River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1893-07-13
HENNESSY'S ESCAPE.
How He Avoided the Penalty of
Flirting with a Mexican Girl

F1rLlng Win a mexican GlrL
A sunburned. athletic-loOking man.
with broad brimmed felt hat showed
on the back Of his head. sat in the cor
rider of the Metropolitan the other
night swapping stories with some New
York drummers- He was Walter Grove
of Monte Vista, Col, who was in town
working up some irrigation schemes
for eastern capital to be invested down
in Mexico.
''You very often hear Il said that the
revengefulness and treachery of the
lower class of Mexicans is overrated. I"
said Grove. but to- one who has lived
in that country and studied the people
carefully there are very few tales that
can be told of them too remarkable for
belief. I recollect particularly one case
of n young fellow who is working with
me down in old Mexico now who came
very near passing in his checks through
not appreciating the kind of people he
was dealing with.
Elm the state of chihuahua, on the
western edge of Mapimi desert. we had
put in big dam for "A storage reser-
vOir To irrigate the mesaland lying
above the level of the Rio COnehos val
ley.
1T was right at the entrance of a
big box canyon running up To the bar
rem hills that run along the edge of the
desert. The only things that grow
there are pinon trees and jack rabbits,
with a small sprinkling of chalmisa
and grease weed But there are peri
Odic rains. when the water comes down
through those bare canyons in a wall
ten feet high, and enough water goes
10 waste i'm twenty-fOur hours to irri-
gate a whole county for a season
I'VE got in our dams all right and
about twenty miles of main ditch. and
everything went very well. considering
the fact that we were working a new
venture in a country where it usually
takes an innovation a couple of centu-
Ties to settle down and feel at home
Il put this young fellow, Nick Hen
messy. in charge of tie dam He had
his office of couple of rooms there.
with Mexican TO cook for him and to
help around and about All he had u
do was To ride the line of the ditch and
look after the state of things at the
dam which he had helped To build.
There was little telegraph line from
the office down tn the land company's
home ranch. about ten miles below the
dam. the nea -est settlement of any
sort. and Nick used To take signal serv-
ice observations to help pass away the
time. But, as ! said, he didn't know
the people.
I'm the first place, he got himself
dIsliked for demonstrating with the
Mexicans for loading two hundred and
fifty pourd of stuff or Whereabouts on
their poor little burroS. They haven't
any humane societies in that country.
Then he got into unpleasant relations
with the sheep herders, all of whom
are embryo murderers by nature, by
chipping into a fight and helping a
couple of lonely cattlemen the herders
were trying tn bushwhacx up in the
hills one evening. That was all right,
of course. for the cow-punchers hap
pened to be Americans, but Nick
winged a couple of the sheep men, and
they naturally hal = in for him after
ward Finally he did the business for
himself by flirting with the alcade's
daughter over in the adjoining plaza
She was the only manageable girl in
the county. and ne couldn't have found
a better way To get loco in his coffee, or
to secure some other of the delicate at
tenti0ns in order in such a case
THE dam was big masonry one.
built pretty much after the Roman
model, with securing sluices at the bot
tom and lateral paSsageway through
the center. with valve doors at each
sluice gate TO shut when the dam
is fun, while the passage that ran into
the length of the dam opened up to the
top through man hole at each end
one of these right by the door of the Of
fee and the other on the abutment
across the river
We'll, by the time Nick had been
down there three months and got these
three separate fights on his hands. his
paid-up life insurance policy would
have been a good speculation lie did
I.r' appreciate that. of course, for the
Mexicans were polite, knowing they
would soon have their innings
There was always more or less of
them that had nothing to do save hang
ing around the dam, Ginning with
HennesSy's man. Their time came one
evening when there was a big thunder
storm coming up in the mountains. II
was on toward the end of summer
when nearly all of the bed of the dam
was dry except a little trickle of water
turned off into the main ditch, and
Nick was in the habit of taking book
and a blanket in the afternoon and
crawling into one of the Sluices. where
il was only about half as hot as it was
outside
s.FIe told me afterward that he had
seen il getting dark as the storm came
up. and looking up toward the noun
tains saw the upp,r edges getting an
indigo blue and melting up into the
black part of the sky. lie knew a
cIoudburst was likely and was just
thinking of crawling out and looking
after corralling the water when il came
down. and all Of sudden he heard the
windlaSs rafting upon the dam and the
valves came down with a bang, eaging
him up inside the dam
1T aasAcd upon him in minute
what the Mexicans had done-trapped
him in the dam and were going 10 let
the water back up and then flush him
out down stream
''lie thought minute. and then got
up and stepped into the lateral passage.
closing the sluice door after him. He
went along the passage till he came 10
the we'll at the end. climbed MP the lad
der TO the manhOle. and heard the Mex
leans in the Office talking. lie eased mp
the cover little crack ana saw them,
much 20 his disgust. drinking out of his
private whisky bottle, rolling cigarettes
out of his Turkish tobacco and cOngrat-
ulating themselves on the good job they
had done. He had no gun on him, 80
he waited, and pretty soon the storm
broke. IL struck the hills first. shut
ting them in with a veil of mist. Then
the torrent came roaring down the can
Won four or five feet high. tearing NJ
sticks and logs in front of IL
ut backed up at the foot of the dam
and commenced tapping up the wall
creeping higher and higher After
aN lille, when IL had covered ia the top
of the sluice doors the MeSicans rolled
themselves some fresh cigarettes ant
went oger for the grand finale- They
got a combined pull on the wind
lasses and threw the gates all wide
open. The water went bowling out