Paul Pueller.com

The first alarm reached portage shortly before midnight, when Dr. Charles Curtis, veterinarian, who was

called out into the country, noticed a haystack burning not far from the road in passing he stopped out of curiosity

He found several men nearby walking up to them he casually remarked

You fellas better get some snow shovels and throw some snow on that stack before it spreads to the others,

for there were about three more stacks beside the one in flames.

Then, more to make conversation than anything else, he said,

There might be a tramp sleeping in there too, you can't tell.

Mr. Curtis walked around the stack.

He saw something projecting out from the burning straw. He looked again.

Then he yelled to the others to come and look. In a few minutes, a fence post was brought and the charred

body of a human being rolled from the hotbed of straw ashes. In a moment the doctor was in his car into the nearest

telephone some two miles away. The region was desolated, not a farmhouse within

seeing distance where daylight. He notified Mr. Stroud who spent the next three or

four hours telephoning every hamlet and village in that section.

Two calls were sent to the police department in Madison to watch out for a car,

carrying two or more men coming this way.

Daylight broke and portage, but no clue to the identity of the man had been found.

The fire had destroyed any mark of recognition which friends might have but no clue to the identity of the man had been found.

The fire had destroyed any mark of recognition which friends might have found on the body.

Shriveled and shrunken by the heat, the extremities cooked and charred,

and the whole corpse blackened and grimy from smoke and ashes.

...