The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1915-09-17
WOMAN SHOOTS
AT NEGRO FOUND
With CHICKENS
Mrs. Alvina Ransom Thinks
She Punctured Black With
One Shot.
BASS VOICE SAVED
THE CHICKEN COOP
Rooster, Heavy On Noise, Realiz-
ed the Danger and Called
For Help.

When her mother and two sisters
had trapped negro chicken thief in
a barn last night, Mrs. Alvina Ran
som, daughter of Mrs. Henry Oster-
lOh, last night opened fire upon the
intruder with her revolver The negro
managed to escape after, it is believed,
one of the bullets took effect.
Mrs. Osterloh resides at 81 Good
Hope street, and next door, across a
small north and south alley, at 319
Good Hope street, lives her daughter,
Mrs. Ransom, wife of Casey Ransom,
city fireman.
Mrs. Ransom was sitting in her
home about o'clock when q great
cOmmotion started in the chIcken pens
belonging TO her mother next door.
Mrs. Osterloh has a rooster that has
voice like "fog horn" as neighbors
have described it.
Mrs. OSterloh and her three daugh-
ters, Josephine, AIethea and Inez were
at home when the cOmmotion in the
hennery began.
The 'fog horn-voiced" rooster was
in trouble Mrs. Ransom afterward
said she knew from the character of
the notifications in the ROSTERS
squawk that some black hands must
have been around the neck.
Mrs. Osterloh hGd Just finished lock
ing the barn door in the rear and had
left a lighted lantern standing on the
rear porch. She and her daughters
went into the back yard and, after
obtaining the lantern started toward
the rear Of the yard to learn what was
wrong with the chickens.
The rooster was still squaking, the
noise becoming less and less audible
as the pressure on the gullet was in
creased.
As the women closed in on the barn,
they heard a man running quickly
from door to door in the rear part of
the barn trying them all in an attempt
to escape by the rear.
All the doors had been locked from
the inside. The yard outside was sur
rounded by a board fence about eight
feet high. For the man to escape, it
would have been necessary to break
past the line of women or take the
fence.
Inez at this juncture said: "I'll go
call Casey at the police station"
She ran to the home of j. w. Sui
lenger nearby and notified by tele-
phone Casey Ransom at the police sta
tion that chicken thief was in the
yard hemmed in by the women.
Casey started on a run for his house.
The women, when they learned the
man was actually inside the barn seek
ing desperately to find an escape, be-
came frightened themselves. Although
they were afraid of the Individual
whom they could not see, they kept
closing in on him.
Bv this time, Mrs. Ransom had
heard their voices in the yard and
came to the door at her home across
the alley. One of her sisters remark
ed: "If Alvina was here, she would
shoot him."
Mrs. Ransom is a good marksman
with a rifle.
As she came to the door she car
ried a 50 caliber revolver. The sister
had scarcely said that she would shoot
than the negro flung open the barn
door in front of the women and IN the
midst of their screams, jumped for the
fence.
He leaned and catching hold of the
ton of the fence scrambled up. He still
carried the rooster as he broke from
the barn and dropped it at the bottom
of the fence.
As his shoulders appeared above the
ton of the fence, Mrs. Ransom was II
the alley, about thirty feet away. Sh'
heard the noise and as the man was
leaping from the top of the fence int
the alley, she fired.
The man made an exclamation as L
struck by the bullet as he touched tn
ground. He stopped for a moment an'
Mrs. Ransom fired second time.
The man gave a yell and ran rapid
" south in the alley. Mrs. Ransom re