Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1901 — ATTACK GUARD AT TOMB. [ARTICLE]

ATTACK GUARD AT TOMB.

Mysterious Incident at Vault ContainMcKinley’s Holy. Military men guarding the McKinley vault report an attack upon the guard early Sunday night by armed and masked men, carrying packages supposed to contain explosives. It is thought an attempt was made to blow up the vault. Guard De Prend, a private in the company of regulars from Fort Wayne, Mich., while on duty at the rear of the vault, about 7:45 o'clock, noticed a man peering from behind a tree about forty feet from the vault. He watched it for twenty minutes and then challenged the intruder, who made no response, but dodged back of the tree. The soldier then advanced, challenging a second time, and the man came out and ran toward De Prend, sheltering himself behind a second tree twelve feet nearer the vault. De Prend, noticing that the fellow was carrying a package in one hand and a glinting instrument in the other, took no further chances, but brought down hia rifle and fired. Just as he did so, another man, approaching from behind, and whom he had not aeeu, struck up the rifie and at the same moment dealt De Prend a terrific blow on the body with some instrument. Meanwhile the shot had aroused other members of the guard but owing to the fact that they bad to climb a steep hill the marauders had disappeared before they arrived. The man who attacked De Prend was masked. The other, he says, he could easily recognize.