Connecticut western news., 1901-09-05
The Street Car To TopoChico WHY PATRICIA ROBBED
 THE DRIVER. nN INIIAI II AEEEDEN
BY JOHN H. RAFFERTY.

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 Four miles above Monterey toward Topo Chico, uplifted from the dust and dead heat of the plain, lies the haci- enda of Jose del Casa, the alcalde. His white home sits enshrined in a wilderness of green. encinctured by 5000 acres of vines and corn lands and billowing meadows that reach from edge to edge of the steep walled table fountain of which his estate Is the crown and glory.
 Patricia, his only child, IS, with sloe black eyes, hair like a stormcloud and the oval, luminous face of Botticelli Madonna, had spent three years with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart In Paris. She had seen the bouleyards and sniffed from afar the gallantry and gayety of the French capital There. fore she yearned and moped amid the desolate splendor of her Mexican home.
 Have you ever seen the queer little street car line with its tandem of small brown mules that runs, or, rather. creeps. between tue Hotel Hidalgo on the plaza In Monterey. down through the narrow streets. away across the dusty fields. where sage and cactus. dry and gray. cover the rising plateaus with desolate monotony; out past the beetling buttes of Casas Hacienda, which tower red and hot In the sun, to the uprising canyon that leads to Topo Chico. the boiling spring. the health giving waters in whose fountain pool Aztec and Indian. peon and patrician, have sought and found health for thousand years7 This Topo Chico is the terminus of the little narrow gauge street car line that starts in Monterey. It's single car. with open seats running across the width of 1t. are seldom crowded. In the morning few tour ists bound for the baths smoke and Idle through the tedious trip. but In the evening. when the summer sun sinks behind the green. cool shoulders of Del Casas, the lone car Is always empty except for the driver or an er- rant shepherd returning from market in Monterey.
 It was at this time In the evening
 
 that queer little street car. With an, cient Madre Anselma. her nurse when she was a romplng child. her govern ess, maid and duenna by turns as the girl grew to womanhood, Patricia would ramble down the long stone stairway and in the purple shadow of the roadside thicket wait for that emp ty car to come dronlng o0t of the haze Anselma neither spoke nor understood English. and so It was her wont to sit in the rear seat while the beautiful Pa tricia, her mantilla now fallen from before her radiant face. would sit on the front seat near the driver and urge or bribe him to send the little mules galloping
 The driver was a great. yellow haired giant, with blue eyes and a laughing mouth. For Patricia he would speed his queer little team till the car swayed like boat on running pillows and her delighted laughter fell upon his will ing ears like the music of tinkling man. dolins. AS for Anselma, so long as the car was empty but for themselves she was content to sit in the rear seat. black. motionless, but alert, smoking her cigarettes, as Mexican women must and wondering what Patricia could have said to the big, fair Gringo to make him drive his mules so fast, to make him smile so benignantly. Every summer evening till the cha. parral lost it's luster and the willows in the river bed began to scatter cracking leaves across the sands Patricia and her chaperon stole away to thls clan. destine frolic on the street car till 1t became the event of the gay child's days and habit even with the with cred woman who watched the harm less frolic.
 One night as the blond American car | driver was laughing and thrashing over l the road with the laughing senorita at his elbow a horseman with his rifle presented loomed across the narrow road. The mules hesitated. stopped. backed up in their trace chains. The | driver put down brake and ceased to | smile. He seized the switch bar. bade Patricia lie down. faced the enemy. Money or your lifep' commanded the | outlaw in good English.
 You can have the box" roared the | driver. but if you rob the woman you must fight"
 The robber dismounted boarded the car. and while Patricia and the old | woman looked on he smashed ip the money box with the butt of his rife and pocketed the few pitiful centavos that jingled in the bottom. If Patricia had left the car. or drawn up her lace mantilla, or even turned her face away. the robber might not have seen. the diamond brooch glistening at her throat. But the sight was too much for him. The big American saw the
 flash of his eyes as he leveled his rife, and at the same moment the switch bar swung above his head. The rifle cracked, the driver lurched over and fell in the dust by the road and the robber held out his hand to the woman
 "Glve me the diamonds" he bel | lowed.
 | She gave them without a word. then her watch and her ring, while the old woman, screaming like harpy, clung to his rife and cursed and prayed h incoherent Spanish. But the robbei
 had no notion of harmiRg them. He
 kicked the fallen driver as he rar toward his horse, and In another mo
 mem. the chatter of hoof beats across