The daily morning Alaskan., 1903-11-17
THE WATCHMAN'S
 STORY
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adventure happened. A burglar alarm connected with doors and windows and a s1cciai wire ran from the bank to the police station. was required to send In a sicual over this wire every thirty
 minutes. The code of signals ran thus
 One push ou the button, "All is well;' two pushes CT ann ill;" three pushes. "HolD Is wanted at once
 Due winters night between calls, J fcI asleep and was awakened by hand clu..hmg my throat ] started un 10 find three men lowering over me arH realized that burglars had come at n,. The first thing one of them did was 10 send In the "Au is well' call, and ! was then tied fast to my chair and Che trio began work on the doors of the vault. Itwas done for In about ten minutes.
 Then they began work on the inner doors They used what is called b'acksmiths drill All of them seemed familiar with lts working and they had brought along mo less than six dif-
 fereut drills for the machine Work was begun just under the lock- the men smelling each other at intervals of ten minutes. When the o'clock signal
 was sent in. they had made a very surht impression on the hard metal ! but at2.3O the signs were more encour- aging.
 At8 8 o'clock the trio were delighted with the progress of the work. At 3:SO they ceased drilling, blew a lot of pow ] der into the hole and Inserted a fuse, and pretty soon there was an explosion which tore great piece out of One ] door but did not burst it open.
 They did not use the drill again on the door. but on a closer examination decided to blow it open. At 44O all was ready. While the leader placed tbe fuse the other two picked mp my chair to carry me into the presidents room. All were to remain there until fra explosion was over. Just what b8rDened to bring about the premature exn.oslon could never be learned but fbe probabilities are that in his haste line man cut the fuse too short He was stul kncellng at the door and the th.e of us had our backs to it and . were about eight feet away when the mine was sprung. The jar of the eX- nr8.ou was felt two blocks away.
 l cannot remember that ] heard the sxn.osfon. ] simply remember being . Haed up and hurled forward. The next thing ! knew was sitting up . with hand over each ear and the room was u a midnight darkness. J f.rt SD stupid and dazed that 1t was mrrv minutes before ] could place my soil. The gag was out of my mouth ard Ila ropes with which ] had been bound to the chair were hanging loose ,v on my arms and legs When J be- .an to feel around to see where ] was ] ! discovered that ] was close to the
 vr, gate 0v which an employees en- tered the bank iuc'osure. The door Of .r. vault was almost ou line with . ua eatc but sixty feet away. Be- tween the gate and ,le vault were tAe compartments Of hookkceper paying . euar receiving teller and d.scoun, clerk. each railed o1 with wood or v.re
 You can judge of the strength of that blast when ] tell you that everything in Ua. sixty feet was lere.cd. the . smru safe blown over and the counters twisted like a rail fence. As soon as J realized tle situation ] groped for match and lighted a gas jet though . t.e room was so rul or powder smoke that 1t was some time before ] could gee a foot from my nose. When the ! smoke lifted SO that ! could get about Iualiod more gas and then looked for ! tle burglars.
 One of them iay in a heap against ] He front door, a second under the ] counter near where ] had picked my l self up. and tbe third ] could not find, thoueh ] knew he must be under the vault door which had been blown 0n rrI 1v on the floor The man at the
 front door was stone dead The doe
 tors saId that his body must have
 swept down all the railings and paru-
 lions as be was hurled forward The
 man under the counter began to show . signs of life as ] oyerhauled him, and, ! thinking he might prove troublesome. . ! lied him hand and foot You will
 wonder that was not severely hurt
 but that was the chance of accident ] The chair was completely wrecked but ] ] got on with three or four painful . bruises.
 The man under the counter had his nose broken. two ribs fractured and re- cclvcd a bad scalp wound but he had ! no sooner recovered consciousness than ! he began to struggle end curse. When 1 told him that both his partners were ] dead. he was awed to silence for awhile. ! Then he began cursing again, and ] ! stcnncd over to the police wire and sent l In the signal "Help wanted at ouce.' l It had never been sent in before, nor have the words gone over that wire since. In five minutes there were four bluecoa.s knocking at the door, and
 when ] let them in my prisoner greeted l them with jeers and curses and swore ] he would get even with me if it took ! 100 years.
 The leader as told you, was kneel- ing at the door when the explosion oc- | cured. We found him under it crush
 cd and burned and bearing little sem
 Na