Bisbee daily review., 1917-05-27

ma from them, now ana again smoS bombs were dropped, signaling q cod to the gunners of that hidden battery
 Dressing in the maddest haste, Pa tria ran from her room, and withou pausing to find and question anyOn who might be about the house, left tha patio by the passageway.
 In front of the house her motor. car was waiting-by prearranged or. der-in charge of an orderly. Fron him, as she drove toward the aviation field, she learned little or nothing. He had arrived at the house with the car at about the time when the firing be- gan. He could tell her no more than that the end of a sleepless night had found every man upon the ranch at his post and prepared to sell his life to the highest bidder.
 On the way they passed squad of men operating an anti-airplane gun which they had just brought into ac- ton. They worked steadily, methOd- ically, intelligently, as if they were well-accustomed to their business in- stead of the novices they were in all save drilling.
 And the accuracy of their firing was astonishing. By the time Patria ar- rived at the aviation field, a lucky shot had brought down one of the hos tile aircraft, another was winging southward as fast as its engine would move 1t, and the third was engaged in a duel with two planes sent up by Patria's corps.
 Fascinated, she stood watching this spectacle long after her own biplane had been wheeled out of its hangar and made ready for her ascent.
 The three in the air were so high that they seemed little larger than swallows, and like swallows they wheeled and swooped, splitting fire at one another, their planes flashing in the young sunlight like swords.
 In the end the invader took refuge in flight, the two defenders snapping at his heels; and so they drifted from sight, far south of the border.
 The distant firing had now become more fast and furious.
 Clambering into the seat of her bi plane, Patria grasped the controls and gave the word to start the engine.
 Five minutes later she was at an elevation whence she commanded a view of the country north and south of the boundary line.
 That report had not erred in saying that the Japanese and Mexicans meant to invade in force was dismayingly dis closed. The roads to the south of the arroyo which marked the international line were choked with regiments of horse and foot. Patria's widest fears had not prepared her for the sight of so vast an army. Her heart sank the handful of men with which she had thought to oppose this army seemed more than ever pitifully inadequate. She had expected them to be outnum- bered ten to one; the truth was that they were outnumbered a hundred to one.
 Yet they were fighting gallantly- az gallantly as if they imagined that the odds against them were less brutal ly disproportionate. Which none did.
 Under cover of the sand-bag parapet of the first trenches-immediate to the north of the bridge spanning the arroyo-several companies were doing good service under galling conditions, sweeping the approaches to the bridge with machine-gun fire while suffering rain of shrapnel.
 This last came from that battery which had awakened Patria with its first shots. It was sheltered behind hill at some distance south of the bridge, and its gunners, having got the range of the trenches, were subjecting them to a bitter fire, constant and deadly. Already Patria saw) there was constant procession of wounded moving by communicating trenches to the rear, either in stretchers or mak- ing laborious journey afoot-assisted, perchance, by some comrades shoul- der. And already the ground beyond the pasapet was filtered with bodies of their dead.
 And this was only the beginning. -.
 To the man in the observers seat by her side Patria communicated certain instructions which he swiftly trans lated into wireless to be picked up by the operator at the headquarters Pa tria's people had established we'll back of the main line trenches. Within five minutes the effect of her orders was apparent. The first line trenches were being rapidly vacated, their occupants hastening back to the greater security Of the main line. While one of Parr's masked batteries, going on informa- ton communicated by Patria, got the range of the Japanese guns beyond the bill and began to pound them merci- lessly.
 The evacuation of the first-line trenches was accomplished barely in s1ma avan aa pafria hod forasaa1