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Show MEXICAN CAPTIVE BEGS TO BE SHOT Led Astray by Visions ot Loot tc Be Had in Border Stores. BOY TELLS A PITIFUL TALE American Cavalry Sergeant Describei Conflict Between Pity and Duty in Which Duty Won Raised to Hate Gringo. Marathon, Tex. Serg. 1: Sturm-wald, Sturm-wald, Troop A, Fourteenth cavalry who guarded Lieut. Col. Alvarez and Manuel Torres, Mexican prisoners iu the Boquillas raid, told a story of a conflict between pity and duty it which duty won. He said : "It was my business to watch th prisoners on the long ride to Marathon Mara-thon from the R4o Grande. For the minute it was all the business I had and they were surely watched. 0;;r first camp was at McKinney Springs. There we gave the Mexicans steak and onions and coffee just what our men had. "They couldn't seem to realize it Alvarez refused to eat at first, but he ordered Torres to do so. The lieutenant lieu-tenant colonel, it seemed, feared the food was poisoned and wanted to have someone else try it. Raised to Hate Gringo, "Torres is little more than boy. When we took the road again he told me his story. His father, he said, was a poor farmer in the Sacramento district. They had little to eat and when, six months ago, Alvarez at the head of fifty or more bandits told him there were food and new clothes to be had in abundance in gringo stores along the border, he followed. He had been raised, he said, to hate the gringo, grin-go, and rather liked the idea. "He claimed he had not been in the actual raid on the Deemers store but he admitted getting his clothes from some of the raiders who had. "He told how the band broke into pairs after an American pursuit became be-came a certainty. He had hidden in the desert for three nights until his tongue was swollen and black and he thought he must die of thirst. It was then that he went to the water hole; though the hole was covered by American Amer-ican cavalrymen, and begged a drink. "He expected, he said, to be shot, but he wanted to drink first. Then, as he went on, he begged me to Intercede Inter-cede for him. He showed me a bit of handkerchief, that was his mother's. moth-er's. He showed me a bit of ribbon that his senorita had given him as token of love and luck. Pleads to Be Shot "And he told me finally if I would get him a lawyer he would be grateful, grate-ful, and, once free, would come and work for me or do anything I asked, as long as he had breath. "I pitied him, way down deep, but I could not show my pity. I looked at the officer who had led the boy and thought evil things. I remembered how the raiding murderers had killed a tiny child, and how they had dared to come on American soil. "1 told Torres to be still, that I could do nothing. Then he pleaded to be shot. It would be much more honorable, hon-orable, he said, than to be hanged, as he had heard it was the custom ic gringo land. "Again 1 told him to be still. "We drove at night, mostly, to avoid the heat and all through the nigh Torres would nsk me in his soi't. pathetic Spanish for a quick end. "You can't appreciate the effect of it all moonlight, and their chains, and the despair of the boy who had been led astray. But they're here now and turned over to the sheriff I'm through, and I've lived up to th oath I took when I enlisted. But, I'm glad I'm through and that oath remains unbroken. My hope is I won't have another detail like It." |