The Huttig news., 1914-10-31

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 So far in the siege Del Key had kept under cover, patrolling the streets and plaza and letting the volunteers fight, but now the war had shifted to his territory and his ruraies were run ming like mad. For. matching treach- cry against deceit, the rebel leaders had sent men around to slip up near the town and at the first fusillade from the hillside they came charging up the creek.
 Then it was that the eyer-watchful rurales proved their worth. As the rebels appeared in the open they ran to the outlying houses and, fighting from the fiat roofs, checked the ad- vance until the miners could come to their aid
 But in the confusion another party of rebels had rushed down the gulch from the west, and while the fight was going on in the lower town they found lodgment in a big adobe house. And now for the first time there was fight ing in earnest-the house-to-house fighting that is seen at its worst in Mexico. While. women screamed in the casa grande and the Americans paced to and fro on the hill, the boom of dynamite bomb marked the begin ming of hand-to-hand.
 If there was to be a casualty list In this long-looked for battle of Fortuna, the time was at hand when they could begin counting the dead
 With fearlessness born of long fa- miliarity with explosives the Sonoran miners advanced valiantly with their hand grenades-baking powder cans filled with dynamite and studded with Illuminating caps. Digging fiercely through wall after wall they ap- preached unperceived by the enemy and the first bomb. flung from a roof. filled the adobe with wounded and dead.
 A dense pail of yel'owish smoke rose high above the town and, as bomb after bomb was exploded and the yells of the miners grew louder with each success, the stunned invaders broke from cover and rushed helter- -skelter up the gulch Then there was prodi- gious shouting from the Sonorans and more than one triumphant grenadier swung his can of giant powder by the sling and let 1t smash against the hill in terrific detonation.
 In the big house all was confusion. Soon the cheers of the defenders her aided victory and, in spite of all efforts to restrain them, the wives of the miners rushed into the open to gaze upon the triumph of their menfolk.
 On the hilltops the ineffective rebel rifiemen rose up from behind their stone wall to stare, until suddenly they. too, were seized with panic and ran to and fro like ants. Then, around the curve below the concentrator, tall man came dashing up on pure white horse. and behind him. charging as he charged, came the swarthy Ya- ouis of Alvarez, their new rifles gleam- ing in the sun.
 Up along the hillside and after the
  ness, racing each other for the higher ground and the first shot at the reb- els First Alvarez on his white horse would be ahead, and then, as they en- countered rocks, the Yaquis would surge to the front. It was a race and at the first glimpse of that oncoming body of warriors. the cowardly follow CTS or Bernardo Bravo took to their heels and fled.
 But over the rocks no Chihuahuan no matter how scared, can hope to out distance Yaqui and the pop, pop of rifles told the fate of the first luckless stragglers For the Yaquis, after a hundred and sixty years of guerrilla warfare. never waste a shot: and as savage yells and the crash of a sud den volley drifted down from the rocky heights the men who had been be- sieged in Fortuna knew that death was abroad in the hills.
 Fainter and fainter came the shots as the pursuit led on to the north and, as Hooker strained his eyes to follow huge form that intuition told him was Amigo, he was wakened suddenly from his preoccupatioh by the touch of some unseen hand. He was in the open with people all about him Spanish refugees. Americans, trium- phant miners and their wives-but that touch made him forget the battle above him and instantly think of Gracia.
 He turned and hurried back to the corral where Copper Bottom was kept, and there he found her waiting. with her roan all saddled, and she chal- lenged him with her eyes. The sun gleamed from a pistol. that. she held