The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-11-19

ish law, not altogether unlike the proc
esses of the French criminal courts
and various vagabonds and SUSPICION
characters were taken into custody
These prisoners were kept under guart
of several soldiers, and they were con
Quoted to the alcalde for examination By
corporal. The dog of the murdered
man had been given such good care thai
his strength was fully restored, and hs
had been brought to the scene of ex
animation and tied within the room.
1t was the observant and reflective
clerk of the court who first noted tina;
the animal was growing, sullenly and
resentfully, as one of the prisoners stood
before the alcalde, whose attention he
called to the fact by writing few lines,
in which he suggested that the prisoner
be returned to confinement until the
matter should be discussed. According.
ly, Don Manuel Roquena sent away the
wretch cTinging there, and the guard
was directed to bring in another prisoner
after few minutes. Again the dog dis
played marked anger and hostility, as he
did at each new installment of suspects.
"Let US try an experiment" said Don
Ygnacio. "Will you arrange, Don Man
uel, to have another guard bring in, one
by one in turn, the men who have just
been before us?"
This was done, but the intelligent ami
NAL, few moments since so savage,
now only looked inquiringly at each ar
rival, but made no demonstration of
enmity. Then a pretext was found to
call back the corporal who first had
brought in the prisoners. He was one
Santiago Linares, slender, dark fellow,
with youthful, almost boyish counte-
nance and ingratiating manner. He
was maneuvered near the dog, and no
sooner had he come within reach than
the mastiff, bristling and snarling fierce
ly, sprang upon him and would have
throttled him had not those present
torn Linares out of his fangs. Trembling
and ashen was the fellow, yet full of
self possession, and feigning wonder and
Indignation when taxed with completely
in the murder. He had not even been
in the pueblo, he declared, on the night
of the crime; it was his day off from
service, and he had been at the mission
with his mistress, one Eugenia Valencia.
Nevertheless, he was at once sent to
jail, and that incomunicado; that is
to say, solitary confinement, where no
one could see or communicate with him.
And "Send for la Eugenia," instructed
the alcalde.
This Valencia woman came of very
criminal stock, and she and her family
were at the bottom of vast percentage
of the disorder that befell in those days
in Los Angeles. The brothers were
scamps and practically bandits, fitting
sons of depraved parents. Another sis
ter lived for many years in illicit bonds
with William W, one of the wealth
lest of the foreign residents, whom it
were hardly kind to indicate more clear
ly, since his descendants still live among
US. After she had borne this man three
children his jealousy of her fagrant in
fdelities led to scandalous shooting af-
fray, Notwithstanding which he would
still have married her, but that the
authorities banished her from the pueblo
as measure Of public safety, and she
died some years later at Mazatlan, where
W, because of his vested interests
here, could not follow her. He sent,
however, for her children, and educated
them with his legitimate children, he
having married meanwhile one of the
Lugos from Santa Barbara. Of such
a strain-resolute, bold, unscrupulous-
was the woman whom Manuel Requena,
the alcalde, sent to fetch from San
Gabriel.
His messengers took her all unaware.
She had not even heard that the murder
was discovered, and so when they had
secured her, the officers searched her
dwelling and found bundled away there
in large quantity of the effects and
plundered from the murdered
German. The officer who arrested her
did not fail to impress upon her the sig
nifcance of this find ard its tendency to
criminate her. Thus when she arrived
at the courtroom she was quaking, full
Of terror and an abject conviction that
her own liberty and her own life were in
peril. Under the stress of this fear, and
almost without waiting to be questioned,
she hastened, when brought before the
alcalde, to declare that she had been in
the company of the men who had killed
the German and that she had been a
to his Staying. She was of
course put into confinement incomuni-
cado.
Santiago Linares was now told that +
one of his accomplices had confessed, and
mad named him as the chief offender.
Upon this, spurred not more by fear than /
Dy anger and vindictiveness, he made
declaration duplicating Asencio Falen-
ia, brother of Eugenia, and another |
bad character of the pueblo, one Jose |
Ouarte, whom he had, he said, accom-
panied upon that fatal evening, not be- |
ng aware Of the purpose of their enter
)rise.
The two men he named were promptly |
lrrested, and they, when they learned of
heir accusal, began a perfect siege of |
,owardly but ferocious protestations and |
disclaimers, each alleging his own inno-
ence while inculpating the others. The
discrepancies between their statements
we're carefully noted, and the discordant
witnesses were brought together in ac-
with that feature of the Span
sh law known as CONFORMATION" These
Of statements resulted in
he elimination of much subtrusive false
lood ana the ESTABLISHMENT or many
acts upon which they were all agreed.
Tins it was proved that the gun bar
'el found beside the murdered man was