Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1917-03-16


and cannot leave his post
CHAPTER IT-Next day at evening the
murderer appears with companion.
CHAPTER III-Law captures the muir
derer but is compelled to kill his compan-
ion PanfilO Sanchez, who happens to be
a cousin of Mrs. Austin's horsebreaker
Jose Sanchez.
CHAPTER Iv-At Las Palmas Alaire
tells her husband, Ed, that his carousals
at La Feria, the Mexican ranch, are con-
fscated by Longorio Mexican federal
general and she finds that it is because
Ed has beenfhelping the rebel junta
When she came home to marry,
Alaire was still very much of child,
and she still considered Ed her knight.
As for him. he was captivated by this
splendid, handsome girl, whom he re-
membered only as a shy, red-headed
little cOmrade.
AS Las Palmas had been the elder
Austins wedding gift to his son, so
Alaire's dowry from her father had
been La Feria, a grant of lands across
The Rio Grande beyond the twenty
league belt by which Mexico fatuously
strives to guard her border. And to
Las Palmas had come the bride and
groom to live, to love and to rear their
children.
But rarely has there been a shorter
honeymoon, seldom a sWifter awaken
ing. Within six months young Ed''
had killed his wife's love and had him
self became an alcoholic. Other vices
so multiplied that what few virtues
The young man had inherited were
soon choked. To the bride the truth
had come as a stunning tragedy. The
wreck Of her hopes and glad imagin-
Ings left her sick, beWildered in the
face of "the thing that couldn't"
Nor had the effect of this transfer
nation in "Young Ed" been any less
painful to his father. When the truth
was borne in upon him Enthusiastically,
and the girl-Wife remained firm in her
refusal to divorce her husband, the I'M
1erstanding had been reached by
which the management of Las Palmas
was placed absolutely in her hands.
Of course the truth became public,
as it always does. young Ed Aus
tins life became a scOrn and kissing
among his neighbOrs. They were not
unduly faStidiOus, these neighbOrS, and
they knew that hot blood requires more
than a generation to cool, but every
thing Ed did outraged them. III trying
to show their sympathy for his wife
they succeeded in WOunding her more
deeply, and Alaire withdrew into her
self. She had changed. The alteration
reached to the very bone and marrow
of her. being. At first the general pity
had wounded her. then it had offended,
and finally angered her That people
should notice her affection, particu-
larly when she strOve so desperately
to hide it, seemed the height of inso-
lence
The management of Las Palmas was
almost her only relief. Having sprung
from a family Of ranchers. the work
came easy, and she grew to like it-as
well as she could like anything with
that ever-present pain in her breast.
Las Palmas had prOspered to admira-
ton, and La Feria would have pros
pered equally had it not been for the
armed unrest of the country across the
border No finer stock than the BOX
A" was to be found anywhere. But
Alaire had not confined her efforts to
rattie: she had improved the breed OF
BOX A" horses, too, and hand IN hand
with this work she had carried on a
series of agricultural experiments, For
instance, she had started grove OF
paper-shelled pecans, which was soon
due to bear; the ranchhOuse and its
clump of palms was all but hidden by
q forest of strange trees, which were
reported to ripen everything from
mOthballs to bicycle tires. Blaze Jones
was perhaps responsible for this re
port, for Alaire had shown him sew
eral thousand eucalyptus saplings anC
some ornamental rubber plants. /.
''That Miz Austin is a money-makin
piece of furniture" he once told his
daughter PalOma. 'Tm no mechanical
ADDER count mostly on my fingers
but her and me calculated the profits
on them eucher - what's their name
trees?-and it gave me splittin' head
ache. She'll be drug queen, sure
"Why don't you follow her exam
ple?" asked PalOma. eve have plenty
of land"
Blaze, in truth, was embarrassed By
the size of his holdings, but he shool
his head. "NO, I'm too old to go ram
pagin' after new gods. amt got the
imagination to raise anything more
complicated than a mortgage; but i
was younger, I'd organize myself III
and do away with that Ed Austin. II
sure help him to an untimely end, anC
then I'd marry them pecan groves, ant
blooded herds, and drugstore orchards
She certainly is heart-breakin' de