The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1894-09-14
AN EXPERIMENT IN THlEveRY.
The Greasers Did Not Calculate on tn
PLUMBER Being SO Heavy.

hS oHS"1~h D'o
N Being SO Heavy.
At the time Geronimo was massa.
| creing people for amusement and stir.
ring things up generally along the Dor.
| der of old Mexico and the states l was
with a party of American engineers who
were constructing n branch of the Mex
lean Central railroad not far from the
border and directly in old Geronimo's
territory.
Down there the Indians and the poor.
er class of Mexicans are inveterate
| thieves and will steal anything they
can manage to carry away without be-
ing detected. They will steal a thing
| totally regardless of whether it is of any
| earthly use to them or not.
Our party had missed a quantity Of
| tools, supplies Of railroad iron, ties,
ETC., and could not imagine how the
| thieves could utilize the material unless
| they were building a little railroad fol
their own amusement. Night after
night we placed guards to watch fol
them, but it seemed they always knew
when the guards We're on the lookout
and refused to attempt a foray on those
nights. So we concluded that the cul.
prits were members of the camp and
knew all that was going on. After ar.
irving at that conclusion we made it q
practice to collect all portable property
into convenient groups and guard il
carefully.
In the outfit we had q large steam
pile driver, a heavy piece of machinery
difficult to transport even under the
most favorable circumstances-whicf
we did notdeem necessaryto guard, never
for a moment thinking the thieves
would attempt to make away with it.
But, as subsequent events showed, we
had moderated Mexican acquisitive'
ness.
1t may be well to explain that a pile
driver is a sort of derrick varying il
height from 80 to rs feet. 1t weighs
several tons and is held i'll an upright
position by strong guy topes. This pile
driver was located in advance Of the
camps and probably a quarter Of a mile
from the nearest.
One bright moonlight night the camp
was aroused by an unearthly noise and
q heavy crash, the disturbance seeming
to come from the direction of our pile
driver. We Immediately surmised some
| devilment, knowing, as we did, that the
''greasers'' We're none too friendly tC
clos gringos, " as they called the Ameri'
cans. Four of us hastily arose, bucklet
on our revolvers, and with a winchester
| apiece moved on the enemy. When we
reached q knoll q few rods from ant
overlooking the location of the disturb
ance, we ''limbered up our artillery
and cautiously peered over the knoll,
| expecting TO see a band of Indians OF
''greasers' doing some sort of malicious
work and were fully determined to an
nounce our disapproval with a ho'
broadside from the winchesters. Wha'
we did see when we viewed the scene
of the connection surprised us more
than would have the whistling of a few
bullets around u heads.
The MeXicans had attempted to stea
our pile driver and had brought a team
Of burros to drag it away. They o
course placed the team in the wrong
position, cut the guy ropes and the pill
driver fell squarely across the backs o
the poor little burros, smashing them a
fat as tortillos ~Cpancakes).
After that our pile drivers were SAT,
in Mexico. Chicago Record.