H. O. WILLS.

WONDERFUL ESCAPES FROM DEATH.

ΙΟΙ

O, how good is God, that he has spared my life! I hope and pray to be able to prove to these good men, and all that know me, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the lowly Nazarene, is the true Messiah. I hope to prove this by the life I live through him, for without him I can do nothing.

To show how God spared my life on one occasion, I will relate an incident. While I was with Simon & Co. I was out one Friday afternoon. This day always being the longest day I worked, I had finished my sales and was on my way home, when I stopped at a place on the Gratiot road to get a glass of beer. While standing at the bar drinking, with no thought of a fight at all, a clothing merchant, of whom I had bought the coat I had on, came up, and, being drunk, asked me how much I had paid him for the coat I had on my back. I told him I had paid him about one-half more than it was worth. The words were hardly out of my mouth, when a man who was in a gang of five drinking at a table behind me, stepped up and said I was “a liar, and had not paid that much.” Before these words were cold, I crammed them

down his throat, and then the whole gang pitched into me. I soon had the saloon empty; and, thinking it was all over, I was drinking with the proprietor, when a man came in and told me that the men were still outside and were going to kill me; but that if I would go out the back way he would bring my horse around to me on the other street. I asked him if he ever knew me to sneak out the back way, and said: "No, sir! no, sir! I shall go out where I came in at the front door; and if they kill me, you can bet there will be more than one funeral. So I went out and started for my rig that stood in front. These men had been at work repairing the water-works, and had lots of picks and tools outside. So, as I started for my rig, the man whom I had first hit came towards me with a stone-hammer, but I caught him before he struck me; held him with one hand, while I punished him with the other. While I was at work, another man struck me on the head with a monkey-wrench, and another man struck me from behind with a pick-handle, splitting the back of my head, and knocking me senseless for the instant. As I fell on my

knees, the man I was fighting with, having a chance to use his stone-hammer, hit me in the front of my head, and this last blow brought me to life, as it were. Then I jumped to my feet as though nothing was the matter with me, and soon had the gang in flight.

To-day, as I think of it, it seems to me that God was watching over me; for one man seemingly killed me with a pick-handle, and the other man brought me to life with a stonehammer, which made a hole big enough to lay your fingers in. I had the sorest head I ever had in my life, and I have had some bad ones during that time. I got an awful talking to by my employers and by my poor, dear wife. It is a wonder that she is alive to-day. I now went from bad to worse, until Mr. Simon, like Mr. Brown, told me that if I did not stop drinking and fighting and getting into trouble every day, I would have to quit. After this, I tried to hold up a little, but it was no use; I soon got into one of the worst scrapes I ever had. It happened in the same place where the last thing happened, only it was now kept by the notorious Tom Keenan.

I called in, as I did before, to get a drink, and as before, it was on Friday, and Keenan's wife was 'tending bar, and there were three men in the place. One of these men was quarreling with her about some pool money, which she claimed he owed her, and this man called her bad names.

I asked him how he dared call

a woman names such as that, and he gave some answer back, at which I slugged him in the jaw just once; but he showed no fight nor the others who were with him.

I believe if I had known him I would not have been so quick; but whenever I saw a woman insulted by a man, I never stopped to get an introduction before hitting that man.

Well, I thought no more of it. The men went into the back room, where the man whom I had hit was washing himself.

Tom Keenan had now come in, and I stood with one hand on his shoulder and the other on the counter, talking to him, when two of the men run out of the door as though they had been shot. Soon an officer, who was in citizen's clothes, came in, and asked me what was the matter. He had seen my horse and rig out