The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1918-10-24

Time will not permit of the detailed
work done by the various squads be-
ing recorded in this account, every
squad and every man acquitted them
selves nobly and every one of US
nave the satisfaction of knowing that
we did our share in the military ,art
and in the fire fighting part of the
work.
There are several incidents, which
are worth recording and which will
interest those who do not know what
it is to fight fire in country such as
we have in this part Of the state.
We had fired wood on one side
of the road and the wind had carried
it in the direction we had intended.
On the opposite side was wood that
we had to protect as near TO it was
the Andrews home. Private ADDER
son was posted on top of barn to
keep a look out and report and it was
not long before he signalled that the
wood we were trying to protect was
on fire. Private j. Richards and some
others made for the scene and dis
covered that a piece of birch bark had
blown across the road and fallen on
the stump of tree setting it on fire.
A hot battle took place ano he fire
was extiguished. WAL it came to
be measured it was found that the
Jiece of bark had blown a distance of
400 feet.
Private Martin Lang while on Pa
troll duty in the early hours of Thurs
day morning was surprised by seeing
what he took to be dog coming his
way. He had dog with him at the
time which belonged to Mr.. Andrews,
big Collie; he noticed something Pc
culiar about the walk of the other
dog and was not altogether surprised
when the Collie bristled up and made
rush for the oncoming stranger. 1t
was big timber wolf which e had
singled out Martin for breakfast but
Collie chased him away and Martin
still lives. Timber wolves are found
in large numbers in these parts ami
it. was no unusual experience to hear
them at night when on patrol duty. !
Another incident happened which
ST, ks of the dangers which We IN
countered in our work. 1t was very
early morning, four of US were patrol
ling the roads around the fired woods
and it was cold, just over in the
woods the stump of what was once
an enormous tree was burning gaily
and we decided we would go over
there and warm up a little. We gath
cred around the blazing stump and
Morton Weeks was just telling us one
of his alarming stories when there
was crash and huge tree fell with
in a few feet of US; if it had fallen
on us this incident would have had
a different ending and we 8 should
never have heard any more Of those
stories which Morton is SO fond Of
telling. Someone suggested that it
was the "story" that brought down
the tree but personally I think it had
been nearly burned through and the
wind had given it the final push.
A story they tell in Kimberly is
well worth repeating because it
speaks well for the military Jardour
of our company. One of our privates
was on sentry and had instructions to
stop everything that came along. Soon
after getting his orders a huge
freight train with 40 cars of iron ore
each car containing so ton of ore
came dashing through. Now orders
are orders and no exception had been
made in favor of a train, so it was
up to the sentry to stop it which he
did by pointing his loaded gun at
the engineer. The train stopped alright
and the engineer was soon on his way
to headquarters, but what he said
about that enthusiastic but inexper-
fenced private to the officer in COM
mand is not printable.
If time and space permitted I could
tell many more incidents which took
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