In The Wild And Wooly West

The following froru thu Free Press of Wednesday may prove of interest to many of our readers who are acquainted with the two former Ann Arborites inentioned. Devil's Lake, North Dakota, is one of those typical towns of the west.whose inhabitants are enterprising and ambitious, and, if not gifted with rugged honesty, are at least frank in their expression and fearless in their actions. The statute books of that' portion of the United States contain stringent laws to sacredly guard human lífe, but the taking of it is not so grave a crime in the eyes of tho people as some forms of theft. Two Michigan boys are located in Devil's Lake, and are prominent attorneys of the city. One is John W. Maher, a gradúate of Ann Arbor University of the class of '82. Besides being an attorney he is the owner of the leading newspaper of the city. The other is M. H. Brennan, whose home was at Ann Arbor. He, too, graduated at the university with the class of '80. He practised law there awhile and was elected justice of the peact, but he went west when his term of office expired. Frank Howard, of Ann Arbor, is a common friend of theirs and was in Detroit yesterday. He has f rom Mr. Brennan an account of an attempt made to assassinate Mr. Maher. His account of the crime is a vivid oae, he being an eye-witness, and is told in a matter-of-fact way. It occurred ia the business portion of the town to all accounts and was evident. y not a thing of such unuiual occurrence as to cause any greai ainoirat of public indignaron. The orfciw was a eoM-blooded and bnital "ne ;;ud the pau'.ry of the jranshtnent for :c ehows thp sentiment of thp pponlp in ioh affairo. Tne accouuc runs: "I supposeyou have already seen the dispatcbes announcing the assaul! nu Jchu W. Maher. I tin happy to state that he is in no danger and is rapidly recovering. The wouud is morely a flesh wotuid in the small of the back, about two inches to the left of the spiual column. Auother shot grazed his left arm, but did no serious dainagè. Four or five shots were fired, and when I liad no hope of ever seeing Maher alive again and thought he was surely killed, as most every body else did. "The trouble aróse out of a land case commenced by Maner for one McNamara in 1888, the result of which is that McN amara has f orty aores adjoining the oity, being one of the best building locations in the city, worth at the lowes oalculation $4,000. The ten acres adjoining the city will sell easily foi half that mnch. The coutest lasted about flve yeare, and the total of fees cluimed by Maher did not exceed $250. Of this about $60 was paid . Mahei saeñ bim for the balance. I was attorney. We obtained judgment iu the justice court, and as is customary where we want to make a sure job of it, we fiied a transcript of the "judgment ín tlie office of the clerk of the district court. ..This, under the law, makes the judgment a lein on any real estáte to which the defendant may have title at the time. It seems that McNamara was about to make a loan on the land, or about to sell some of it. and in completing the abstract he found that the olerk could not give a cerifícate that there wus no judgments on reoord. He caiae to me and wanted to know what I would take for the judgment, It amounted iin all to 326, which included interest and costs. The fees ought to have been f500, because both of uS worked on the case for séveral years, and the resul speaks for itself. I offered to reduce it by almost 40 per cent., but he declined, and then I told him he had the right to appeal, and his time fur appeal will not expire until the 31t of this month. He is well able to appeal. "It'seems on Saturday last he called on Haber and demanded that he should clear the title. This Maher declined io do, and McN amara gave him vintil Monday. Maher had no idea that he had any iutention of violence. He caie around to see Maher agaiu on Monday and was raising a fnss in his office, and Maher ordered him out. He went. He came into my office and went over the same rigmarole, and followed me out and up the streefc. I had uo idea that he intended to do physical violence. Witbin ten minutes after he followed me up the street he had made the assault in Maher. "He went in the dirección of Maher's liouse and waited for him to go home. Maher was standing talkiug to a persun on a dray in regara to a business matter and reading a paper in the case. aüd McNawara came up behind and fired at him, hitting him in the back. Maher's first instinct seetns to have been to move toward home, but after he got about half the length of a block, MeNamara still after him, he turned in between two woodpiles, went around one of them and came out on the front again, the assailant continually after him and firing. Two shots were fired during this race, and Maher, exhausted, feil on the street on his back, and MoNamara then deliberattely fired at him. This shot was the one that grazed his arm. He then seems to have been preparing to load again, when Sheriff Barton grabbed him. "The first shot was fired on the street corner, bnt as the person to whom Maher was talkiug did not seem to move or make any outcry as far as we know, the pub) ie were ruisled as to where the shot was flred and where the trouble was, aud not until both parties got between the woodpiles did anybody in the vicinity realize that there was trouble. I was outside standing on the steps of the bank about a block away from where the first shot was fired, and about a block and a half from the woodpiles. There were several of us there, and we all ran, and by the time we got np the sheriff had McNamara in his custody, and we all expected that Mr. Maher was dead ; bnt he said, "Carry me home. " Some of the crowd carried him home. One ran for one doctor, another for a second, and I for a third, and by the tiime we got there they had removed the clothing and the ball dropped out ; it had been kept in place, I think, by the clothing, and had just entered the skin. A lump of caked powder also feil out. This accounts for the fact that the ball did not take more serious effect. I think the ammunition was poor ; that it had become damp and caked, so that a very small pnrtion of it was available for the explosión. I think also that the gun was a poor one ; it was a 44-caliber, and so was the ball, but the cartridges were short. "The whole affair did not last two minutes. The assailant is in jail, closely confined. The highest punishment for such an act in this state is ten years. ' '