Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1896-10-01
TWO ON A STRING.
"A story Told by New York Drummer
frnr

AoAU Oy u New YORK drummer
from Mexico.
Last April [ was down in Mexico
sag a New York travelling salesman to
Guar reporter. ION a business trip, and
one night my partner and / had to re-
nam over in Il small place about fifty
liilies out of Mexico City. Itwasn't such
a PAD place. either, but the landlord of
Inc motel told us that thieves We're plen-
~ ana II they were cornered they might
SUCK their knives into people. Our
room IN the little tavern was a kind of
d summer house affair, out in the yard,
win door on each of two sides, and
was only few feet up from the ground
on KIND Of platform veranda. We
ilad several hundred dollars which we
mad collected, and the safest place we
could put 1t was in our satchels in our
room.
!, For wonder the doors had locks on
tnem, but the upper part of the door was
made in Venetian shutter style, and
man with long arm could by stretching
probably reach the lock. We weren't
very much afraid. and merely locked the
doors without noticing the shutter part
at all. Besides it was dark when we
Went 10 bed, as we didn't want "a light
TO attract tract the insects, We slept with
streaks of dawn. and then we were
awakened by queer noise at the doors.
we suspected thieves at once, and as
quiet as mice we slipped out. OF bed and
began to reconnoiter. When l got to my
door, It kind of gave me the creeDs to
see dirty yellow hand thrust through
the shutter and stretching itself down
ward toward the lock, and | was tempt
ed to yell and scare the marauder away.
However, | kept my nerve, and in sec
ond or two II was strangely fascinating
to watch the efforts of that hand to
reach the lock. My partner was having
Of q
thieves We're evidently intending to take
us 'a-comin' an agwine.'
we stood irresolute for a minute, and
then my partner made a sign to me to
hand him an old lariat hanging on the
wall. This in a second he had looped at
each end and | saw the trick. The next
minute we had a hand apiece looped at
each end of the rope. and had pulled it
tight inside. Everything had been per-
fectly still up to this time, and now it
was stiller than ever. I do not know
what the thieves thought had happened to
them, but they were caught, and as soon
as we got the rope knOtted, we let go
and they discovered that they were tied
together and there wasn't any way for
them to get away unless one OF them
pulled the other through the knot hole,
so to speak.
Then it became funny, and we sat
there nearly splitting. but never making
could sec another hand coming through
with long, ugly knife in it. trying to cut
the rope holding the first hand, but we.
had drawn them far through. and the.
other hand could not reach. OF, course.
We expected now to hear a yell, and have
some kicking and other disturbances. but
the stoicism of the Indian was i'll Them,
and they never made Il sound until the
landlord himself spoke to them, when he
came to wake lis up.
That was two hours or more later,
and we had in the meantime gone back
to bed to finish our morning nap, trusting
to luck that they wouldn't get away. The
landlord when he discovered them made
more noise in Il minute than all four of us
had made since the act began, and when
we got up it was to find our garden
house surrounded by half the population
of the town, and the two thieves sticking
to our doors as if they had been nailed
there and nobody able to get them loose"