Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-01-23
An American Heroine.

Mrs. Geo. w. Bacon, of Milwaukee,
not Boston, as heretofore reperted, is
the heroine of the day Recently she
was travelling by rail in Italy with her
husband, when they were beset by twd
brigands who had secured seats in the
compartment of the car occupied by
them. It was early in tho evening and
Mr.. Bacon wasdozing, when suddenly
he was confronted by one Of the men
with pistol in his hand pointed direct.
ly at the formers head. And then an
exciting time occurred, as Mr.. Bacon
himself relates in a private letter to q
friend 80 -'
My wife screamed, "Get out your
pistol !" but, bless your soul, the fell
low was on me before I could rise out
of my seat. I did say, What do you
want, sir" and he replied, Money"
This all took less time than it does to
read it. And, as said before, was a
little drowsy and it took an instant or
two to bring me to my senses, but a
pistol almost in my face brought me to
realizing sense Of the situation, and I
went for him without further delay.
grabbing his revolver with my left
hand and his throat with my right. He
grabbed my right side whisker with his
left hand, bnt + put my head down as
much as possible, and had him over in
his corner and we'll down on the seat
before he knew what was the matter. l
felt his grip of his revolver loosening,
and would have had it away from him
in half shake, but his companion, to
whom he had been calling in italian to
"Shoot, shoot" threw himself on me
and broke my hold. just here my
wife pitched in and took hold of the
long fellow. My man was about 80,
my height and as heavy as IL He soon
freed himself from her, threw her on
the floor and almost to the other side of
the car, but she was back and in the
fight again in AN instant. While we
were all together my man pulled off his
pistol just by my ear. Fortunately no.
body was hurt, though for an instant l
did not know whether my head was on
or not. Then the long chap threw my
wife off and down again, and between
them forced me on the seat. Nell here
appeared again and placed herself be-
tween my knees, and the two fellows
stood over us, with their pistols at our
heads, swearing to have our money.
Seeing there was no assistance to be had
from the pusillanimous little chap, the
other passenger, who sat pale and
trembling with his hands clasped calling
on the Virgin, and fearing some real
harm might come to Nell by further re.
sistance, decided to give up my little
leather wallet, which unfortunately was
quite full, having some 600 francs in
gold in it. This I hoped would satisfy
them and that they would clear out or
leave us alone until they could get off.
But no They had seen the strap of my
little sac de royaoe which / had on un-
der my ulster and they wanted that and
to go through me generally. This we
decided to object to and to fight it out.
So the rough. andtumble fight COM
menced again. Nell was thrown down,
but made it so hot for them that she
had a chance to right herself quickly.
Then we got somehow to our end of the
car, and Nell stood against my left side
where the sac was, and held her fast
with my left arm, and with my right and
Nell's two hands, which the plucky lit.
tie woman used we'll, can tell you, we
fought them off when they came to close
quarters. Finally they contented them
selves with threatening us and keeping
their pistols pointed at us, but we had
got used to looking at these pistols and
came to the conclusion that they dared
not or did not care to shoot. Here Nell
bethought herself of the female prerog.
alive of screaming. This seemed to
alarm them, and with many threats they
left the car and stood on the step. Once
my curiosity led me to look out and see
if they were still there, but as I had q
pistol stuck under my nose, I modestly
Withdrew.