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POLK COUNTY NEWS-GAZETTE. BENTON, TENNESSEE. ..WV.W.W.V.V- The Land of Broken Promises A Stirring Story of the Mexican Revolution Br DANE COOUDCE AmlKor of H.dd.m Wmfrm" " lha T.xvcmn." Etc Illustration by Don J. Larin WAV.VAVAV.V (Coprrttta. 1914 by task A. Uanw?) SYNOPSIS. Bud Hooker and Phil Pe Lancey r lorcea. owing to a revolution In Mexico, to irlve up their mining claim and return to the United States. In the border town of Oadsden Bud meets Henry Kru-r. a wealthy miner, who makes him a proposi tion to return to Mexico to acquire title to a very rich mine which Kruirer had blown up when he found he had been cheated out of the title by one Aragiin. The Mexican had spent a large sum In an unsuccessful attempt to relocate the vein and then had allowed the land to revert for taxes. Hooker and De Lancey tart for the mine. CHAPTER V. The Journey to Fortuna is a scant fifty miles by measure, but within these eight kilometers there is a lapse of centuries in standards. As Bud and De Lancey rode out of battle-scarred Agua Negra they traveled a -good road, well worn by the Mexican wood-wagons that hauled in mesqult from the hills. Then, as they left the town and the wood roads scattered, the highway changed by degrees to a broad trail, dug deep by the feet of fack-animals and marked but lightly with wheele. It followed along the railroad, cutting over hills and down through gulches, and by evening they were in the heart of Old Mexico. Here were men In sandals and wom en barefoot; chickens tied up by the legs outside of brush jacales; long nosed hogs, grunting fiercely as they skirmished for food; and half-naked children, staring like startled rabbits at the strangers. The smell of garlic and freeh-roast-Jng coffee was in the nir as they drew ,lnto town for the night, and their iroom was an adobe chamber with tile floor and iron bars across the win dows. Riding south the next day they met vaqueros, mounted on wiry mus tangs, who saluted them gravely, tak ing no shame for their primitive wood en saddle-trees and pommels as broad as soup-plates. As they left the broad plain and clambered up over the back of a moun tain they passed Indian houses, brush built and thatched with long, coarse grasses, and by the fires the women ground corn on stone metates as their ancestors had done before the fall. For in Mexico there are two peoples, the Spaniards and the natives, and the Indians still remember the days when they were free. It was through such a land that Phil end Hooker rode on their gallant ponies, leading a pack-animal well loaded with supplies from the north, and as the people gazed from their miserable hovels and saw their outfit they wondered at their wealth. But if they were moved to envy, the bulk of a heavy pistol, showing through the swell of each coat, discouraged them .from going farther; and the cold, searching look of the tall cowboy as he ambled past stayed in their mem ory long after the pleasant "Adios!" of De Lancey had been forgotten. Americans Were scarce in those days, and what ew came by were rid ing to the north. How bold, then, must this big man be who rode in front and certainly he had some great re ward before him to risk such a horse among the revoltosos! So reasoned the simple-minded natives of the moun tains, gazing In admiration at Copper Bottom, and for that look in their eyes Bud returned hie forbidding stare; There is something about a good horse that fascinates the average Mex ican perhaps because they breed the finest themselves and are In a position to Jude but Hooker had developed a ronyic attachment for bis trim little chestnut mount and he resented their wide-eyed gapings as a lover resents glances at his lady. This, and a frontier education, rendered him short-spoken and gruff with the paisanos and it was left to the cavalier De Lancey to do the courtesies of the road. As the second day wore on they dipped down Into a rocky canyon, with huge cliffs of red and yellow sandstone glowing in the slanting sun, and soon they broke out into a narrow valley, well wooded with sycamores and mes- quita and giant hackbcrry trees. The shrill toots of a dummy engine came suddenly from down below and a mantlo of black smoke rose majes tlcally against the Bky--then, at a turn of the trail, they topped the last hill and Fortuna lay before them. In that one moment they were set back again fifty miles clear back across the 11 no for Fortuna was American, from the power-houBe on the creek bank to the mammoth con centrator on the hill. All the buildings were of stone, square and uniform. First a central plaza, flanked with offices and ware' houses; then behind them barracks and lodging houses and trim cottages In orderly rows; and over across the canyon loomed the huge bulk of the mill and the concentrator with its aerial tramway and endless row of gliding buckets. Only on the lower hills, where the rough country rock cropped up and nature was at its worst, only there did the real Mexico creep in and assert it- self In a crude huddle of half-Indian huts; the dwellings of the care-free na tives. "Well, by Jove!" exclaimed De Lan cey, surveying the scene with as ap praising eye, "this doesn't look Tory much like Mexico or a revolution. either!" "No. it don't." admitted Bud; "every thing running full blast, toe. Look at that ore train coming around the hill!" "Gee, what a burg!" raved Phil; "say, thero's some class to this what? If I mistake not, we'll be able to find a few congenial spirits here to help us spend our money. Talk about a com pany town! I'll bet you their barroom is full of Americans. There'e the cor ral down below let's ride by and leave our horses and see what's the price of drinks. They can't feeze me, whatever it 13 we doubled ou money at the line." Financially considered, they had done just that for, for every Anierl can dollar in their pockets they could get two that were juat as good, ex copt for the picture on the side. Thi3 in l.self was a great inducement for a ready'Bpender and, finding good com pany at the Fortuna hotel bar, Phil bought five dollars' worth of drinks threw down a five-dollar bill, and- got back five dollars Mex. The proprietor, a large and Jovial bonlface, pulled off his fiscal miracle with the greatest good humor and then, having invited them to partake of a very exquisite m'xture of his own invention, propped himself upon his elbows across the bar and inquired with an ingenuous smile: "Well, which way are you boys traveling, if I may ask?" "Oh, down below a ways," answered De Laiftcy, who always constituted himself the board of strategy. "Just rambling around a little how's the country around here now?" "Oh, quiet, quiet!" assured their host. "These Mexicans don't like the cold weather much they.would freeze you know, if it was not for that zarape which they wind about them so!" He made a motion as of a native lata a room, throwing open the outer door and shutter to let them see Use view from the window. "Here Is a little balcony," he uM, stepping outside, "where you can sit and look down on the plaza. We have the band and music when the weather ta fine, and you can watch the pretty girls from here. But you haTe been In Mexico yoii know all that!" And be gave Phil a roguish dig. "Bien. my frlen', I am glad to meet you" Ha held out hi band In wel come and De Lancey gave his In re turn. "My name." he continued. "is Juan de Dios Brachamonte y Escalon; but with these Americana that does obfaia express permission from the ofcief executive of the republic. Not having any drag with the chief executive, and not caring to risk their title to the whims of succeeding ad ministrations. Hooker and De Lancey, upon the advice of a mining lawyer in Gadsden, had organized themselves into the Eagle Tail Mining company, under the laws of the republic of Mex ico, with headquarters at Agua Negra. It was their plan to get some Mexican o locate' the mine for them and then, for a consideration, transfer it to the company. The one weak spot In thii scheue waa the Mexican. By trusting Aragon. not go, as you say, ao in general they Honry Kruger had not only lost title call me Don Juan. I to his mine, but he had been outlawed "There la something about that I from the republic. And now he had name I do not know that makes the college boys laugh. Perhaps it is that poet. Byron, who wrote so scandalous ly about ue Spaniards, but certainly he knew nothing of our language, for be rhymes Don Juan with 'new one' and 'true one!' Still, I read part of that poem and It Is. In places, very Interest ing yes, very Interesting but 'Don Joo-an!' Hah!" He threw up his hand In despair and De Lancey broke into a Jollying laugh. "Well, Don Juan," he cried. "I'm glad to meet you. My name is Philip De Lancey and my pardner here is Mr. Hooker. Shake hands with him, Don Juan de Dios! But certainly a man so devoutly named could never descend to reading much of Don Joo-an!" "Ah. no," protested Don Juan, roll ing his dark eyes and smiling rakishly, "not rnoch only the most in-tereeting passages! He saluted and disappeared in a roar of laughter, and De Lancey turned triumphantly on his companion, a self- satisfied smile upon his lips. "Aha!" he said; "you see? That's what five dollars' worth of booze will do In opening up the way. Here's our old friend Don Juan willing, nay, anx ious, to help us all he can he sees I'm a live wire and wants to keep me around. Pretty soon we'll get him feeling good and he'll tell us all he knows. Don't you never try to make me Bign the pledge again, brother a lew snots Just gets my intellect to working right and I'm crafty as a fox. 'Did you notice that coup I made asking him if he was a Spaniard? There's nothing in the world makes a Spaniard so mad as to take him for a Mexican on the other hand, nothing Feeling Cautiously of the Walls bestowed upon Hooker and De Lancey the task of finding an honest Mexican, and keeping him honest until he made the transfer. While the papers were being made C-ut there might be a great many temptations placed before that Mexi can either to keep the property for himself or to hold out for a bigger re ward than had been specified. After tiful woman In her day. with golden hair and the presence of a queen! "No. not Irish! My goodness, you Americans think that everybody with red hair is Irish! Whv. the most beau tiful women In Madrid have chestnut hair as soft as the fur of a dormouse. It is the old Castilian hair, and they are proud of it. The Senora Aragon married beneath her station it was In the City of Mexico, and she did not know that he was an Indian but she Is a very nice lady for all that and never omits to bow to me when she comes up to take the train. I remem ber one time " "Does Cruz Mendei work for him?" Interjected De Lancey desperately. "No, Indeed!" answered Don Juan patiently; "he packs In wood from the hills but as I was saying " and from that he went on to tell of the un failing courtesy of the Senora Aragon to a gentleman whom, whatever bis present station might be, she recog nlzed as a member of one of the oldest families in Castile. De Lancey did not press his In quiries any further, but the next morn ing, instead of riding back Into the hills, he and Bud turned their faces down the canyon to seek out the eluelve Mendez. They had. of course, been acting a part for Don Juan, since Kru ger had described Old Fortuna and the Senor Aragon with great minuteness. And now, in the guise of Innocent strangers, they rode on down the river. past the concentrator with its multiple tanks, its gliding tramway and moun tains of tailings, through the village of Indian houses stuck like dugouts against the barren hill then along a river bed that oozed with sllcklngs un til they came in Bight of the town. La Fortuna was an old town, yet not as old as Its name, since two Fortunas before it had been washed away by cloudbursts and replaced by newer dwellings. The settlement itself was some four hundred years old, dating back to the days of the Spanish con qulstadores, when It yielded up many muleloads of gold. The present town was built a little up from the river in the lee of a great ridge of rocks thrust down from the hill and well calculated to turn aside a glut of waters. It was a comfortable huddle of whitewashed adobe build ings set on both sides of a narrow and irregular road the great trail that led down to the hot country and was worn deep by the pack-trains of centuries On the lower side was the ample TWO CENTURIES OLD Cold Spring Church at Cape May Has Long History. Congregation First Formed by Presby terians in Lower New Jersey Many Stirring Events Circled About An cient House of Worship. his experience with the aristocratic makes him your friend for life like Don Clpriano Aragon y Tres Palacjos, atore and cantlna of Don Cipriano, recognizing him for a blue-blooded -ger was in mvor 01 uiKing a cnanco where the thirsty arriero8 could get a Castilian. Now maybe our old friend Don Juan hae got a few drops of Moor ish blood in his veins to put it po litely, but " he raised his tenor voice and improvised 'Jest because my hair is curly Dat's no reason to call me 'shine!'" "No," agreed Bud, feeling cautiously of the walls, "and jest because you're happy is no reason for singing so loud, neither. Theee here partitions are made of inch boards, covered with paper do you get that? Well, then. considering who's probably listening, on the lower classes. He had therefore recommended to them one Cruz Men dez, a wood vender whom he had known and befriended, as the man to play the part. Cruz Mendez, according to Kruger, was hard-working, sober and honest for a Mexican. He was also simple minded and easy to handle, and was the particular man who had sent word that the Eagle Tall had at last been abandoned. And also he was easy to pick out, being a little, one-eyed man and going by the name of "El Tuerto." drink and buy a panoche of sugar without getting down from their mounts. Behind the store were the pole corrals and adobe warehouses and the quarters of the peons, and across the road was the mescal still, where, in huge copper retort and worm, the flery liquor waa distilled from the sugar-laden heads of Yuccas. This was the town, but the most Im portant building set back in the shade of mighty cottonwoods and pleasantly aloof from the road was the residence of Senor Aragon. It was It strikes me that Mr. Brachamonte is Xv3 m pursuance or tneir jjoi icy or this, Jn f act WQich held the undivided the real thing In Spanish gentlemanyMtteS wilting game, HMer , and attention of De Lancey as they rode and I've heard that all genu wine Span- Ve Lancy hung around the hotel for quIetiy through (he village, for he "Which Way Are You Boys Travel ing?" wrapping his entire wardrobe about his neck and smiled, and De Lancey knew that he was no Mexican. And yet that soft "which away" of his be: trayed a Spanish tongue. - "Ah, excuse me," he said, taking quick advantage of his guese, "but from the way you pronounce that word 'zarape' I take it that you speak Span ish." "No one better," replied the host, smiling pleasantly at being taken at his true worth, "since I waa born In iards have their hair curly, jest like a huh?" But De Lancey, made suddenly aware of his Indiscretion, was making all kinds of exaggerated signs for si lence, and Bud stopped with a slow, good-natured smile. : "S-s-st!" hissed De Lancey, touching his finger to his lips; "don't say It somebody might hear you!" "All right," agreed Bud; "and don't you say it, either. I hate to knock, Phil," he added, "but sometimes I think the old man was right when he said you talk too much." "Psst!" chided De Lancey, shaking his finger like a Mexican. Tiptoeing softly over to Bud, he whispered in his ear: "S-s-st, I can hear the feller In tbrtiext room shaving himself!" i Laughing hearily at this Joke, they went down stairs for supper, several days, listening to the gossip of Don Juan de Dips and watching for one-eyed men wiflT prospects to sell. Itf Sonora he is a poor and unimag- j inative man Indeed who has not at least one lost mine or "prospecto" to sell; and prosperous-looking strangers, riding through the country, are often had become accustomed from a long experience in the tropics to look for something elusive, graceful and femi nine in houses set back in a garden. Nothing stirred, however, and having good reason to avoid Don Clpriano, they Jogged steadily on their way. Some house!" observed Phil, with beckoned aside by half-naked paisanos a last hopeful look over his shoulder. CHAPTER VI. If the Eagle Tall mine had been lo cated In Arizona or even farther down In Old Mexico the method of jumping the claim would have been delightfully simple. The title had lapsed, and the land the city of Burgos, Vhere they speak had reverted to the government all the true Castilian. It la a different it needed in Arizona was a new set nf language, believe hre, from this bas- cara Mexican tongue. Ana do you speak Spanish also?" he Inquired, falling back into the staccato of Cas tile. monuments, a location notice at' the discovery shaft, a pick and shovel thrown into the hole, and a few legal formalities. But in Mexico It Is different. Not eager to show them the gold mines of the Spanish padres for a hundred dol lars Mex. It was only a matter Of time, they thought, until Cruz Mendez would hunt them up and try to sell them the Eagle Tail; and it was their intention re luctantly to close the bargain with him, for a specified sum, and then stake him to the denouncement fees and gain possession of the mine. As this was a commonplace in the district no Mexican having capital enough to work a claim and no Amerl "Uh," assented Bud, as they came to a fork in the road. "Say," he con tinued, "let's turn off on this trail. Lot of burro tracks going out expect it's our friend, Mr. Mendez." "All right," said De Lancey ab sently; "wonder whfere old Aragon keeps that bee-utiful daughter of his the one Don Joo-an was telling about Have to stop on the way back and sample the old man's mescal, "Nothing doing!" countered Hooker Instantly. "Now you heard what told you there's two things you leave Cape May. The Cold Spring Pres byterian church will observe the two hundredth anniversary of its found ing with appropriate ceremonies dur ing July. A rally week Is to lis held, when an endowment of $10,000 will be completed and the organiza tion placed upon a secure basis for its maintenance. The historical ad dress is to be delivered by Charles H. Edmunds of Philadelphia, whose, foreparents lie in its graveyard, where the dead of Cape May for two cen turies are buried. When the whalemen of New Eng land migrated to Cape May in the latter part of the seventeenth cen tury, the spirit of Presbyterianism, as spread by the preaching of Jona than Edwards, was brought with them, and the community about Town Bank, then called Portsmouth, but now washed by the waters of Delaware bay, was formed. Later these people moved inland to Cold Spring neigh borhood, and began agricultural par- suits. In 1705 the first Presbytery organ ized in America was In Philadelphia, and under this Presbytery the Cold Spring, or Cape May, church was in stituted in 1714, being the second de nomination to start a meeting house in the county. Two years previously the Baptists had started the church at MIddletown, now Cape May Court House. In 1720 the Quakers started their cedar meeting-house at Sea- yille, In the upper precinct of Cape May, giving to each precinct a house of worship. The three original town ships of the county thus retain their names of upper, middle and lower, and It Is In the lower on."' ;hat the Cold Spring fishing and I - rlcuitural community was founded and it has been a community which has brought forth many of the leading men of the country. As with all ancient churches, the graveyard was made and began to be filled, bo that the descendants of those buried there spread all over this broad land. The first minister of the church waB Rev. John Bradner, who continued with It for seven years. The first church was a small log building, and was not really finished can having the right to locate one It aione for sixty days booze and worn was a very natural and Inconspicuous way of jumping Senor Aragon y Tree Palacios' abandoned claim. If they discovered the lead immediately after ward it would pass for a case of fool's luck, or at least so they hoped, and, riding out a little each day and sitting en. After we cincn our title you can get as gay as you please." "Qo-ee!" piped Phil, "hear the boy talk!". But he said no more of wine and women, for he knew how they do complicate life. They rode to the east now, follow- "No indeed!" protested De Lancey in that the legal formalities are lacking a very creditable imitation; "nothing: far from it but the whole theory of mines and mining is different. In Mex ico a mining title is, in a way, a lease. a concession rrom me general gov ernment giving the concessionnalre the right to work a certain piece of ground and to hold It as '.ong as he but a little Mexican, to get along with the natives. My friend and I are min ing men, passing through the country, and we speak the best we can. How is this district here for work along our line?" "None better!" cried the Spaniard, pays a mining tax of three dollars an shaking his finger emphatically. "It acre pear year. Is of the best, and, believe me, my But no final papers or patents are friend, we should be glad to have you ever Issued, the possession of the siir- stop with us. The country down be- face of the ground does not go with low is a little dangerous not now, the right to mine benath it, and in cer- perhaps, but later, when the warm tain parts of Mexico no foreigner can weather comes on. hold title to either mines or land. "But in Fortuna no! Here we are A prohibited or frontier zone, eighty on the railroad; the camp is controlled kilometers la width, lies along the in by Americans; and because so many ternational boundary line, and in that have left the country the Mexicans neutral zone no foreigner can do- will sell their prospectB cheap. nounco a mining claim and no foreign "Then again, if you develop a mine corporation can acquire a title to one. near by. It will be very easy to sell it The Eagle Tall waa Just Inside the and If you wish to work It, that is zone easy, too. I am only the proprietor of But there is always a "but" when the hotel, but if you can use my poor you go to a good lawyer while for services In any way I shall bo very purposes of war and national safety happy to please you. A room? One foreigners are not allowed to hold land of the best! And If you stay a week along the line, tboy are at perfect 11b- or more I will give you the lowest erty to hold stock In Mexican corpora' rate." tlons owning property within the pro- . They passed up the winding stairs hlblted zone; and here la where the and down a long corridor, at the end graft comes to they may even hold of which the proprietor showed them title In their own Dame If they first on the hotel porch with Don Juan the lng tne iong, flat footprints of the bur rest of the time, they waited until pa- rog and Dy an the landmarks Bud tience seemed no longer a virtue. Baw that they were heading straight "Don Juan," said De Lancey, taking for the old Eagle Tail mine. At Old up the probe at last, "I had a Mexican Fortuna the river turns west and at working for me when we were over In the same time four canyons came In the Sierras one of your real, old- from the east and south. Of these time workers that had never been they had taken the first to the, north spoiled by an education and he was an(j it was leading them past all the alwayB talking about 'La Fortuna.' I 0& workings that Kruger had spoken guess this was the place he meant, but it doesn't look like it according to him It was a Mexican town. Maybe he's around here now his name was j Mendez." about. In fact, they were almost at the mine when Hooker swung down suddenly from his horse and motioned Phil to follow. "There's some burros coming," he "Jose Maria Mendez?" inquired Don said, glancing back significantly; and Juan, who -was a living directory of when the pack-train came by, each the place. "Rlcardo? Pancho? Cruz?" animal plied high with broken wood, "Cruz!" cried De Lancey; "that was It!" "He lives down the river a couple of miles," said Don Juan; "down at Old Fortuna." "Old Fortuna!" repeated Thll. "I didn't know there was such a place." "Why, my gracious!" exclaimed Don Juan de Dios, scandalized by such Ignorance. "Do you mean to Bay you have been here three days and never heard about Fortuna Vieja? Why, this isn't Fortuna! This Is an Ameri can mining camp the old town is down below. "That's where this man Aragon, the big Mexican of the country, has his ranch and store. Spanish? Him? No, indeed mitad! He is half Spanish and half Yaqul Indian, but his wife Is a pure Spaniard one of the few in the country. Her father was from Madrid and she is a Vlllanueva a very beau- the two Americans were busily tap ping away at a section of country rock. A man and a boy followed be hind the animals, gazing with wonder at the strangers, and as Phil bads them a pleasant "Buenos dias!" they came to a halt and stared at their Industry in Bilence. In the interva) Phil was pleased to note that the olc man had only one eye. (TO BE CONTINUED.) ' Carlyle and Ceremony. Thomas Carlyle and his wife were so wedding-frightened that It Is sad to think of it. Replying to a lettor of his deHcrlbing his fantastic terrors, she wrote: "For heaven's sake get into a more benignant humor, or the. incident will not only wear a verr original aspect, but likewise a verj heart-breaking one. I see not hew I am to go through with It" 0K 1 w 1 ; till Cold Spring Presbyterian Church. until 1718. Since then the church has. had two other houses of worship, the present one having been in existence for upwards of 80 years. The original pastor of the church in 1818 conveyed in perpetuity for the church his 200-acre estate, and those who were named as grantees were Humphrey Hughes, George Hand, John Parsons, Joseph Whildin, James Spicer, Shamgar Hand, Joshua Uulickson, Samuel Johnson, Constant Hughes, Cornelius Scholllnger, John Hand, Nathanial Hand, Barnabas Crowell, Jehu Richardson, George Crftwfort, Benjamin Stites, Jeremiah Hand, Samuel Eldredge, Jonathan Furman, Ezekiel Eldredge, Eleazer Newton, Nathanial Norton, Nathanial Rex, Yelverson Crowell, Josiah Crowell, William Mulford, William Matthews, Samuel Bancroft, Samuel Foster and John Matthews, names which have been continued In each succeeding generation to the present day. Only a few of the family names have become extinct. Of recent pastors, Rev. John L. Landis, now retired, has become a permanent resident of the neighbor hood, and was pastor 25 years ago, when the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary exercises were held. He will take a prominent part in the coming celebration. The present pastor Is Rev. Charles Henry Jones, who has been the minis ter about two years. He is an active worker, and doing much to preserve the traditions of the much-lovod old place. Owing to the few people liv ing in the immediate neighborhood, only morning services are held there, while services are held In the two chapels which have been built nearer Cape May City. When President Benjamin Harrison lived at Cape May In 1890, 1891 and ' 1892, he and Mrs. Harrison worshiped In the church.