THE RED TERROR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7238, 26 October 1901, Page 2

THE RED TERROR.

(Detroit Frrt Pr«i.) "'This district is infested with a red terror, name of Reilly. We need help. What do we pay taxes for?' "This is tho fourth letter I've had, besides telephones. Keiiy, look this up. Hee what the red terror of the nintli is, and get. what evidence you can," said the captain of police in a certain city of the west. Kelly was a terror himself, if the gamins of.his beat were to ht believed ; a tall, gigantic Irishman, with vivid red hair, but with an expression, of good nature that had made him equally famous. Kelly had heard of the terror before. • Hi»: beat lay alqag the infested district, and on divers occasions he had beetn called beypnd his sphera of influence- to investigate some outrage on the person or property of citizens ; perpetrated, he was told, by a girl who went by the name of the Bed Terror, Windows were broken in winter with snowballs ; dignified citizens were bombarded frcm alleyways with masses of snow, and tho change of season only ushered ia new- and fiendish schemes for the demoralisation of the general public ; mud balls, liafcs with bricks in them, and finally reports came in of mysterious attacks which could bo produced only by a blow-gun of colossal dimensions. Surely it was tiin© to stop these outragesj and' Kelly noTV proposed to do it. . . .. R^achipg'tneintes^d district he began a hous»-t6-ii6ifsie r^&nv'asjs,' starting with Mrs Fogarty," front' complaint had come. "TiVgfctcTfo see jon, I tm{ Mr Officer," said the woman. "Luk at me front window, stuffed witb papers to kape out the air »U o' that red divil of a kid, Sse iher dot it? Na, I did not ; but -who else wad; brake windows for the spcort? I'd like to get mo hands on her, that I wad." "Then it's a girl?" said Kelly. •'Of coorso it's a gurl, the daughter of old Benson, up the alley." The officer took the report and name of the complainant and w«nt on. O'Toole, the cobbler, had be«n struck on the ear with a putty-ball, 44-callbne, and for weeks thought he was the subject,. of a vendetta uneil lT 'h«--JiMrd that ■^Be&on's'gifr -aa'd' an air»gun. Old Mrs Ramsay made complaint that her .house had been battered with rocks and a number of windows broken, and she had the rocks limed along the fence to prove ib. In an hour Kelly had collected evidence sufficient to send a man >to gaol for life in his own estimation ; then Ihe went up the' alley "to see old Benson. It was a very hot day in July. The ah 1 waa still, not a leaf trbLrring.and from roof and sidewalk rose vaporous shapes — boiling. I air, Kelly called dfc— 4hat mad© life intolerable. Se huggedi the houses, walking 1 from awning to awning Tvihen there wero store*, and standing beneath the sbiade of cottonwoods and catalpas here and there, mopping his head and sniffing the air like <a weather prophet for iha chaiige that never came. Reaching the end of the street, he turned up th« alley end made this way to Ben"son's. The house was ft "rarashack" of a place. Ib hiad not been painted for two decades and in some way (had taken a lurch over the sidewalk so that the flowers iq, a box in the second storey hung like a plumbline three or four feet clear of the base where Kelly stood. The old cobbler sat in the front room, surrounded "by tha implements of his trade. He loofeed; up as the officer entered, took a waxed end out of his mouth end lifted hda square sjlv«rbowad spectacles that he migiht see and spfiQk. L "No," said Kelly, "I haven't any Job. i The truth is, the whole nei^hbourhocdi is up an arnw about a girl of your*. I've been looking ipto tb« matter at the orders j of the captain-, and from these," taking out tho papers containing the complaints, "it looks to me like ifc was a reform schools case." "I've done the beat I could," replied Benson, " but the devil himself seems in that child and I'm afraid I'll have to let her go." " And she's your child?" a&k*d> Kelly, w!h» lutd expected a strong (protest. " No, ehe's my. grandchild. Her father was Bob Reiily," replied the cobbler. "What, Bob Reilly of the force?" said Kelly. " The same," was the reply, "Why, Bob Reilly was killed saving chdMren," said the officer. "I Jniow ive was," replied "the old man. "It was this way. The 'big school building caught fire in the basement in some way an<l all but about ten of the children, got out ; <th*se !foad run up into the, top storey and were cut off. Reilly wns in a buildr ing that looked down on i*. The flre- | men had tUe net« down bub tha children i were afraid to jump, so Reilly got a rope and the men lowered him down, to tire roof where he broke through, the skylight and reached them. He threw out of the win* dow into the net, oil but one, and that was the girl you're alter. He hated to throw her, and what they were doing the Lord onjy knows, when all at once <a belt of flame swuj smoke surrounded) fJiem. Tha girl shot out of the window andi fell into the net, but 'the father never came out." " I know that," responded Kelly, " I was there, and if I were you I'd hate to haveany disgrace come to thai kid.'' //• So I do," replied tha old man, " but I'va done everything I can. Tmliated 1 by the neighbour; they won't bring their work here, all on aooount of that kid." "Where is she?" asked Kelly, looking around. "In the street ; I can't look her up all ! the time," sa.id Benson. " Well," said Kelly, " if I put these complaints and the witnesses are called she'll go to the school sure." The old man said nothing, he was doubtless' glad of the opportunity -^of- getbing i'd of a troublesome hoydeiC 1 f s» tne" officer walked out of the hot, stifling room and started down the alley. He Imd not gone [ more than two blocks when he heard oertain sounds which suggested trouble, and in the centre of the street stood a group of boyp. The officer moved ahead quickly, and reaching the crowd asked. " What's up?" " The red kid'e beea firing rocks at us," replied some one, " Where is she?'" asked Kelly, " There," pointed the. boy who bad been hit. Pushing into the crowd, Kelly looked down upon- a singular scene. On the ground, in the^hbfc-dust, lay a« old horse, its glasfey 'eyeS r< turned'upward,its nostrils dilated, its sides" heaving faintly, telling of intense heat, suffering and approaching dissolution. In the dust at its head, holding an old umbrella over ifc with one hand, aim a sharp-edged rock in the other, was the reddest-haired girl Kelly had ever seen. "Hit him again and I'll give- it to you," she was saying in a threatening tone to the boys, raising the reck grimly ; and then Kelly saw that she Imd a basin of water and had been bathing the horse's head. "It's this way," she said, rising but still holding the umbrella over tho head of the ■ prostrate ar.inial, " I was walking down the street when I found the boys throwing stones at this horse. It was sick, anyone could see that"- — and Kelly saw the tears starting — "so I called out to them to stop or — yes, or I'd rock them ; but they wouldn't, so I got behind the horse and drove them off ; then ifc fell down, and I got- some water and washed its head, and held the umbrella over it until someone came. But the crowd began to come and abuse me, and " Here the Red Terror broke down, ihe umbrella fell from her hand, and with a cry " it's dead, it's dead !" she dropped beside the animal and wept as though l.er heavb -ivoultl break. , There was something about Officer Kelly's looks that made every boy creep away, until finally he, the girl and the dead horse were alone; then he took the diminutive Red Terror in his arms and carried her up the hot, dusty alley to old Benson's. " What did you find out about that stone-

throwing case?" asked the capta-in of police that night. "Nothing," replied Kelly, briefly; "accused moved away." So she had. The Terror had moved into the very heart of Officer Kelly's family— :i big one though it was.