The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-12-23
THE RETIRED BURGLAR.
His Unpleasant Experience in a
Town in Western Pennsylvania.

Town in Western Pennsylvania.
LEuom the New York SUM
"One of my most painful expert
ences. said the retired burglar, Il had
! in a town in western Pennsylvania. In
| the course of my customary preli1ni-
nary walk l had fixed my eye upon d
small but tTim-looking Queen Anne
cottage, which stood upon a, little bit
| of knoll in quite a good-szed lot, with
grass plot all around it. The cellar
windows We're good and high and easy,
and / selected one at the rear of the
house so as to be as far as possible
secure from observation, though that
seemed on such a night an almost I'M
necessary precaution. 1t was one. of
| the darkest nights [ ever knew, and
nobody could have seen You ten feet
off, but then there was the danger of
| being heard, and so it was sensible, Of
course to go in at a rear window. 1t
is always foolish to take AMI unneces-
sary risk.
We'll, I found 1 couldn't unfasten
this window rom the outside, so /
waited for the next thunder clap-there
was a thunder storm coming up, that's
what made it so dark-and then [
broke a hole in the glass and reached
in for the catch. The instant my hand
got through that hole it was grabbed
by a dog that / knew would hold on
till he died. There could be no posi-
BILE doubt about that; the vigor and
dash and power of the grip and the
absolutely firm and rigid hold sIere
unmis taxable With the next fash Of
lightning / saw him, a. white bulldog.
standing on the head of a barrel under
the window with my hand in his
mouth. He'd been roaming around that
Last md IS' Il r1 mo
from the start. He was on the barrel,
no doubt, when l was working at the
window on the outside, and all he
wanted was to have me get in.
1T was bad to have to do it. but I
had to- l couldn't pull away from him
any more than that l could have
pulled my hand out from under a pile
driver So l reached around as we'll
as I could with my left hand and got
my gun, and when the next flash of
lightning came I fired. l knew 1 must
have hit him, too, but not much more
than that, for he didn't let go. He just
shut his teeth together tighter
though I wouldn't have thought he
could do that but he did-till 1 thought
the teeth must come together through
my hand. II makes me vince now just
to think of it. When the next flash
came 1 saw him again. There was
blood trickling down the side of his
head from where I'd hit him, but his
teeth were set in a hold that L knew
couldn't have broken with a Jimmy.
There are times when circums stances
are agin a man, and this was one of
em.
Il could hear EN- in the house al
ready. They'd heard the pistol, as I
knew they would, and they were COM
ing. The door at the head of the cell
lar stairs opened, and two young men
with light came tumbling down.
They saw the dog standing on the
barrel with my hand in his mouth and
my arm running out through the win
dow. Well, one of them came out for
me, and I was easy, dead easy; he tied
me up without any more trouble than
if I'd been a bundle rags, and the
man inside got the dog off somehow;
don't know how. Then they took
me into the house and sent for a doc
tor, and I needed one; and then they
sent me to hospital to stay until I
was tried. He cost me three years and
CT months