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Saved By A Dog.

Mountaineer’s Wife, By Trick, Escapes Man Who Killed Her Husband In Hills.

     San Diego, Cal., Aug. 29.-A faithful dog lying outside the door of a lonely mountain cabin, is credited with saving the life of Mrs. Florence Kester and bringing about the arrest of a man, accused of slaying her husband.

     A snarl from “Collie Jim,” and the woman’s quick wit drove the slayer away. And then Mrs. Kester, half clothed, escaped by running barefooted in the night across three miles of the San Diego mountains to the main highway.

     The man, fleeing because he thought the noise the dog made was the husband, reviving from the clubbing he had received, was caught with the aid of the Scotch collie. He is in jail, and is said to have confessed to the sensational “moonshine murder.”

     Police say the two men had been engaged in the illicit whisky traffic at the mountain cabin and that in a quarrel the man under arrest killed the husband, Tom Kester, by beating him over the head with a pick handle. Then he attacked the 20-year-old wife.

     The prisoner told police that before the murder he feared the dog would get him into trouble and he asked Mrs. Kester why she kept the “cur.”

     “Oh, I don’t know,” the girl replied, “but you know sometimes a dog will save a person’s life.”

     Came the night of the murder-midnight. Said Mrs. Kester:

     “Just after the murder of my husband I was in the hands of that terrible man. I wondered then where the dog was.

     “Finally, I heard him breathing, just outside the door. He was snorring like a human being. I thought for a moment how I could make the most of that. My husband was lying outside beaten to death.

     “Then I thought if I could make that man believe Tom was coming back, I could escape. I waited until he gave a loud snore.

     “Tom’s coming back,” I screamed, “He heard the dog snore once- then he ran. And I escaped across the mountains in my bare feet. I owe my life to this dog.

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