The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-12-14

The Wunderlfch house, sho,ring the shot
marks On fence aud IreSI, buggy tracks.
crime from highway robbery to arson or
murder. III 4 policeman is ever seen there
he has either been specially detailed or has
lost his way.
Bert Smith and Edward Welmeny appear
to have been pretty well Drimed with fight
ing whisky when they started out TO wipe
the offending Wunderichs off the face of
the earth. The elder WelImeny has a
daughter of Is years old or whereabouts,
who Is credited with that sort of tmpulsive
spirit which communicates itself like spark
to finder when an inflammable. chiyalr0us
ana ehnlerlc young man Is around. After
executing ghost dance on the balcony of
the Wellmeny homestead the young men
started ont on their errand. armed with
pistol. shotgun and whole waistbelt full
Of cartridges.
The yelling and uproar in the Wellmeny
house had attracted the attention of the
NunderllchS, but they were not quite pre-
pared for the next development in the play,
which, In their case. was evidently meant to
be tragedy aud not a comedy.
1t may here be noted that Mrs. Wunder-
Itch had had the elder Wellmeny arrested
some time previously for vulgar language.
and though the charge was not pressed the
Irritation on WellmeDy's side had by no
means subsided. Tie Wunderiichs are a
solitary. old-fashi0ned quiet couple. The
Nellmenys. on the other hand, love TO shine
in society, and TO them the peace and still
ness Of the lille valley seem TO have repre-
scented a condition to be reformed al all
hazards.
Is was probably on this hypothesis that
Bert Smith and Ed Wellmeny started out to
liyen things up in the vicinity at 10 O'Clock
last Sunday night.
As before remarked, they were well
primed. 80 were the shotgun aud pistol
which they took along. They mounted into
buggy so says WHndeTllch, who saw
them BOTH. gave preliminary war whoop
or yell, and then q pistol shot rang out
sharp and clear on the night air
1t is not difficult thing for an inexpert
marksman to hit house at the distance of
eighty or hundred yards. A light was
burning in the bedroom. where the Wan
derllchs were about retiring TO rest, and
the bullet drilled a neat round hole in the
fence about six feet 10 the right and two
feet below the window. IL il had gone into
the window il would have been liable to
hurt any ono inside so badly that the Coro-
ner would have had a job. Ii was q clean,
well-drilied hole; no splintering or splitting
Of the WOOD. That bullet was good to travel
several hundred yards further.
Apparently the young men who had fred
the shot had no sort of fear that their sport
would be interrupted. They drove right up
to the fence of the Wunderlich house. The
latter Is "a One-story frame building with
three or four cedar trees and rosebushes
just inside the board fence.
There Is sharp fresh clean-eut track in
the grass within foot of the fence, making
very abrupt curve, plainly showing that
after firing one of the shots the young men
wheeled around, drove off and returned.
The fresh interlacing tracks close by cross
each other IN twenty places.
The second pistol shot was evidently fred
10 kneeling position within two or three
feet of the fence, for the wood around the
. -hurpoH ifS
IL was also manfestly intended 10 enter the
bedroom OF the Wnnderliehs.
1t would appear that by this time the
couple became thoroughly alarmed. Mrs.
Wnnderlieh crept off INTO a bed Of rose
bushes thirty or forty feet away scratching
her face severely and nearly dead with
terror. Her husband went 10 the opposite
end OF the house, and, crouehing behind the
fence, plainly saw Bert Smith and Ell Well
meny, who were now armed with shotgun
and were using language that made Wun-
derlich's hair stand on end
Bang! bang! went The gun. The weapon
was at first held close to the fence. as is
evidenced by the large hole torn by the
shot, which, IN this case, acted as solid mass.
wooden hOwer-stand OH the inside had
large holes torn in it as thick as the fist.
and Wunderlich has preserved the stand in
evidence OF the fact that the persons who
fired The gun must have been kuealing or
STOPPING close to the fence: also that the
feet from the fence, for the holes i'm the
fence and the holes in the stand correspond.
The fence is high enough TO reach half
way up the window of the Wunderlich's
sleeping-room. and this seems to have gwen
the young men the idea that better resuite
would be obtained by firing from the buggy
at greater distance and n greater eleva-
ton. That they did this is shown by the
fact that more than twelve feet OF the
space surrounding the window is peppered
thlckly with buckshot, which had scattered
1t was nearly IL O'Clock when the fusiI-
lade ceased.
Exactly what the Wunderlichs suffered
In those two hours is known only to them
selves. The young men would go off for
awhile. possibly to reload, drive back and
biaZe away again.
During one of these intervals Mrs. Wuu.
derlich stole away to the village and got a
friend to turn in an alarm to the Seven
teenth-street police station. There was NO
response I'LL the next evening, when a
policeman went out to the place, collected
ahe evidence. and placed Price and We'll
meny under arrest.
When Wunderlich went outside bis house
next morning one of the first things he
tnmDled over was an empty cartridge lust
outside the fence.
Wunderlich soon collected ANYTHING from
dozen TO a score more, all on the same
SIDE OIL the house and scattered along the
line OF the buggy-tracks. He claims that
Wellmeny's daughter had been around
picking up the eartridge-cases during the
morning.
If this was so, her work was done In vain.
as Wunderlich has quite nice little pile of
ms own collecting. and among them is one
undisebarged cartridge. III the young men
plead, as 1t is said they intend TO do, that
tney were merely firing off the charges in
Their guns for safety after a hunting trim.
there are about thirty or forty cartridges.
three pistol shots and two hours fusiliade
silil 10 be accounted for.
Wnnderlich owns the house he lives in.
lie Is emphatically peaeeabIe man and
built the housa twenty years ago. He was
until recently stevedore, but has had to
quit work through Illness He and his wife
make some sort of a livelihood out of the
pigs and chickens on the little ranch sur
rounding the house.
The elder Weilmeny also lives chiefly off
his pigs and chickens. The younger Well
menyls employed In peighboring iannery.
and there are three daughters; two OF whom
are children.
Mrs. Wunderlich claims that she js CON-
stantly annoyed by the elder daughter and
that the Weiimenys are unpleasant neigh
bors generally.