PLUCKY COLLEGE GIRL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3333, 27 September 1911, Page 8

PLUCKY COLLEGE GIRL.

STRUGGLE WITH A TRAMP.

HOW SHE FOUGHT TO SAVE HER

HONOR

Throe hundred armed and determined men, with bloodhounds, are just now scouring the woods at Snowflake, Manitoba, for William Wilson, a tramp, who will be given a very short shrift if hands are laid upon him. Wilson is suspected of being the perpetrator of an outrage, of which a ■young schoolteacher, Miss Brice, has been made the victim.

A Attractive-looking and fresh from college. Miss Brice, who is a niece of Mr 11. P. Roblin, the Manitoba Premier, had lately taken a position as teacher at a summer school. On Tuesday evening she failed to return home and her friends becoming anxious, a search party repaired to the schoolhouse. Here bloodstains and fragments of torn clothing were found about the place, and it was evident that there had been a desperate struggle. Now thoroughly alarmed, the friends of the missing girl scoured the neighborhood of the ..school, but without discovering any trace of her. Thirty hours later Miss Brice- turned up at a, farmhouse, dazed and, in a pitiable condition. She related how, when leaving the school she had encountered some ruffian, who stopped- her in the doorway and coverediner with a- rifle. The.plucky girl rushed at the fellow and fought desperately to get past- him, ; but the .scoundrel finally drew from liis'; pocket a whisky bottle, with which lie battered her head. • Bruised and! bleeding, and - with clothes almost in shreds, the hapless girl, only half-conscious, was then carried into the adjacent bush. Here she was detained all night, while her captor lit a fire and passed the time drinking gin and smoking cigai'ettes. Towards daybreak the tramp told the girl that she could go, and expressed regret for what he had done. Miss Brice then made her way to the farmhouse, where 1 later in the day she was found' by her friends. The police have arrested one man upon whom suspicion rested, but it is believed that the real perpetrator of the outrage is the tramp for whom such an active hlant is now in progress. The girl’s sweetheart, Mr Frank Patterson, is at the head of the big search party that is out, and among those taking part in the quest is the Manitoba Premier who, upon) hearing of his niece’s adventure, abandoned his electioneering campaign and motored at post-haste to Snowflake.