Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1917-09-26

courtyard uninjured. and firing fast.
Immediately the defense of the ha-
cienda resolved itself into a series of
hand-to-hand encounters. Parr, crouch
Ing behind the well sill, had two troop
ers shot down at his side before ne was
enveloped in a rush, borne bodily from
his feet, disarmed and man-handled.
Fighting as he had never fought be-
flung off the raiders who chung to
him like wolves to the TANKS of a stag,
and found his feet again, half his cloth
ing ripped from his body, his hands
empty.
In that abbreviated breathing spell
he saw the patio as panorama of in
ferno, pit of smoke and flame where
In men weltered and writhed like rep
tiles in a furnace. High above MIN
he caught a glimps of Bess Morgan,
kneeling before her bedchamber door,
on the gallery, and defending the
stairs, revolver in either hand, dead
ly determination in her look.
Then Parr was assailed from be-
hind. A dubbed rifle descended on
his skull with murderous force. He
rocked blindly for an instant, then
pitched forward into unconscious night.
That proved the elimination of the
attack. With Captain Parr insensible
and a prisoner, the leader of the raid
ing party ordered a retreat in good
time to escape the charge of the Chan
ming cowpunchers through the rose
garden.
LOVERS LEAP.
Pelting across country at a round
pace. joying in the free swing of the
unjaded animal beneath her, drinking
in delight with every deep-drawn res
piration of the clean, cool air of early
morning, Patria swung a wide arc
through trackless fields before, some
twenty minutes after leaving the ha-
cienda, she drew rein to rest and
breathe her horse.
1t was then that a sound of distant
firing was carried TO her on the wings
of the wind which was moving from
the quarter wherein lay the hacienda.
Definitely frightened, she swung her
horses head about and spurred him
down the main road, but a hun
bred yards or so short of the junction
with the road to the bridge at the Dor
der checked the animal again and sat
still. listening to the growing rumble
OF many hoofs.
Fearing lest she be caught In this
rush of horsemen, she jumped down
and led her mount into the shelter of
the roadside trees, then secuted on
afoot for a little distance to point
whence she commanded a view of the
fork in the roads.
There she saw, first, an oxcart,
counterpart of that which she had
passed in her motorcar the previous
afternoon, stalled by an accident to
one of the wheels, which the Mexican
driver had just succeeded in repairing.
An instant later a cloud of Mexican
horsemen swept up the road from the
hacienda and paused at the fork. The
leader, a burly ruffian, stopped long
enough beside the cart to admonish
the driver in accents that carried
clearly to the girl-familiar as she
was with Spanish:
Hurry that ammunition across the
river before the Gringoes get here-f
you set any value on your skim
That was all; but the sight of the
captive lying unconscious across the
horse ridden by one of the Mexicans-
a figure all too readily identified by
the girl as that Of her betrothed-was
enough to decide Patria's course OF &C
ton.
The raiding party swung on at top
speed for the bridge. The driver of
the oxcart picked up his goad and
prodded his beasts to the best pace
they could make. Patria ran back to
her horse, fumbling in the pockets of
her riLing coat and finding there the
envelope of an old letter.
With the soft-nosed bullet of a load
ed cartridge for a pencil, using the
saddle for desk, she contrived to
scrawl a simple message on the back
Of the envelope:
Mexicans with Capt. Parr prisoner
crossing border by bridge-safe and
trailing them-rush help-P. c.
Folding and tucking the envelope in
to the bride, Patria turned the horses
head homeward and slapped it's side
with the fiat Of her hand. Surprised
and Indignant. the animal snorted and
scurried of. Without giving it an
other thought the girl set off after the
oxcart.
She was somewhat surprised to find
that it had made such progress;
obliged to overtake 1t ere it came with
in sight of the bridge, or else give up
her foolhardy scheme, she succeeded
in the nick of time, with none to spare.
An instant before the cart, numbering
in haze of dust, left the shelter Of
the woods that eioaked the road, the
GIRL lahored I'm behind IL and unseen