The Huttig news., 1914-10-24

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 Now up to the track." the roadmas- ter panted, as the destroyer swept on down the line Find some tools we'll take out a rail!"
 With frantic eagerness he toiled up | the fill and attacked a fsh-plate, and Bud and the young guard searched the hillside for tools to help with the work. They fell to with sledge and clawbar, tapping off nuts, jerking out spikes, and heaving to loosen the rail-and then once more that swift-moving something loomed up suddenly on the track.
 Up the hill!" commanded the road master, and as they scrambled into gulch wild locomotive, belching smoke and steam like fire engine, went rushing past them, struck the | loose>erail, and leaped into the creek bed. A moment later as it crashed it's way down to the water, there was an explosion that shook the hills. They erouched behind the cut bank, and the trees above them bowed suddenly to the slash of an iron hail.
 "Dynamite," cried the roadmaster, grinning triumphantly as he looked up after the shock; and when the fall of fragments had ceased. and they had fled as if by instinct from the place, they struck hands on their narrow es cape. But back at the big house, with everybody giving thanks for their de- livery from the powder train. the mas ter mechanic raised a single voice of protest. He knew the sound. He knew that dynamite had not been re- sponsible for the crash that smote the ears of the anxious listeners.
 "'Twas not dynamite!" he yelled Powder train be damned! It was No 9 She was sour as a distillery! She blowed up. tell ye-she blowed uI when she hit the creek!"
 And even after a shower of bullets from the ridge had driven them all to cover he still rushed to those who would listen and clamored that it was the bran.
 But there was scant time to hold a post-mortem on No. 9, for on the sum- init of a nearby ridge, and overlooking the black tank, the rebels had thrown up wall in the night, and from the se- curity of this shelter they were indus triously shooting up the town.
 The smash of the first wild car had been their signal for attack, and as the explosion threw the defenders into confusion they made a rush to take the tank. Here, as on the day before was stationed the federal garrison, a scant twenty or thirty men in charge of boy lieutenant
 Being practically out of ammunition he did not stand on tho order of his going, but as his pelones pelted past the uperintendent's house the reor- ganized miners, their belts stuffed with cartridges from their own private stock, came charging up from the town and rallied them in the rear.
 Trained by American leaders they were the only real fighting force to be depended upon unless the Americans themselves should take a hand in the game, and that they could not do without the possibility of serious in ternatioual consequences, chance they could not take except as last resort to save the women and children and themselves
 In solid, shouting mass they swept up the hill together, dropped down be- hind the defenses, and checked the as- founded rebels with a volley Then :, there was another long-range battle. with every sign of war but the dead. until at last, as the firing slackened from the lack of cartridges, a white flag showed on the ridge above, and the leaders went out for barley one of those parleys so character istic of Mexican revolutions, and both sides know that the words ut tered are meaningless, and should one of them ever result in a surrender the terms of that surrender would not be regarded. once the victims were in the hands of the victors.
 Properly speaking, Del Key was in command of the town, but neither the federals nor the miners would recog nize his authority and the leadership went by default. While they waited to hear the rebel demands the Americans took advantage of the truce to bring up hot food from the hotel, where Don Juan de Dios stood heroically at his post. Let bullets come and go, Don Juan kept his cooks about him, and to those who had doubted his valor his coffee was answer enough.
 Wy, my gracious, MT Hooker" he railed, as Bud refreshed himself be. tween trips. "aint you going to take any un to those women? Don't drink