The Assault:

Not long after I returned to Glenn’s Ferry, our local lawman found his life plagued with strange things. Things like getting in his car and it not moving cause the wheels were about an inch off of the ground. Things like his driver's seat covered in honey and ants. Things like women’s underclothes being found in his mail box things like used condoms flying as a flag from his radio antenna and various other things of a low nature.

I had many days to plan my revenge. I spent many hours trying to figure out a way to cause this man to feel like a fool. I hit upon a plan I thought would be very apt to cause him to lose his cool completely.

In those days, before electronic ignition systems, cars had a distributor with points and a condenser inside. This condenser was a unique device in that it was a metal can with a wire on one end. It could be charged to a very high voltage (around 30,000) and it would hold that charge until a discharge path was provided by something touching the end of the wire and the metal body of it at the same time.

The charging process was simple. Just lay the device on the engine block. Remove one of the spark plug wires and crank the engine over while someone held the wire so the spark would arc to the wire end of the condenser a few times.

As long as one held the body of the device, or the wire without touching both ends it was harmless and would not hurt you. If you touched both ends of it though it would knock a large man on his butt!

I found my victim in a crowded bar amongst his cronies. This was on a Saturday and all the auto parts persons closed on weekends so I knew I was covered. I hollered at him “HEY SCUDDER, (his name was Scudder Spensor) WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THESE TODAY? He said let me see it. I tossed it to him. He caught it by the body and of Course he touched the wire with the other hand.

It knocked him down and he peed his pants on the spot. He picked it up intending to throw it at me. It got him again. The whole room erupted in hilarious laughter. And I was gone in a flash. Laughing myself silly.

Well. come Monday he showed up at my outfit car with a warrant for my arrest for assault with intent to harm. I was again put in the cell but this time I had the satisfaction of having earned my being there. My uncle refused to hear the case, so it was transferred, to mountain home Idaho, the County Seat. The circuit court judge threw the case out as being frivolous and not worth the courts time to handle it. He was pretty hard on Mr. Spencer when he told him that in his opinion he had earned all the dirty tricks played upon him.

The outcome of this episode resulted in a truce between Scudder and I. We actually came to be friends in later years. Just goes to show that life is unpredictable?