Orland Zenith, Volume 17, Number 15, Orland, Steuben County, 19 July 1916 — Page 2

THE ZENITH. ORLAND, INDIANA

through the hall as Mr. Upton opened the door. 'Tea more than glad to see you again!" cried Dorothy, as she gave him her both hands. “How did you get here and—why?"

if Nolan were the only two that could oe counted upon for efficient service, the ordinary hunting ritle rarely being sighted for over three hundred yards.

IN “HICKORY BANK”

There were live other men in the house —Mr. Upton, John Willies, an sld miner about sixty live years old: an American mine surveyor named Wilson, and two Mexican servants, one of whom was the cook. In addition to these there were himself and Nolan Mrs Fane and Miss Upton, and an old Mexican woman who had lived at the place for twenty years. “First of ali, Upton—its a bit late to ask about it now If arrangements have not already been made —but how is your water supply?” Upton looked at him. frankly puz*,!ed for a moment. "Heaven knows! Miranda there” —indicating the old woman —“generally gets the water that we drink irons the spring in a bucket, but we pump water to the bathroom from the windmill, yonder." He pointed down the slope to a windmill faintly discerned against the line of the green alfalfa patch. "That'll be the first point of attack then," growled Kynaston. “Nolan, set your sights for six hundred and fifty yards and cut loose at the first person you see going for the windmill. They'll be trying to disconnect it." ‘‘Too late, sir," said Nolan, peering out. “They've got it already.” "Worse luck!” snapped Kynaston. He turned again to Upton.

PIONEER HAD SAFE PLACE FOR HIS STORE OF GOLD.

“To get you out.” he said quickly “But you must come at once. We can't delay a moment. At any minute they may work around to Hank you ou the hillside, Upton, and if they do there will be no chance of anyone getting away from the house." Mrs. Fane, who had joined the group, was listening white-faced. "You girls, get your things at once," ordered Uptoft, “Kynaston is right. He cannot cross the line to help us in force, and the only thing he can do is to take the two of you off ray bauds Dorothy, Marion, go and get your things Go, I say! I shall stay here until something turns up. 1 do not mean to have this place looted without taking it out of the hides of the men who do it. Go, girlie.” As the two women ran hastily to their rooms to get what few things they could take with them Upton quickly outlined bis movements and Kynaston’s. “Take them to your camp, Kynaston. and keep them there till you hear from me. I'll probably be with you by tomorrow or the next day, i shall not leave hero till I have come to soma sort of an understanding about this property. They dare not loot the place openly. Here are the girls now." Nolan, looking north under the sharp of his hand through the partially opened back door, was volleying iowtoned curses.

What Might Be Considered Accident Was the Means of Revealing What Meant Fortune to Jim Applegate and His Mother.

One clay in March, 1S58, Jim Applegate, aged twelve, accompanied his father to the bank of a little Indiana town, where Mr. Applegate drew out the .?5,000 for which he had sold his farm, in 250 20-dollar gold pieces. “It will pay you to keep an eye on that pile of gold,” cautioned the banker.

SYNOPSIS. — 6—

crack and rattle of rifle fire broke out from the line of giant cottonwood trees that marked the bottom of the now dry watercourse. The bullets whined over the house; some of them kicked up spurts of dust from the adobe walls. An answering shot from the house told that the defenders were wide awake. Kynaston saw the shot take ground on the slope below him.

“Tomorrow I’ll put it in a hickory bank,” said Mr. Applegate. The banker smiled us if he caught the point, but Jim was puzzled. “What is a hickory bank, pa?” he asked.

Automobile of Miss Dorothy Upton and friend. Mrs. Fane, breaks down at New Mexico border patrol camp, commanded by Lieutenant Kynaston. The two women are on way to mine of Miss Upton’s father, located a few miles across the Mexican border. Kynaston leaves women at his camp while he goes with a detail to investigate report of Villa gun runners. Villa troops drive small force of Carranza across border line and they surrender to Kynaston. Dorothy and Mrs. Fane still at camp when Kynaston returns with prisoners. Blind Mexican priest appears in camp and vlaims Interned Mexicans have in the spoils brought across the line a wonderful ♦imerald bell stolen from a shrine by Zapata and taken from him by Carranza troops. Priest is searching for the emerald in order to return it to the shrine. Kynaston finds Jewel and reports to department headquarters. Major Updyke appears from headquarters to take charges of valuables captured. Priest and emerald bell disappear. Kynaston slips across border with one man to ala Upton family surrounded by VFUlstas.

"It's a pretty safe sort of bank, son. when you’re traveling,” was all his father would say.

At the hardware store Mr. Applegate bought an inch-aud-three-quarters auger with an extra long shaft, and then they went home. After that night Jim saw the money no more. Mr. Applegate kept his business affairs tc himself.

At once awake to the necessity of Ending some way of getting to the house undiscovered, Kynaston scanned the ground in his front carefully. The hillside where he lay was cut up by many acequias, or little ditches, made by the rains of past years. These little ditches ran straight down the slope toward the house. Where these ran out into the burned alfalfa patches stood the cottage, and beyond this again the corrals and the stables Still farther to the south, beyond the lines of the adobe walls, the ground sloped more gently to a little stream bed bordered with cottonwoods, along which the attacking party had taken up its position. "H-m! It’s a good thing for us that the house is between us and harm. We will try to work our way down that acequia to our left. Come on. isolan!”

How much water in the house?”

Upton ran quickly back into the kitchen, whence he came back with a bucket in his hand, a look of chagrin upon his face.

The Applegate family was one of ten families that traveled in prairie wagons that year from Indiana to Oregon over the famous Oregon trail. The 2,000-mlle journey was less dangerous than it had been 15 years before, but there were still perils, the most serious of which was that from attacks by hostile Indians.

“1 beg pardon, sir. but —1 couldn’t help it. There go our horses, sir." He pointed to two little brown spots that showed momentarily against the brown of the hillside. The two Americans' horses were loose and had taken the chance to return to their own camp—five miles away. “It's a good thing we saw it in time —Look out! Low bridge for all thin skulls!” Whee-e-e! A bullet whined past Upton and buried itself in the heavy door post, iticame straight from the hill where Kynastou and Nolan had secreted themselves an hour before, away.up in the rear of the house. Upton dragged them back into the house and slammed the door, which he barred.

“I wonder what in the world that means,” said Mrs, Fane breathlessly, oblivious to fact that Kyuaston had taken hold of her hand “U m said Upton, working ievens(tr/-ry' c ose trre sbuttert t».<. windows op the north aide. “that they've got .men on that side of us— Now, Kynaston, you said that you could signal your sergeant to come to help us What was your signal?" Kynaston shook his head. “We must use every other means before we do that,” he said slowly. “If our men cross the line as an armed body it means intervention and —war.”

“There is only this one bucket and it isn't full by a long shot. What'll we do. Kynaston?” “Do like Brer Terrapin did when the cornfield was set on fire. He ’set and tuk it. if you remember your Uncle Remus," said Kynaston grimly. "Put that bucket somewhere whera it can't be upset, Upton. It's all we've got, and the Lord knows w-hen we’ll get any more. "Make the ladies sit down on the floor. Upton, below the line of the loopholes, so that no stray shot can hit them.

how can Lieutenant Kynaston warn the American government that Villa Is about to invade the United States, if he has to admit the fact that he has violated neutrality by crossing the border into Mexico —an admission that will mean his dismissal from the service?

On the eightieth day out they were attacked by a party of young Indians, who thought to take advantage of the smallness of the party. The skirmish was brief, but bloody and tragic enough for that small band of emigrants. They drove off the redskins, but lost two of their own number. One of the men who were killed was Mr. Applegate. Mrs. Applegate left her husband, and Jim, his father, under the fresh-heaped mound upon the plain, and there also they left the secret of the “hickory bank.”

CHAPTER IV—Continued.

So, belly down, as coyotes crawl on their game, the two Americans very slowly began their advance on the beleaguered house. One. two, three hundred yards they crept down the hillside. Presently, when they reached a point where the acequia opened out into the grassland, Kynaston would go no further. 'We’ve got to stay here till we can attract their attention/' he explained. at wane "I* particularly mind being shot at by a greaser 1 don't covet

“You stay here, sergeant, with the rest of the detachment, on the American side. I will cross over, and If 1 Hud 1 need you 1 shall start a fire. You can see it for ten miles. If you see a fire show three times, come right into Mexico with all the men. 1 shall take one man with me. "U is .twot, possible that we giay be Sble to help the without getting —■r-'.vftn into trouble - we must not get into a row on the wrong side of the line. Be sure to keep a man on the lookout. 1 shall wake two flares if I want you. Nolan, you come with me."

“There they come! And by Jove, it looks as if they mean business at last! Sending a flag of truce forward. The nerve of the beasts!

“Will you see the flag of truce. Upton? I can t go: You see, I'm In a uniform and it must not get out that a United States officer is over here on Mexican soil. Take your revolver with vmi and don’t let them come within

All that Jim and his mother had was a little over a hundred dollars in money, five cows, the ox team they were driving, the wagon and the household effects that it contained. Westward from Fort Hall the road was rough and mountainous. One day, as they were descending the rockiest and roughest portion, the Applegate wagon was in the rear. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Jim’s mother was driving, and he was walking behind, occasionally throwing a stone at one of the loose cows or calves that persisted in loitering. There were abrupt breaks in the surface two aiid three feet high.

After one of these “jump-offs,” some* what higher than usual, Jim saw that the hind wheels of the wagon were turning drunkenly. They were leaning in at the top and out at the bottom. His mother drove on, unaware that anything was wrong, and he ran to catch up with her. A shining gold piece In the middle of the road caught his eye. Ataianta-like, he stopped to pick it up. Fifteen feet farther on ha found another. They began to appear thickly, and he gathered them up as be went. Before he reached the wagon his mother had driven over another of the “jump-offs," and the tops of the wdieels leaned in so far that they began to rub against the sides of the wagon bed. Mrs. Applegate stopped the oxen. Jim came up and stooped down beside the rear axle. A yellow pile of $20 gold pieces lay there, and other pieces were rolling out of an auger hole that ran like the bore of a rifle through the center of the splintered hickory column of the broken axle. That was the hickory bank. —Youth's Companion.

ten yards o; the house."

havin' old Upton line his sights on me. Raise up a bit, Nolan, and stick your hat up on the end of your rifle so they can see it."

Do you think Mr. Upton will be able to make terms which provide for the safe-conduct of hie daughter and her friend to the United States, and which will permit Kynaston and Nolan to get out of Mexico unseen?

The old soldier would have liked to remonstrate with his officer, but the habits of discipline of twenty years were too strong. He saluted, and, bidding his men dismount and loosen their cinches, watched his young superior and Nolan as they walked their horses down the hill in the growing light.

The hat, thus showing above the edge of the ditch, was presently seen by the defenders. A shout from the rear wall of the cottage brought old Mr. Upton to the massive door, which be threw open. Kynaston and Nolan saw him standing for a moment with a pair of field glasses at his eyes, scanning them curiously. Presently, reassured, he waved his hand. Still belly down among the red dust and the empty cans that for years had been thrown there from the house, the two soldiers crept painfully down through the chicken yard, past the pony corral, and so up into the back yard of the house Itself. Mr. Upton shook hands warmly with the youngster.

“We haven’t got a whole lot of choice," commented Upton savagely. “Don’t you see that they've got us surrounded on all sides? There comes their line, moving out of the cottonwoods to the attack now. Get to your loopholes, men.” And Kynaston. peering through the narrow loophole that Upton had cut in the shutter, saw a thin line of men moving forward across the open land in widely extended order. The attack was on.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

When they reached the level ground they took up the trot,-and presently were out of sight among the scrubby cacti and the mesquit bushes that covered the face of the land.

To Raise Medicinal Plants.

Women in Great Britain are planning systematically to use their gardens this year for raising medicinal plants. The industry was once general in England, but long ago passed to the continent. Now that the price of drugs has risen so greatly, the business again looks profitable. For example, the leaves of the purple foxglove are worth sixty cents a pound. Still, although it is easy to figure that an acre will yield half a ton or more of the dry leaves, which means a return of at least six hundred dollars, such calculations are not wholly safe. —Youth’s Companion.

It was a great risk to take; not that the danger of actual conflict was great, but there was the certainty that if his interference should become known to the higher authorities Kynaston would have to be offered up as a sacrifice to Mexican complaints. "We’ll move up to that hill Just above the minehouse, Nolan, and see what we can from there. There go some more shots. It looks to me as though the place is being attacked from the southern side If so, we will hide under cover on the range to the north and work down toward the house. We'll hide our horses among the bowlders and scout down afoot.'

CHAPTER V.

"Where 're your men, Kynaston? Where Te your men? You never came here by yourself?"

Water! Kynaston watched carefully the line of men which was working out of the clump of cottonwood trees to the south. He noted that they came forward very slowly, seeking cover carefully, and that they were a good seven hundred yards away. At that range his own rlUe and that

“What's the trouble?” asked Kynaston. “We heard the firing and saw the flames: what was it?" “Hay corrals. Two hundred tons of new bay that those devils burned up for me. They sent word that if I didn't pay them ten thousand dollars for what they call their ‘war chest' they'd burn the place.” “Who are they?” “Rebels, of course. Some of Villa's men. You never can tell who they are. They’d been down there since before daylight. What Te you going to do? Where 're your men?" "Five miles back. Left ’em on the last ridge with orders not to come up unless I signal for ’em. I dare not start anything on this side of the line, you know. You can pull out here by the same way that we got here and refugee across the line, to my men.”

Stra«burg the capital of Alsace, was annexed by Germany in 1870, taken by France in 1681 and recaptured by Germany in 1870.

So, moving very carefully along the bowlder-strewn hillside, they tied their horses to a great mesquit bush that stood in the bottom of an arroyo. Taking their rifles from the scabbards, they picked their way warily up the slope to the summit, a point from which they could plainly see the attack.

DERIVED FROM RARE EARTHS

will not rust and that can be sharpened like steel and sterilized by intense heat. Nine-tenths of the tungsten and the vanadium produced la used in making steel

Where Some of the Most Valuable

Metals Known Have Been Discovered by Scientists.

The British army has started to prow Its own potatoes. Instructions have been sent, or are being sent, from the war office to every command, indicating the lines which should be followed.

Army Grows Its Potatoes.

Rare earths are the oxides of such metals as thorium, cerium, titanium, zirconium, tantalum, niobium, tungsten, uranium and vanadium. The most common and familiar uses of these metals are: For thorium and cerium in the making of gas mantles, and tor tungsten in the making of incandescent lamps. Tungsten, together with vanadium, is also used in making certain kinds of steel. Thorium, or one of its compounds, is used extensively in searchlights, motor car headlights, and in flashlight powders. Cerium alloyed with certain metals makes the flaming alloy used in cigar and gas lighters and to trace the flight of artillery shells. The same metal, or one of its salts, is used in photography, in dyeing leather and for coloring glass. Titanium alloyed with iron is often used to purify steel, cast iron and cast copper. Zirconium oxide makes crucibles and similar vessels that, even when brought to a white beat, can be plunged into cold water without cracking. Tantalum makes surgical and dental instruments that

Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated painting , "La Gloconda,” stolen from the Parls Louvre in August. 1911, was of inestimable value. It was announced by the Italian minister of public instruction on December 12, 1913. that the picture had been found in Florence A man offered to sell it to a dealer in antiques, but the dealer recognized the picture and had the man arrested. He is said to have admitted that he stole the painting to avenge the thefts of works of art committed by the French army in its Italian campaign under Napoleon. "La Oioconda” is the portrait of Monna Lisa, the Neapolitan wife of the painter’s friend Zanobl del Giocondo of Florence. Leonardo da Vinci worked on it for four years and then left it unfinished about the year 1600. It is said that $5,000,000 was offered for it from England.

"Monna Lisa.”

The Santa Cruz mine lay some six hundred yards below them. A little cottage built of adobe showed where the superintendent lived, and across from It stood the general store.' Behind this again, surrounded in front with adobe walls that marked the corrals where the mine mules were kept, stood the long engine house. Dark, yawning mouths gaping at them from the hillside showed where the lines of the ore-cars were loaded In the drift, for the Santa Cruz was fortunate above most mines In that It was possible to tunnel straight into the breast of the bill without digging a shaft.

Military requirements are very large, and little more than half the usual supplies of potatoes are coming Into the markets, with the result that prewar prices to the public are nearly doubled.

"And leave all I’ve got In the world! No. thanks. But I should like to get my daughter and Mrs. Fane out if we can. Can you get them across?”

At one camp In Surrey digging operations began recently, and the seed potatoes are to be planted In a few days In rows between the huts. A number of men are being told off each day for digging, and others are being asked to help In spare time. At a camp In Yorkshire potato growing began some weeks ago. It Is understood that Instructions will soon be issued for the growing of vegetables.

“Sure thing. Come on.” “Come into the bouse and I’ll get them started to pack up so you can

get right back.”

Kynaston stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once, for the memory of the pretty Miss Upton was more than enough to send the blood flowing faster through his veins. Dorothy met him in the great hath It was filled with smoke from the lower line of loopholes, where two of the employees of the mine were firing rapidly at the attacking party below them. The smoke sucked back ts

Far below the line of the buildings Kynaston and Nolan, looking down from the vantage-point of their bill, saw in a far hollow a group of riderless horses, with one or two dismounted men guarding them. “There’s their herd. Look. Nolan! Do you see their line?”

In a Class by Themselves.

Gold la Weighty Mineral. Gold weighs nearly twenty times as mush as its own bulk in water.

“There la one class of men whose employers are anxious they should strike." "Who are they?" “Baseball batters." —Baltimore American.

before Nolan could speak the long