An eighteen hundred pound horse belonging to his neighbor, Frank Porter, got out of his stall one Sunday night, wandering over to Neighbor Schilling's, first walked on the cave cellar and from that to the leanto and from there to the main part of the house. His weight was too much for the ridge pole, which broke, and precipitated him bottom side up down among the soundly sleeping Schilling family. The kickings and squealings of the horse led the rudely awakened family to believe that the world had come to an end. Air. Schilling finally succeeded in getting the horse onto his feet, led him out of the front door, and lighting the lamp discovered that the damage was one hole in the roof, the complete wreck of two bed steads, two partitions knocked out, and one boy with a scalp wound and a skinned heel. The neighbors turned out the next day and put a new sod roof on the house, and Mr. Potter paid the doctor for coming out and attending to the boy's wound-, and the incident was soon forgotten.

Another accident which resulted fatally occurred at the home of Allan Bearss, in the western part of the county. While the family were surrounding the breakfast table one morning, the ridge pole of their house, which was not of sufficient diameter to support the weight

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

of the sod roof, suddenly snapped asunder, precipitating tons of sod and roof boards down onto the family. Their little five year old girl was instantly killed.