Arizona republican., 1899-06-24

lives up back or Russville, give out
 that he'd show us thing CT two about
 gettin' rid of snakes, and sed as how he'd do that and make the snakes hist
 the stumps out of a c,earin' where he
 was goin' to sow buckwheat Hen
 was always contrivin' some way to get
 out of work and have things easy. and everybody wondered what he was up to-
 i well, he went ahead and got a lot Iof dynamite molded up in the shape of
 mice, and he got some drug store stuff
 and put on these dynamite mice that
 would make it go off about half an hour after it g3t wet Now, says he. I'll put these mice round the clearin lthe snakesll s'xalier 'em, then they'll
 begin to feel sick, and crawl into their
 holes, and after a little the stuff'H go off and kill the snakes and blow up the istumps. Well, he give us all notice orf
 when he was goin' to do this job Of stump extractin' and there was pret- ty good crowd on hand
 Hen had counted the stumps, and he had mouse for every one and some left over. He got about ten of the crowd to help him, and in few min utes the mice were scattered over the lclearin'. Then all of us got away about 200 yards to wait and see what'd turn up. In about twenty minut>\ when we all 1ookin' towards the ciearin, we heard somethin' rustlin' in the grass, and when we looked, there was a big ratt,er lashin' along as if it wasn't goin' to stop till it got to the Susque- 1o r.fTr fa1- a< Tr1l- body knowed it had one of Hens pills inside of 1t. and we all lit out as if we was runnfn' for guvner But the rat tier was tryin' to run away from a pain in it's insides, and it didn't show any signs of throwin' the race. and kep' close up to the first division of the pToceshun
 Pretty soon Diff. bang. It went off like cannon and throwed dirt and gravel and chunks of scd over us. We stopped then. thinkin' we were all right but in a minute along comes two more breakin the record, and we knowed by their motions they was loaded. Jake Becker was so scared that he dropped quart flash, and such pu.lin' for the shore you never seen. In little bit these two went off most together, right at our heels, but we kep' on runnin', cussin' Hens foot notion and wishin' we was railroad ingines with 90-pound rails under us and plenty of steam. We didn't stop to look, but we could hear that there was regular Fourth of July celebra- ticn goin' on behind us. and that the snakes were havin' hot time. Things was bangin' like the battle of Gettys- burg. After a while it quieted down a little, and as our wind was clean gone we let up. and soon, when the shootin' stopped, started back again, mighty keerful.
 When we got up near the clearing again we saw that nearly half the stumps was out, and we saw, too, that Hens barn was afre. one of the snakes havin' busted under ii, and be- fcre we could git there somebody come rGnnin' down the road sayin' that Nose Turner was lying down by the crick with his leg broke. One of the snakes had went off in the road, scared his horse into fits, and it had run off, the wagon. throwed Nose 0ut and broke his leg. There was no use trying to save Hens barn, but we made out to keep the pig pen and wagon house from burnin'. Before we got through over comes 'Eph' Byers a-wantin' to kill somebody because he said we had blcwed up tree in his CT chard and killed two heifers standin' Inder it.
 Tt raised a mighty big ruction in the neighborhood Hen had killed lot of snakes, he had blCwed up about half his stumps, but he was out barn md all what was in it, and in fcx lays Nose Turner and 'Eph' Byers l bring suit, and as Hen wasn't worth | much they sued the whole gang that ! helped to put the mice in the clearin', | ;ayin' it was a conspirin' They | brought the case before Squire Baer i He lowed there wasn't any law for | snakes, but he brought it under cruel | V to animals. and give 'em both dam lges. Now, it's goin' to be took to | ,ourt up in Sommerset, nigh half the | Cwnship has been summoned as wit lesses, and nearly everybody is talk | IT. so much about it and taken sides e;ther with Hen or with Nose and | Eph' that you don't hea~ E1Gch else''- Times
 -