Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1913 — HEROINE OF THE ROAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HEROINE OF THE ROAD

THRILLING RACE WITH DEATH THAT RIVALB FICTION. / ■ ~ •:» - Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Makes Daring and Successful Ride in Effort to Bave Life of Injured Laborer. From the “front” of the new Grand Trunk Pacific railway comes a tale of

a thrilling race with death that rivals the fiction writer’s imagination. Little Mary Fowler, aged fifteen, the daughter of a camp cook, a few nights ago made one of the most daring and successful horseback rides in an effort to save the life of an injured laborer, and in her desperate ride through the dark-

ness of the night over a wild and mountainously rough road the man owes his life. One of the laborers working upon the grade had been injured slightly in .he arm by a flying piece of wood. Carelessness in the handling of this avidently trivial wound caused blood poisoning, and before it was realized, che man was almost at death’s door, md only the quick attendance of a ioctor could save him. The only animal in the whole camp that was in any way serviceable was a medium weight horse used for hauling the dump cart on the rock cut. There was no saddle and the only person in camp that was of sufficient light weight to be carried by die animal for any distance to make iny speed was fifteen-year-old Mary Fowler. The nearest doctor was at the main camp, 22 mileß down the line, and the country between was of the wildest nature, only a thin, half blazed trail winding in and out and a swollen ruining mountain stream also in the pathway between the two camps. But little Mary was game, and aßtride the clumsy workhorse, with only a tightly strapped on blanket for a saddle, the girl started out over the mountain trail on a 22-mile dash with death? Darkness falls quickly these early winter days, and-though she started at four in the afternoon it was almost black dark before she had covered quarter the distance. The horse, too, tired with the day’s work on the grade, was slow and unsure of foot, and made but poor time in spite of the ffantic urging of its rider. A little over ten miles from the camp, where the injured iqan lay dying a swollen mountain stream crosses the trail, and though the stream at this point is not more than 50 feet across, it is deep enough to force an animal to swim. A rough bridge had been built for the crossing of foot passengers, but no accommodation had been made for animals. And the horse absolutely balked at going into the water. Crying and frantic, the girl beat the animal and at last induced It to take to the water. The first few feet from the shore the water is fairly shallow, but when the old dump horse felt the water creeping up around its belly, It wheeled sharply around and plunged ’ back to the bank. Not vanquished, the girl leaped from the animal’s back and leaving it behind, started on foot to do the remaining twelve miles that lay between her and the doctor. In a little more than three hours after she had left her home camp she arrived at the headquarters, and the doctor was on his return journey. This over a country, wild and rocky, with only the barest semblance of a trial and for the most part through the darkness. The man’s life was saved, and it is to little Mary Fowler and her fearless dash and long walk through the darkness of the night that the laborer owes tt. Twenty-two miles through mountain fastnesses, half on foot and the rest on the back of a slow-moving animal that was little better than a truck horse, twenty-two miles in a little over three hours is some record, and the girl’s name is worthy to go down in history as “The heroine of the •front.' ”