TERRIBLE ROMANCE OF LIFE.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 11 May 1901, Page 4

TERRIBLE ROMANCE OF LIFE.

An Innocent Man imprisoned for

Twenty years

One of the most remarkable tn d thrilling stories in or out ol: (he range of fiction or the domain of fancy is engaging the attention of the American Press. I t is the story of a man who served 20 years imprisonment tor a murder for which he was innocent, and who lias lately returned to his old haunts a tousled wraith of a man, showing no trace of his old abandon.

George Latour was among the first men to rush to the Californian goldfields half a century ago. He was then young, full of spirit, a bold plunger, and soon became a prince of the western FI Dorado. Gold-getting by hard work worried him hut little. He accumulated wealth by gambling. The reproach of dishonesty was never levelled a! hnn. He played square,” and his good-natured liberality won him a universal friendship among the miners of the West. When the life in Californian camps ceased to be at the pitch which Latour loved, lie wandered out along the border into Nevada, New Mexico and Arivona, and so down into Old Mexico; and there began his life tragedy. He tired of gambling, for the position of the gambler in society was not what it had been. So George Latour determined to give up the delights and hazards of the green cloth and become a ranelicro. According to the story-books, tuat should have been the time when the Gods smiled upon him, and when his career tßok a turn upwards. The sad facts are just the other way. In Mexico lie entered into partnership with Hon Guadalupe Asearate and secured a half interest in one of the largest and finest ranches in all the Republics. He built a magnificent hacienda. He gave fetes and balls. F very where he was lavish and princely, and felt himself a happy man. One night he sat on the cool verandah of his home chatting idly and all ably with his partner, Don Guadalupe. It had been a prosperous year. The price* were good, and both the food and the water plentiful. There was no thought of harm between them, though with Don Guadalupe there may occasionally have risen (he spectre of a love affair, a wronged woman, and a threatened revenge.

As the partners chattered there was little noise about the place. The peons and vaf)iicros had retired. The moonlight fell on tho verandah, making the shadows common to a clear atmosphere. Out of the moonlight came the figure of a man. He entered by the main gate and walked directly towards where the partners sat. They paid little attention. Probably it was a belated servant or some ranch foreman who had ridden in to report the result of a “rodeo” on some outlying portion of the ranch. Possibly it was a vaquero returning from a visit to Ids “duleo corazon.” So the partners gave him a quiet but friendly gretling as he stopped up. Suddenly, when scarcely a yard away from Don Guadalupe, the stranger drew a heavy revolver and tired point blank at Don Guadalupe’s heart. The Don tell without a groan, clutched at his heart, and lay still. The intruder turned and ran away. George Latent 1 drew his revolver as soon as possible and fired three times at the rapidly retreating figure. The shots alarmed the servants. The men came rushing out to find George Latour bending over the body of Don Guadalupe Asearatc. In his hand lie held a smoking revolver. In Don Guadalupe’s heart was a fatal wound.

Latour at once ordered that chase he

given to the murderer, but no murderer was found. Suspicions began to cluster around the hacienda. Innuendos grew into charges. The Mexican officials listened to the story told by Latour and shook their heads. He said ho had fired three shots at the retreating murderer. All those about the place agreed that four shots in all had been tired —that would be one by the murderer and three by Latour.

But in Latour’s revolver were four empty cartridges, instead of throe. Four empty cartridges, all freshly exploded. Four shots had been fired. Don Guadolupe was dead. No one except Latour had seen any person come to the “patio” or go from it. Certainly the talc of a man who had come up out of the moonlight and sunk suddenly back into it was hardly to be believed against the evidence of those four empty cartridges. So they arrested George Latour and charged him with the murder of Don Guadalupe Accurate.

“All!” said Latour, suddenly. He had been puzzling bis mind for a long time to explain tho presence in his revolver of that fourth empty cartridge. “ I fired at a crane as I rode over the ranch that very morning. Then I forgot to remove tho cartridge from my revolver.”

But who was going to believe such a Hiinsy yarn ? Here was a man who came from nowhere and went nowhere, and here was a shot fired at a tlccting crane when none saw the pistol practice, There was never a witness to support George Latour. Don Guadalupe, the one man who might have backed him, had gone to his rest without (ho opportunity to tell his story or make a sign. Things certainly looked very black for George Latour, who was arrested and charged with the murder. Of course, ho engaged the best lawyers, but there was no one to corroborate his story. His best witness was dead. So Labour was convicted of the murder. The death penalty was not exacted, but Ids cattle, lands, and his wealth were confiscated, and be was condemned to live out a weary life in tho gaol of Chihuahua, with little to eat and less to wear. An awful change, surely for a gambler prince and cattle king ! Tho convict chafed under prison discipline, and his busy brain plotted to escape. Twice during the first live years of his incarceration ho made breaks for liberty Both attempts wore failures. The second time lie received a ballet in the right leg, which left him slightly crippled. No longer he watched for each desperate chance to escape. He settled back into the sullen, taciturn life of one who has given up hope. Ho watched the centipedes creep slowly across his damp cell. He saw tho grey tarautulus scuttle across the little patch of light. Ho heard the ceaseless shuffle of tho barefooted sentry at bis door. One year merged into another.

And so George Labour lingered in the filthy gaol of Ghihnahua for 20 years, and so ho passed from debonnair youth to bent old age.

Then one day his prison doors were flung open. He who had supposed himself forgotten hy the world was set at liberty to blink in the sun and try to collect his wits, jarred by the turmoil of progress and advancement. His liberation was a romance in itself. In the days of the cattle ranch partnership Carmen Rivera had loved Don Guadalupe Ascarate—loved him-’madly and blindly, He had tired of her and cared for another.

Carmen Rivera became a notorious woman. She accumulated a fortune by keeping a rendezvous for thieves and desperadoes. She was careless, brave, and resourceful. Men said there was a mystery in her life somewhere. When she was on her death bed she lifted one corner of that mystery, and by so doing set George Latour free.

When she faced death and knew the end was certain, she confessed that she killed Don Guadalupe Ascarate. Dressed in the habit of a man, hors was the figure that stepped so quickly across the moonlit “patio” that night in the long ago. Hors was the hand that drew the quick revolver and fired the bullet into Don Guadalupe’s heart. The disappearance of the murderer was easily explained by her. fcjlic had quickly doffed her masculine garments, put on her woman’s gown, and joined the group of frightened women alarmed by the sound of the shooting. So it was she gave particulars which proved (lie innocence of George Latour ; but she passed to her Maker powerless to right the frightful wrong of his "A' years’ imprisonment. He tried to get beak some of the property which had been confiscated at the time of his sentence. but found Ins efforts of no avail. Twenty years had' tangled titles too much to make the unravelling of the tangle a possibility to the broken man. So, penniless and decrepit, he drifted back into the swirl of life, Another touch of romance must be added to this tragedy. Latour has found a friend, in the wild days of the Californian camps, when Latour was in his heyday of prosperity, a bright lad was arrested for a murder. Latour felt an interest in the hoy and believed in his innocence. Jfo engaged detectives to gather evidence in the prisoner’s behalf, and the best lawyer to defend him at his trial, with the result that the boy was acquitted. Soon after his release from gaol, and when the story of his life had got into the papers, Latour was visited by a now wealthy banker, who vowed to share his home and wealth with the discrcpit, health-forsaken, innocent convict. The banker was the lad whose life Latour’s money and influence had saved 40 years