Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1909-07-15

Melvin Leisure stood with white
face, clenched hands and gritted teeth
while Lucille threw herself at her
fathers feet and weepingly begged
and implored him to mitigate the
harsh sentence. But he cast her
rudely from him with a curse, and,
turning to Leisure with murder in his
eyes, said:
You dog! Yor want my daugh-
ter-you! Why / shot your father
down in cold blood because he differed
with me politically. Do you think
I'll do less for you for trying to rob
me of my daughter?
So it was you who killed my
father returned Leisure in a voice
beneath the quiet of which lay the
tense fixedness Of a stern, unbending
resolve. Then, Col. Farrar, tell you
that l will have your daughter and /
will avenge my father. Are you mine
till death, Lucile?'
az am yours till DEATH said the
girl as she went over and placed her
arm proudly about his neck.
Very little was seen of Leisure
in town after that and it was whis-
pered that he was staying out on his
farm and keeping out of the irate
colonels way.
About two weeks after his unsuc-
cessful interview with Farrar, which
was noised abroad as such things
are in a small town, Lucille Farrar
disappeared, and the tongues began to
wag in earnest. When for a week
she had not turned up the towns peo-
pie, who had little love for Farrar at
best, were ready to believe anything
His threat against his daughter was
known and the holder ones did not
hesitate to whisper that he had put
1t into execution. These hints took
form by degrees and at last a witness
came forward who told of passing the
coloneps house, situated on the edge
of town, late at night, and of hearing
low means and pleadings.
| AT last suspicion took such fierce
root that the sheriff headed an in
vestigating party. Col. Jim was away
and they had free run of the prem.
! Uses.
The search led to a cave in the
side Of the hill, once used as a cellar
but long since abandoned. There
they found torn pieces of a dress, a
bloody Ratchet and some tangled locks
of black hair drenched with blood
The dress and the hair were easily
identified as belonging to Lucille Far
rar, the Ratchet as the property OF
the colonel
when charged with the crime his
knees tottered and he nearly tainted
He made no direct denial but moanet
and cried like a child. During thC
trial that followed he seemed stunned
and oblivious to what was going on
II will admit that the courts o
to-day would be loath to accept 81
inadequate a corpus deficit, but gu
blood was hot in those times and /
seems to me we hanged more thar
we do now. Service was had on Les
sure and he testified to the facts of tn,
quarrel and the threat. Upon thi
evidence and the prisoners failure Z
deny they found their verdict Of guilt
and fixed upon the death penalty,
} AS the day of execution approach
J ed Col. Farrar continued in a stat
} Of almost total insensibility. Blu
/ when the sheriff came to read tn
death warrant he reused and raisin
his hand to heaven. said:
! before my maker swear that
3 am guiltless of my child's death
| They led him to the scaffold an
/ on the way he passed Melvin Lessur
3 who was watching the scene like
I bird fascinated by a snake. Col. Fa
rar requested the sheriff to stop. an