Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-10-24
A BANDITS REVENGE

MONTEREY, Mex, Oct. 1.-The town OF
Salinas, on the line of the Mexican National
Railway, was visited Thursday afternoon by
a band of armed robbers, who attacked the
Municipal Hall, killed Alcade Jose M.
Santos, Chief of Police Rodriguez, and
about twenty others. Only last Monday
night Ell Coyote 1.-THE wolff, a celebrated
bandit, made his escape from jail at New
Laredo, on the Rio Grande. 1t is
believed he bribed his %jailers to allow
him to escape. He Immediately fled to the
mountains, and set about gathering his old
band of outlaws together. His prestige
among the bravadoes is almost supreme,
and ever the respectable classes regard him
as a superior being and fear and admire
take the life of Alcalde Santos
for the part the latter took in caus-
ing his arrest for the Bustamente
train robbery, in which Pablo Quinta, the
Mayor of New Laredo, was also implicated
and afterward impeached. 1t is now known
that Ell Coyote, on escaping, went direct to
Salinas, some sixty miles distant in the
Sierra Madre Mountains. Herehe recruited
about twenty desperate characters from the
silver mines, aud, pushing onward to Macu-
anita, another mining town skirting the
mountain, picked up a dozen more recruits.
The knowledge Of his arrival spread with
such rapidity through the distant mountain
villas that it is evident that he had sent
word Of his intended coming. Some TWEEN
ty miles from Salinas Ell Coyote ma1shaled
his band of eighty men, and from that
point they struggled into Salinas when
the Aldermen and the municipal Of
ficers had returned from their daily
siesta. A small band of idle men was
noticed lettering about the plaza in the
neighborhood OF the prefecture. The APP
pearance of a mouted squad with Ell Coyote
at their head was the signal for the attack.
Rodriguez, the Chief of Police, with half a
dozen assistants, rushed to the prefecture
and closed the doors on the excited mob.
Th fusillade continued until dark, when
the doors were broken open and Ell
Coyote appeared dragging til. lifeless body
of the alcade Santos, while another bandit
threw R%odriguez's body into the midst OF
the crowd. All the stores in the city were
closed at the outbreak and the doors barred.
The exact number killed and wounded is
not known, for the reason that the bandits
carried their dead and wounded away.with
them. The citizens claim to have counted
ten dead bandits on the street as a result of
a terrible fire from the windows of the pre-
lecture with repeating rifles. Five police
men were mortally wounded, and two are
since reported dead.
The municipal buildings were sacked and
everything of value was carried away. A
few shops were also Quilted. No efforts
were made by the citizens to arrest the BAN
dts.
Ell Coyote h%arangued his men in the plaza
after the attack, stating that he would now
20 forth to avenge the wrongs he had suf-
fered, and declared that he would kill the
authorities at Palo Blanco and Bustamente
and then seek the mountains.
Toward midnight, after indulging in the
most disgraceful orgies, Ell Coyote and his
men took their dead and started westward
in the direction of Abasoto. %Sanguinary
and sudden attacks are expected to occur
within a day or two at several points. The
federal authorities are about to send troops.