Nov. 15, 1917: Alleged fakers take man as spy

-Colville Chauffeur tells story of bullet duel on Reservation near Inchelium

-Handcuffs used, he says

-Declares supposed secret service men seized papers — federal officers doubt arrest

COLVILLE - After a pistol duel in which 14 shots were fired, a man supposed to be a German spy was seized about 2 o'clock this morning in a cabin in the mountains near Inchelium, on the south half of the Colville Indian reservation by two men representing themselves as employees of the United States secret service, according to a story told here by Clyde Camerer, a well-known chauffeur employed by the Pacific garage.

Camerer said "two well dressed young men approached me about 6 o'clock Tuesday evening and asked me if the hunting in the mountains on the reservation was good. I told them it was and they employed me to take them there. When we got well into the mountains the men told me to stop and one of them said 'We are United States secret service men and we are here for the purpose of arresting a German spy who is living in a cabin somewhere hereabouts. We will go to the cabin and if you see a man running down this way clip his wings, don't kill him.' They gave a gun to me. Shortly afterward I heard the barking of a dog, which was followed by about 14 shots. Soon after the two young men appeared with a man about 5 feet 5 inches tall, of dark complexion, and side whiskers, who spoke with a German accent. One of the men, representing himself to be an employee of the secret service said to the supposed German spy, 'You can't play any of your German tricks on us.'

"The man replied 'I have given you a long chase any way.' He was then tied in the car and we went to Meyers Falls, where the men left me and boarded a train, presumably for Spokane, with the supposed spy in their custody.

"While the men were in the cabin they seized many papers and documents and a gun. I gathered from the conversation of the supposed secret service men that the man whom they had seized was wanted in New York on a charge of being implicated in an explosion in a munitions factory."

SEIZED PAPERS AND GUN

Federal officers in Spokane all declared last night that they had no knowledge of any arrest of any kind in the vicinity of Colville or Inchelium. B.J. Wells, agent of the treasury department in charge of U.S. secret service for a district extending from the summit of the Cascade mountains to the Dakota line, stated that he knew nothing of the case and that it is a virtual impossibility that U.S. secret service officers from any part of the United States would enter his district without letting him know.

"I shall start a man to Colville the first thing in the morning to make an investigation," he said. There is, of course, one chance in a million that secret service men from the Atlantic coast have come out here so hot on the trail of a German spy suspect that they did not have time to notify me, but even if they had gone on an made the arrest, they would have let me know after the arrest was made.

Mr. Wells implied that he believed the two men imposters.

NO KNOWLEDGE OF ARREST

Fred Watt, agent of the department of justice, with headquarters in Spokane, stated positively that he knew of no such arrest or of any German spy suspect living in the vicinity of Colville who might have been apprehended.

United States Marshal McGovern said that none of his deputies was in the vicinity of Colville yesterday and that none of them could possibly have made any such arrest.