we tried one scheme after another to make that engine
pull the block out, but we might as well have hitched a rope to the
church; the steeple's weight was too much for us. And all the time the
crowd was getting bigger and bigger, until the police could hardly
manage it.

"Finally the contractor, being very mad and quite anxious, said he'd be
hanged if he could get the block out, and for me to try my scheme, and
do it quick, for some men were going about saying the thing was
dangerous and ought to be stopped. He didn't have to speak twice before
I was on my way up that steeple carrying an inch auger, a fifty-foot
fuse, and a stick of dynamite--I'd had them ready for hours. It's queer
how people get wind of a thing; the crowd seemed to know in a minute
that I was going to use dynamite, and before I was twenty feet up the
ladder a police officer was after me, ordering me down. I went right
ahead, pretending not to hear, and when I got to the bell-deck he was
puffing along ten yards below me. I swung into my 'bosun's saddle' and
began pulling myself up outside the steeple, and I guess the whole five
thousand people around the church bent back their heads to watch me.

"As soon as I began to rise in the saddle I knew I was all right, for I
coiled up the hauling-line on my arm so the officer couldn't follow me.
All he could do was stand on the bell-deck and gape after me like the
rest and growl.

"When I reached the block I bored a six-inch hole into her at a downward
slant, and in this I put some crumbs of dynamite,--not much, only about
half a teaspoonful,--and then I stuck in the fuse and tamped her solid
with sand. Then I lit the other end, dropped it down inside the steeple,
and slid down the rope as fast as I could, yelling to the officer that
I'd touched her off. You ought to have seen him get out of that steeple!
He never waited to arrest me or anything; he had pressing business on
the ground!

"By the time I got down you could see a little trail of bluish smoke
drifting away from the hole, and there was a hush over the crowd, except
for the police trying to make them stand back behind the ropes. I don't
know as I ever saw a bigger crowd; the street was jammed for blocks
either way. Well, sir, that was a queer acting fuse. It smoked and
smoked for about ten minutes, and then the smoke stopped. The people
began to laugh--they said it had gone out; and the contractor was nearly
crazy: he was sure I had made another