Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1916-02-24

FL PasO, Texas, Feb. Is, 1916
Friend Cory:
Tonight ! feel like telling you a lit
tie story-a story of but a little in
cidcnt in the great drama constantly
being enacted beyond the Rio Grandc
"a little incident that, judged by
your standards and viewed from your
viewpoint, will pel'haps seem mon
Strous and yet it comedies with Mex
lean ideas Of prompt retributive JUS
tice. and after all who Of US shall
safely judge Of its ultimate right.
~eOusness? Could | tell to you the
story Of that scene as ! saw it in the
dim light Of the early morning, the
story, | think, would linger in your
memory when the teller was perhaps
forgotten.
About twelve miles south of Ell
Paso is the old, Old town of IsIeta, an
old town when Ei Paso was founded.
Across the river a few miles from
lsIeta is the Mexican town of San
Elizario. Mrs. Murphy, a widow,
lives on a little ranch near Isleta and
her principal income was derived by
keeping SIX full-blood milch vows.
One night the COWS were stolen by
cattle thieves and ran across the
river into Mexico. A few days later
three OF the cows were located in
Mexico by Bert Akers, a son-in-law
Of Mrs. Murphy, in the corral of Der
,lardo and FREDERICK Duran, neal San
Elizario, south Of Juarez. In the at
tempt to eCove the cows, a strong
force OF Mexican renegadcs was Ell
countered and, while trying to es-
cape, Akers was overtaken by Der.
nardo Duran and shot to death.
The shooting attracted the atten-
ton OF a scout patrol of Mexican sol.
diers who arrested Duran almost i'm
mediately after the killing of Akers,
and soon capturing his brother, Fed
rico, took the two prisoners and
some OF their friends into Juarez for
examination and punishment.
This occurred almost Immediately
after the Cusa massacre, wherein
nineteen Americans had just been
murdered and American feeling along
The border was very bitter. Perhaps,
with a thought or placating this feel
ing and meteing out swift punish
T,ent, the trial was not delayed by
my legsl technicalities, as in the
States, but the culprits were speed
iiy found guilty and sentenced to
die the next morning.
And that next morningi Before
daylight a little procession was form
cd at the Jail to begin ell tornado del
muerto, the journey of DEATH" to
the cemetery II and a half miles
sway. The great white Mexican
moon cast a wierd radiance oyer the
mesquite and cactus strewn plain,
iand g1ptesque shadows we're cast
across the way. Quickly the two
Young men, scarcely more than boys,
we're brought from the Jail, bound to-
gether with ropes, and, guarded by
SIX silent guards commanded by Cap
tain ortez, the death march began.
Without coats. in the cold gray
dawn, the brothers c%onversed in low
soft tones, while their guards and
e~xecutioners, in gaudy-colored blan-
Rats, with rifles slung across their
backs. walked beside them. Twice
the elder brothers arm went caress-
ingly over the younger boys shoulder
and he appeared to whisper words of
comfort or perhaps a plea to meet
death brayely. What was said, only
they and God know. but the act was
eloquent of the affection Of the elder
brother in the last moments Of his
life.
The road to the place OF death Is
4 gloomy road even by day and the
cemetery, situate on a little rise Of
ground, is a delapidated, dreary place
because of neglect. Juarez and un-
happy Mexico during recent years,
has been much more busily engaged
In filling its cemeteries than in car
ing for and Identifying them. AS the
gate changed open on its rusty hinges
and the condemned and their guards
marched through In the footprints OF
hundreds who have passed that gate
on their way to execution, one felt
conceptions new apprecia-
tifn Of the utter hopelessness Of those
g&ho crossed the bridge Of sighs.
About n hundred yards away was
q small white, one-reom hut,--the.
casa muerto; II was nearly daylight
now and as the prisoners stood at
he lend of the death house, the
soldiers, with their rifles ready, took
position twenty feet away; all around
THIN were the wooden crosses of the.
dead and all family lighted ~ the
moon, low now in the western sky.
Suddenly the Six o'clock whistles
blew In I'll Paso and echoed against
the hills--faintly but clearly, came
afhasnotes or bugles of American regi-
rSSazats stationed along the boundary,
saaSthe sreveille was sounded; swiftly,