Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0099/00993.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00993}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The Big Bend
Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tyler, Ronnie C.}
$Affiliation{National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior}
$Subject{bandits
troops
big
bend
mexico
river
boquillas
mexican
border
mexicans}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Title:       The Big Bend
Book:        Chapter 6: Bandits Along the Border
Author:      Tyler, Ronnie C.
Affiliation: National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior
Date:        1984

Part I

     The same conditions that rendered the Big Bend difficult to explore and
even harder to homestead attracted dozens of bandits around the turn of the
century.  The sparse settlement, isolation, and rugged terrain seemed at times
to constitute an environment more favorable to the lawbreaker than to the
settler.  The arroyos, canyons, caves, and mountains had first found use as
campsites for Indians and explorers.  Now they served as hideouts, for "the
backwash from the frontiers of Texas was already lapping along the west banks
of the Pecos," noted historian J. Evetts Haley.  The natural features of the
Big Bend proved to be more than just a hideout.  Indians and bandits
transformed the canyons and mountain chains into fortresses.  "Few Americans
realize the impregnability and isolation of this frontier," claimed Robert T.
Hill, after a firsthand look in 1899.

     While many crimes were the result of stained honor or passion, others
were the result of considerable contemplation.  Hardened criminals hid in the
natural shelters of the region.  One of Billy the Kid's companions from New
Mexico, Jesse Evans, rustled cattle there and hid out in Fort Stockton.  He
and his gang pulled a robbery in Fort Davis, then headed for the border.  They
had hoped to cross the river in the Presidio area, but found out that they
were likely to be arrested by the Mexican Rurales and turned around.  A Texas
Ranger party encountered them about 15 miles north of Presidio.  In the
ensuing gunbattle one Ranger and one bandit were killed.  The others were
arrested.

     After trailing a bandit gang into Mexico, U.S. authorities and vigilante
bands often forgot about due process of the law and the rights of their
victims.  Only the military were authorized to cross the Rio Grande in pursuit
of bandits, and then only in special cases, but seldom were the laws obeyed.
Rancher Jim P. Wilson and his party followed a band that reportedly had
murdered a family, stolen some horses, and crossed the river.  Upon his return
Wilson explained the battle with the usual evasive yet revelatory explanation
so highly esteemed on the frontier: "When we overtook them, it just naturally
scared them to death, so we rounded up our horses and come on back."

     After the Southern Pacific Railroad established rail service from San
Antonio to El Paso, the more daring bandits turned to the relatively easy job
of robbing trains along lonely stretches of track.  In October 1891 the Texas
Rangers captured five members of a gang that had held up a train in the
vicinity of Samuels station near Langtry.  A shootout occurred as the Rangers
closed in on the desperadoes.  When the leader was shot and wounded, he "took
out a book and pencil, wrote his will, bequeathing all his property to his
brother, took out his pistol and blew out his brains."  The other bandits
were taken to El Paso for trial.

     There were, of course, the routine incidents that law enforcement
officers had to contend with.  Texas Ranger Sgt. J. T. Gillespie of the
Frontier Battalion reported to Capt.  Neal Coldwell on January 10, 1882, that
an Indian squaw had been "brutally murdered" only 2 days before at Fort Davis.
He suspected a black soldier of the murder.  The baker at the post, John
Schueller, was killed in February 1882.  As usual, a Mexican was suspected of
the murder.  When the railroad crews drew near the fort, barroom brawls became
commonplace.  Mexicans, gamblers, and railroaders participated in a fatal
fight in Kelsey's Saloon in September 1881 in which John Jones, foreman of
nearby Rooney's ranch, was killed.  The citizens understandably asked for more
protection.  The region "is a favorable resort of the murderers and
desperadoes driven from other sections of the state," claimed the citizens of
Pecos County as they requested more Rangers for their county.

     Robert T. Hill obviously had heard many of these stories as he began his
trip through the canyons of the Big Bend.  The storekeeper at Polvo, just
upriver from Bofecillos Canyon, showed Hill's party the "splotches of blood"
where the previous merchant had been robbed and murdered the year before.
Old-timers counseled that the Big Bend was infested with thieves and murderers
who disliked any intruders and felled their prey by shooting into sleeping
camps at night.  Two members of Hill's party refused out of "sheer fright" to
go any further.  The others proceeded with caution.  Whenever possible they
hid their camp in bushes and kept loaded rifles handy.  E. E. Townsend,
himself a former sheriff of Brewster County, believed that Hill had
exaggerated, but conceded some danger.  "Away from the railway," concluded
Hill, "the Big Bend - sometimes called the Bloody Bend - is known as a 'hard
country,' that is, one in which civilization finds it difficult to gain a
foothold."

     The most serious difficulties with bandits developed after the Mexican
Revolution erupted in 1911.  By 1910 there were at least 20 large ranches in a
250-square-mile area of the Big Bend vulnerable to attack. Only a few
cavalrymen, Texas Rangers, and mounted customs officers patrolled the region.
They worked together closely, but the task would have been impossible even for
twice as many defenders, for the territory was extensive, the hiding places
numerous, and access too easy.  Gen. Frederick Funston reported in 1916 that
the Big Bend Military District alone was 500 miles long and that "practically
all" the mobile army in the United States was stationed along the
international boundary.  Still, it was impossible to patrol the entire area.

     The revolution that exploded in Mexico in 1911 was the product of decades
of economic poverty and political suppression.  Several of the initial
conflicts occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border largely because the
insurrectionists either had sought exile in the U.S. or had come to recruit
Mexicans living in the United States.  The Mexican government suspected that
the revolutionaries were enlisting men in the Big Bend, particularly in
Presidio and Boquillas, Texas.  The Mexican Embassy in Washington requested
that the United States take action to assure that the bands would be broken up
before they crossed the river into Mexico.  Starving guerrilla bands roamed
northern Mexico, causing fear that they might plunder the defenseless ranches
in the Big Bend.

     As the revolutionary forces of Pancho Villa, the most effective
revolutionary on the border, attacked Ojinaga, formerly Presidio del Norte,
residents of the Big Bend tensed.  Refugees deluged the small railroad town of
Marfa, 60 miles north of Ojinaga, only to be shipped to El Paso camps. After
being defeated at Ojinaga, an estimated 125 revolutionaries took refuge in San
Antonio, a village across the Rio Grande from Candelaria. Such a combustible
situation led one New York newspaper to report erroneously in 1911 that
Terlingua had been devastated by Mexican desperadoes and many people slain.

     As the revolutionaries regrouped in the Big Bend, a brave Associated
Press reporter, E. S. O'Riley, ventured down the river to El Polvo in search
of a "scoop."  He encountered two Mexicans who offered to take him to meet
Jose La Cruz Sanchez, a prominent guerilla leader and a well-known ranchman in
Chihuahua.  O'Riley went with the Mexicans and waited in a nearby vacant house
for Sanchez to appear.  Overhearing that his hosts were government Rurales who
did not want him to write any stories about the insurrectionists, O'Riley
announced he was leaving.  The men realized their pretense had failed; now he
would have to be killed.  Jerking out their pistols, they ordered O'Riley to
go with them to Ojinaga, saying that he would never again see Sanchez.
Thinking fast and recklessly, the correspondent hit the man nearest him and
drew his weapon.  "The first shot dropped an assailant before he could fire.
Each of the others got in a shot at close range, but by a miracle, went wild,
and before a second round could be fired, O'Riley's deadly aim had done its
work.  One he was compelled to shoot the second time."  The reporter then rode
back to the American side of the river and filed his remarkable story.

     As incidents occurred up and down the Rio Grande, official crossings at
established border checkpoints became more difficult.  Customs inspectors,
Texas Rangers, and soldiers prevented anyone bearing arms or carrying
ammunition from entering the United States.  The Mexican commander at Ojinaga
likewise limited entry, provoking a complaint from Congressman William R.
Smith, whose district included Presidio.

     A raid did occur in June 1911 at nearby San Antonio, Chihuahua, on a
ranch owned by Lamar Davis, an American.  Inez Salazar and a band of 30
revolutionists surrounded the ranch house and demanded provisions, guns and
ammunition, horses and saddles.  Francisco and Dario Sanchez, the ranch
managers, were able to contact the government commander at Presidio, who sent
a party to chase the raiders away, but not before they escaped with rifles,
saddles, horses, mules, 70 bushels of wheat, and some ammunition. Families in
San Antonio fled to the American side of the river to escape harm.  Ranchers
were terrified, since the bandits could just as easily cross the river.  The
commander of the Southern Department at Fort Sam Houston pointed to the raid
on the Davis ranch as the excuse to keep the few troops already in the Big
Bend there, rather than withdraw them, as some military men were pressuring
him to do.

     The following year a government officer scattered a band of 25 bandits
just across the river from Candelaria.  He then left a dozen of his troops at
San Antonio to help the Americans under Capt.  Frank A. Barton pacify the
area.  The captain interpreted the incident as proving that the Mexican
government could now control its side of the border.

     Continual disturbances soon proved him wrong.  The commander at Fort Sam
Houston reported in March 1912 that there was concern all along the border,
although no official had yet requested troops.  J. O. Langford, who operated a
bath concession at Hot Springs, realized his family was in danger when he
heard that the bandits and revolutionists were moving freely across northern
Mexico.  Residents vacated San Vicente, Mexico, the village that had grown up
near the old presidio.  Langford advised all his customers to gather at his
house, which could be transformed into a fort.  When he learned the bandits
had plundered Boquillas and San Vicente, Mexico, he concluded that he was in
imminent danger.  Langford and Jesse Deemer of Boquillas rode to Marathon and
requested that troops be stationed near the river.  Lt. Everett Collins and 25
men were dispatched to La Noria, where they rode along the river.

Troops Leave The Big Bend

     Early in 1913, however, the troops were withdrawn.  Lieutenant Collins
sent a message to Langford that they were returning to Marathon and that he
should move his family to a safer location.  "That word shook me up," recalled
the resort owner.  "I realized that Collins would not have risked court
martial for revealing army secrets if he had not felt that our danger here was
immediate and great."  Langford gathered up his family and what belongings he
could carry and left Hot Springs to the mercy of the bandits.

     The raiders were not long in coming.  With his brothers, Jose and Manuel,
Chico Cano had been terrorizing the Big Bend for several years. They were
suspected of killing an officer in January 1913, when U.S. Customs Inspectors
Joe Sitters and J. S. Howard and cattle association inspector J. W. Harwick
arrested a Mexican for smuggling and horse stealing.  Headed toward jail, they
were ambushed.  Sitters and Howard were wounded, Howard fatally.  "They were
not Carranzistas, they were not Villistas, they were not anything," claimed E.
W. Nevill of the Canos.  "Whoever is in charge on the border . . . they are
with."  The following month a band of robbers crossed the Rio Grande and
raided the Lee Hancock ranch, 14 miles northeast of Alpine.  They escaped with
guns, saddles, ammunition, and five good horses.  They also raided the
Lawrence Haley ranch, taking saddles, bridles, and several other items.  A
posse was organized by Sheriff J. Allen Walton, but the bandits escaped.  The
lower part of Brewster County is a desolate and broken mountain country,"
reported the Alpine Avalanche, "and . . . it would be a hard matter to locate
anyone familiar with that section who was trying to avoid detection.  As the
Mexicans are known to be bad men and are armed to the teeth, there has been
much uneasiness felt about those who are pursuing them . . . ."

     Such incidents provoked citizen demands that the soldiers be returned to
the Big Bend.  J. R. Landrum, postmaster at Boquillas, appealed to Texas
Senator Morris Sheppard for help, pointing out that Boquillas was 100 miles
from the railroad, was "scarcely settled," and provided an inviting target for
raiders.  The situation had been calm until the troops withdrew, he wrote, but
now the citizens were apprehensive.  He asked Senator Sheppard to use his
influence with the War Department to return the troops.  The Alpine Avalanche
also called attention to the necessity of troops being assigned to the border.
Texas Governor Oscar B. Colquitt wired President William H. Taft that troops
were still needed along the border, then authorized Sheriff Walton to deputize
as many men as he felt necessary to "properly safeguard the interests of the
citizens."  But the commander of the Southern Department, worried about the
need for troops in other areas, replied that conditions were quiet enough in
the Big Bend and that no troops were necessary."

     Despite the commander's allegation, bandits plundered the Big Bend with
regularity from 1915 to 1918.  Small bands would gather just across the Rio
Grande, determine their target, and dash across the river.  In May 1915, Capt.
G. C. Barnhart of the 15th Cavalry reported a murder on the American side of
the river by some Villa men.  They crossed the river and killed Pablo Jimenez
by shooting and beating him.  "I have a piece of his skull," wrote Barnhart.

     Hoping to obtain some aid for the Big Bend, Texas Governor James Ferguson
asked President Woodrow Wilson in 1915 to station troops at Boquillas and
opposite Pilares.  Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison replied after
consulting General Funston, commander of the Southern Department, that the
situation there was "one . . . very near to justifying martial law." But he
recommended no action.  To Governor Ferguson's renewed requests, Funston
finally answered that he had sent some patrols into the Big Bend and could do
no more.  Believing that many of the bandits were citizens of Texas, Funston
insisted that the problem was partially civil and should be handled by the
Texas Rangers or the local sheriff.  He convinced Garrison of his logic, and
the Secretary advised the President that nothing more should be done.  "The
distance from Brownsville to El Paso . . . is over twelve hundred miles,
following the windings of the river," he wrote, "and part of it is about as
inaccessible and difficult a country as can be imagined, so that it will not
in any circumstances be possible to station troops throughout that entire
stretch . . . ."

     The unrest and periodic border raids continued.  Four bandits attempted
to wreck a train east of Alpine in March 1916, but were captured by alert
soldiers before they could inflict any damage.  Most people felt that the
raids were the work of members of Pancho Villa's band.  A significant force in
the Mexican Revolution until he was defeated at the battle of Celaya and
driven into the desert of northern Chihuahua, Villa had turned to guerrilla
warfare and depended on aid from the United States to survive.  But in 1916
President Wilson discontinued all aid to Villa, hoping to bring an end to the
revolution and enable President Venustiano Carranza to restore order to
Mexico.  In retaliation for the decision - and to obtain food and supplies for
his ragged troops - Villa raided Columbus, N. Mex., on March 9, 1916, hoping
to involve the United States in the conflict and thereby embarrass President
Carranza.  Many felt that the attack on Columbus was a signal to Villa's men
along the border that they could now raid isolated U.S. settlements with
impunity.  But Villa cannot be blamed for all the raids because his troops
could not possibly have reached as many points as were attacked.  Most likely
bandit gangs took the opportunity to line their own pockets, giving the blame
- or credit - to Villa.

     Many politicians as well as residents were provoked by the disturbances
and demanded action.  Senator Marcus A. Smith of Arizona pressed for a
full-scale invasion of Mexico.  "It strikes me it would be a very splendid
idea to give the Mexicans an object lesson of our strength," he wrote
Secretary of War Newton D. Baker.  "It will cost money, but it will be worth
the price," The President, of course, did send Gen. John J. Pershing into
Mexico to chastize Villa for the raid at Columbus, but the Big Bend itself
remained unprotected.

Raids On Glenn Springs And Boquillas

     The worst raids in the Big Bend occurred on the night of May 5, 1916,
when a party of approximately 80 bandits, probably including several Texas
Mexicans, crossed the river near San Vicente and raided Glenn Springs and
Boquillas.  Located on a rise in the foothills of the Chisos Mountains, Glenn
Springs was the home of C. D. Wood and W. K. Ellis, partners in a wax factory
employing about 50 Mexicans.  The village was protected by a sergeant and
recently arrived troopers of the 14th Cavalry.  Wood and Ellis had established
a small general store to serve the needs of the workers and their families,
and this apparently was the main target of the bandits.

     Boquillas was an even smaller community.  Situated directly across the
river from the Mexican village by the same name, it was the terminal for the
aerial tramway that transported silver ore from the nearby mines in Mexico.
Jesse Deemer's small store there attracted the bandits.

     The bandits split into two groups as they crossed the river and proceeded
unnoticed to their targets.  Seventy-five headed to ward Glenn Springs, and
the remainder turned toward Deemer's store.  For a force of this size, the few
troops deployed at Glenn Springs were wholly inadequate.  The first group rode
into Glenn Springs a few minutes before midnight, surprising the sleeping
village.  Firing into every dwelling, the raiders soon had Sgt. Charles E.
Smyth and six soldiers surrounded inside a barricaded adobe hut.  Using
Springfields and Colts, the troopers fought bravely and held the bandits off
until one tossed a torch onto the thatched roof, turning it into an inferno.
When they abandoned the house, three were shot, but the sergeant and three
others escaped into the night.  Two other troopers escaped by remaining inside
their tent.

     The bandits then turned to C. G. Compton's house.  One broke down the
door; another fired into the structure, killing 7-year-old Tommy, alone in the
house.  Compton had taken Tommy's younger sister to the hut of one of the
Mexican families for safety and had failed to return for Tommy before the
bandits closed in.  Tommy's brother, Robert, a deaf-mute, somehow wandered
through the village unharmed as the fighting raged.

     Other members of the band looted the general store.  Everything that
could be packed was taken, except the sauerkraut, which they apparently
believed to be spoiled.  Larger bundles, such as the heavy bags of flour and
corn were left behind because they would slow the return to Mexico.

     Wood, a veteran of the philippines campaign, was unable to offer any aid
to the hapless residents of Glenn Springs.  Asleep in his home 2 miles from
the village, he was awakened by the sound of shots.  He first thought that the
Mexicans were celebrating Cinco de Mayo, the holiday recalling Mexico's defeat
of the French at Puebla in 1862.  When he realized that they weren't, he
quickly dressed and aroused his neighbor, Oscar de Montel, another army
veteran.  Carrying rifles, they hurried through the night to the village,
toward the flames and sound of shooting.  Before they got there, the firing
stopped and the flames died.  Wood and Montel continued on in darkness.  "We
stumbled through whipping brush and annoying cactus," said Wood.  Two hours
passed before they reached the village.

     "Quien vive?" (literally, "who lives?"), shouted the bandits' picket as
the pair approached.  It was a challenge.  The response, common during the
Revolution, should have been "Viva Villa" ("Villa lives"), but Montel either
was confused or did not know the password.

     "Quien es?" ("Who is it?"), he answered - wrongly.  Montel had revealed
himself as an outsider.  Bullets whistled by the pair as the sentinel began
firing in the direction of the voice.  The pair hid in the hills until
daybreak when the bandits left with their wounded, the loot, and nine cavalry
horses.  Wood found the body of only one bandit, although there was evidence
that several others had been wounded.  Ellis escaped harm and drove to
Marathon the next day to report the incident.

     Near daybreak the other party struck Boquillas.  Realizing that they were
out manned, Deemer and his Negro clerk, Monroe Payne, offered no resistance.
Indeed, they gave the bandits all their money, allowed them to select the
merchandise they wanted from the shelves, and helped them pack it.  In no
hurry because they knew they were safe in such an isolated place, the raiders
worked methodically until 10 a.m. when they were joined by several of the
group that had devastated Glenn Springs.  The force then took Deemer and Payne
captive and crossed the river.  Deemer probably would have been killed
immediately had not several bandits urged that he be spared because of his
many kindnesses to Mexican families around Boquillas.

     As the raiders passed through Boquillas, Mexico, they split up. One group
paused at the American-managed silver mine to rob the company store and take
the mine payroll.  They also took six more prisoners, including Dr. Homer
Powers, the mine physician, and the superintendent, a man named Halter.  By
this time so loaded with booty that they could hardly carry it, the bandits
confiscated a truck belonging to the mining company. Lt. Col. Natividad
Alvarez piled the loot onto the truck and ordered Powers and the three mine
officials to get in.  The other group, with Deemer and Payne, rode ahead.

     The truck driver now took advantage of the Mexicans' ignorance of trucks.
He drove as slowly as possible, allowing the mounted horsemen to get several
miles ahead.  Then he stalled the motor, complaining that it had overheated.
As the motor "cooled off," the driver and the other Americans plotted their
escape.  They pretended that the truck was stuck and tried to push it.  Unable
to free it, they suggested that if the guards would push, they could get it
started.  The Mexicans complied.  The driver, meanwhile, had slipped the gears
into reverse and, when the bandits pushed, he released the clutch, knocking
them to the ground.  The Americans quickly gathered up the weapons and
captured the bandits.  The prisoners were taken to Boquillas and delivered to
the Brewster County sheriff.  They were later sentenced to life in prison for
the raids.

     Coming so soon after Villa's Columbus raid, the Boquillas and Glenn
Springs attacks were serious international matters.  Pershing's foray into
Mexico after Villa increased tension between the governments of Mexico and the
United States.  President Carranza then demanded the withdrawal of American
forces from Mexico before concluding agreements on other pressing matters.
Generals Hugh Scott, Army Chief of Staff, and Funston of the United States and
Alvaro Obregon of Mexico met in El Paso to negotiate Pershing's withdrawal.
At that point the bandits crossed into the Big Bend and pillaged the two
villages, whereupon the two governments took hard positions.  Carranza
denounced the raids, claiming that they were the work of lawless elements
residing on the American side of the border, and Scott and Funston concluded
that the Big Bend was practically defenseless and predicted that such raids
would continue.  The attacks on Glenn Springs and Boquillas threatened to
completely disrupt the negotiations, but General Scott, believing that the
Mexicans were powerless to stop such incursions, indicated that the United
States would not walk out of the meetings.

Langhorne's Pursuit

     Although Mexico was upset because Pershing and his troops were in
Chihuahua, Scott saw no alternative to sending more troops if the bandits were
going to be punished and Deemer and Payne rescued.  Troops A and B of the 8th
Cavalry under Maj. George T. Langhorne were assigned the task.  A handsome,
"dapper" officer, well-liked by his men, Langhorne was a decisive, courageous
leader.  A good horseman, the major led his men in drills as well as in
combat.  On the way from Fort Bliss, El Paso, to Marathon, Langhorne and his
men paused at Boquillas, Tex., to secure information, then headed into the
desert, complete with reporters, photographers, and a motion picture crew. The
journalists rode in two Ford sedans, loaded with grain for the horses.
Langhorne brought along his chauffeur-driven Cadillac touring car, also loaded
with grain.  They knew they were entering some of the most difficult terrain
the Southwest had to offer.  "The country isn't bad," said one of the
cameramen.  "It's just worse. Worse the moment you set foot from the train,
and then, after that, just worser and worser." Langhorne's instructions called
for him to go to Glenn Springs and track down and attack the bandits, if
necessary following them into Mexico.  On May 11 he crossed the border.

     The bandits, meanwhile, had split up.  One group crossed the river at San
Vicente and rode to El Pino and Sierra Mojada; the other band forded the river
near Deemer's store.  They had a 3-day headstart in familiar country.

     As Langhorne began the pursuit in earnest, he received word from Deemer
that he and Payne were being held at El Pino, that they were being well cared
for, and that the bandits would trade them for Colonel Alvarez and the other
prisoners taken by the truck driver and his companions. Believing that the
bandits did not yet know he was in Mexico and that they were only 15 miles
ahead in the cars, Langhorne decided to take two dozen of his best marksmen
and move ahead in the cars.  The cavalry was to follow as quickly as possible.
Langhorne was not the first to underestimate the rugged Big Bend landscape.
After making only 9 miles in 2 hours, he decided to halt and wait for the
cavalry.  They made camp, slept fitfully, and spent the next day at a well
called Aguaita, awaiting nightfall to begin the forced march.

     A few hours later Langhorne and his men surrounded El Pino.  They
advanced cautiously, creeping to within 400 yards of the village before
attacking.  But the bandits were gone.  Learning of the soldiers' approach the
previous night, they scattered.  Deemer and Payne, left in custody of the
village jefe, were now "liberated" by the army.

     According to one reporter, Deemer had a fine perspective on events.  His
first question upon meeting the troops reportedly was, "How is the Verdun
battle doing?," indicating to the reporter that Deemer knew that far more
turned on the European battle than upon his capture. Deemer again drew the
reporter's admiration when he turned down Major Langhorne's invitation to dine
because of a previous engagement - dinner with some Mexican friends in one of
El Pino's tumbled-down jacales.

     The troops had hardly settled in the temporary quarters when word came
that some of the bandits had been seen in the nearby village of Rosita, about
15 miles down the road.  Major Langhorne faced a difficult decision.  He was
already more than 100 miles deep into Mexican territory, and he knew that
Carranza's forces might soon be gathering to meet him.  The captives were
free, so the only reason to continue the pursuit was to punish the raiders and
possibly recover the loot.  Langhorne felt that the Mexicans should be
punished, and he could not deny the enthusiasm of his men.  "I dropped my
coffee, borrowed a rifle and two bandoleers of ammunition from the soldier
nearest me," recalled Lieutenant Cramer, and "we started after them."

     But the search was unfruitful.  With a dozen men in the Cadillac and
Fords, the soldiers approached Rosita.  Four or five bandits dashed from a
house into the brush in view of the troops.  The soldiers unsuccessfully
pursued them on foot, for the cars could not penetrate the thicket.  Another
bandit mounted a horse and rode off down the road.  Returning to the Cadillac,
several troops set out after him, their weapons blazing.  He, too, escaped.
"The last we saw of them the big car was bounding over the ditches and bushes
like a steeplechaser, to the tune of a merry cannonading," said Cramer.  The
other soldiers continued to Rosita, where they learned that the bandits had
been warned again and had fled.

     Major Langhorne now established a temporary camp at El Pino.  While he
waited for the rest of his force, he sent out scouting parties to search for
the bandits.  Lieutenant Cramer was given command of eight men and told to
return to El Pino by a circuitous route that would allow him to search for a
band of raiders reportedly staying at Castillon Ranch.  When Cramer protested
that the country did not offer anything in the way of food or water - a
problem that hundreds before him had faced - and requested permission to pack
rations, Langhorne refused, saying that it would be a "valuable experience"
for Cramer, allowing him to "exercise . . . great ingenuity."

     Telling his sergeant to secretly purchase what food he could from the
soldiers and residents of Rosita, Cramer set out for Castillon. Approaching
cautiously, he surprised about a dozen armed men, apparently ready to travel,
at the Santa Anita well.  He correctly guessed that they were part of the
bandit gang but his logic - "the pacifico always wears a big straw sombrero" -
was not the soundest.  Deploying his men along a crest overlooking the well,
Cramer ordered them to fire about an hour after sunset.  When the soldiers
opened up, one bandit fell.  The soldiers rushed over the hill and down toward
the windmill.  Two other bandits now fell wounded.  At the foot of the hill an
old man held up his hands and pleaded that he was a pacifico, captured a few
days before and now forced to accompany the bandits.  His hand had been
shattered from a bullet wound. Cramer left him under guard and pursued the
others.

     The bandits were soon lost in the darkness.  Cramer returned to the
windmill to survey the victory.  In their fright the Mexicans had abandoned a
wagon, 17 horses and mules, nine rifles, two swords, and several saddles,
bridles, and packs.  They apparently had escaped with nothing more than their
hand guns and the clothes they wore.  But not everything had gone well.  For
safekeeping the guards had pet the old man in the well.  It made an ideal
prison, but his wound bled so profusely that it spoiled the water. As badly as
they wanted rest, the weary troops had to continue their march in hope of
finding drinkable water.

     Before reaching camp, they had quite a scare.  The Mexican government had
demanded that Langhorne withdraw his troops or face attack, and U.S.
intelligence had picked up several rumors to the effect that an elite force of
Yaqui Indians from the Secretary of War's personal guard was being sent to
deal with the intruders.  The Americans were tense.  As Cramer and his men
rode slowly toward Cerro Blanco with their booty, one of the troopers spotted
a cloud of dust behind them "My heart sank," remembered the lieutenant, "as I
was not in any shape to fight, with my men nearly dead with fatigue, and all
the plunder to hamper us.  I saw visions of being attacked by a bunch of
bandits or by Carranza troops, and the spoiling of my success, and the losing
of my loot, just as I was about to get into camp with it."  Cramer ordered his
men to set up an ambush, but found that there was not time.  The men simply
lay down in the road and prepared to fight the 15 men advancing on them.

     Just before they opened fire, one of Cramer's men shouted that the
approaching troops were Americans.  He saw in the dim light of dawn that all
the horses were black and of similar size and that the men were uniformed. The
party turned out to be a detachment from Troop A that had seen Cramer's
troops, their scraggly looks, and their plunder and had concluded that they
were the bandits.  Cramer's sharp-eyed trooper prevented a disaster.

     The excursion into Mexico was a success.  Deemer and Payne were freed,
most of the supplies taken from both Glenn Springs and Boquillas recaptured,
and several bandits killed and wounded, five captured, and the others
dispersed.  Langhorne's report convinced Col. Frederick W. Sibley that the
mission had been completed, and General Funston recalled the force.
Langhorne's men had been in Mexico 16 days, had traveled more than 550 miles,
and had suffered no casualties.  Although the Carranza government was upset at
the incursion the foray was in many ways more successful than Pershing's more
widely publicized pursuit of Villa.