it soon got a blow
across the back with the chain that rem
dered one of its wings useless, and it
then became an easy victim for the girl.
The hawk was one of the largest ever
killed hereabouts. 1t measured five feet
two inches across its wings from tip to
tip, and weighed thirteen pounds.
A TALE of piracy comes from the South
Seas that sounds like a romance of the
middle ages. Two brothers, Rodiques,
highly educated and polished men, who,
for some crime, had been committed to
the penal settlements of New Caledonia,
way into the South Pacific they managed
to get into the good graces of the natives
and foreigners there. They succeeded
in getting possession of the yacht of the
native Tahitian King, a very fast schoon-
er, and manning her with a crew of two
Europeans and five natives, they loaded
her with goods and sailed ostensibly on
a trading voyage. When they were one
week at sea they gave the cook a bottle
of %strychnine, and by promising to divide
the spoils with him, and threatening his
life in case of refusal, persuaded him to
put the poison into the food of the crew.
While the unhappy victims were rolling
on the deck in agony the Rodiques sat
smoking and enjoying their tortures, and
finally threw them to the sharks that
swarmed around the vessel and laughed
to see them devoured. The vessel was
then taken to another island, where a
crew was engaged, and they set out to
dispose of the cargo. Finally the cook
demanded his share of the profits. He
was refused and given to understand that
he was their slave and must not leave the
vessel. Finally they put into Manila,
where the cook managed to get ashore
and betrayed the pirates to the author
tiles. They were speedily arrested and
decapitated ON the cooks evidence, and
he was executed at the same time as
particeps criminis.
EtONE IF tho ooo1act actions evar oh |