Evening star., 1916-04-12
is SEEKING TO BEGUILE
PURSUERS FROM TRAIL
Carranza Officers at Juarez Believe
Bandit Is Following Usual Tac-
tics by Misleading Enemies.
STORY OF DEATH IS A MYTH
Fox of the Sierras' So Far South
Gen. Pershing Has to Establish
New Base Near Sateve,
Advices State.

Ell PASO. Ten. April Ia
Masking his trail with the delud-
ing fiction spread broadcast bv
Mexican poems that he had died
of his wounds. Francisco Villa is
thought by Mexican military Off
GERS in Iuarez to be safely hid
den away today in the Sierra
Madre mountains. while the
American cavalry are pursuing a
rear-guard band of Villa bandits,
whose strategy it is to beguile
Villas pursuers away from the
hiding place of their chief
Mexican followers of Villa saw
it was a favorite trick of the
bandit leader. when the chase be-
came hot. for him to have the
story spread that he was dead. SO
the ardor of his pursuers might
be dampened. Army officers AT
Fort Bliss declare that if the Villa
death story is hoax it will in
no wise affect the pursuit of the
Fox OF the Sierras.
New Base at Satevo.
Brig. Gen Pershing has established .
new base at Satevo. according to infof-
nation here but no word has come from
the flying columns of American cavalry
under nand of Coils Dodd and Brown,
whose pursuit of the Villa forces is said
tn have extended beyond Parral There
are reports that the advance columns
have been forced to halt until the line o.
communications has been established
south of Satevo
There is nothing official here or at
army headquarters at Columbus. N. M.
to confirm report that Troops X and NJ
7th Cavalry. killed a number OF Niiia
last Saturday south of Satevo Military
officers at Columbus do not credit the re-
port.
ing steadily forwarded by the quarter
masters department to Casas Grandes
Namiquipa and other points.
Problems of U. S. Commanders.
There are only two possibilities which
are accepted here as true in the present
situation: Either Villa is dead and
his pursuit is automatically ended.
ne is far to the south in central Du-
range If the latter is true. army Of
ficers say that the entire plan of cam
paisn of Gen. PershinG must be re-
L.
organized or abandoned altoSether. one
officer who has had an active part In
the direction OF the plans of the eN-
force. summed uD the sit
uation in this way:
IF Villa is d,a. there is no more To
be said except to issue an order for
our soldiers to come back to the United
States as speedily as possible. If he fs
not dead there is very little reason TO
doubt that he is by this time well into
the state of Durango. Ii is simply
to suppose that our troops
can keep on going south indefinitely
with no railroads back of them. They
will either have to halt or arrange for
the dispatch of another expedition from
some point on the border which viii
enable them to cut in behind Villa. ]
am not n prophet. but the most casual
observer should see that the existing
conditions are impossible of continu-
ance.
The report of Villas death was accept
ed as highly probable by Gen. Bertani,
the CarranZa commander at Casas
Ora ndes, who now is in Juarez
Villas Chance of Recovery.
There is only one doctor in the coun-
try where Villa now is said Gen. Ber-
tani land .if blood poisoning has set in in
Villas $ wounded leg. as my information
has it, this doctor can do nothing, even
if he has a chance. Witnesses who saw
Villa told me his left leg was shattered
by a fall from his horse following his
being wounded by a bullet. They said
the leg was in bad shape, swollen and
Gen. Bertani said that Villa had not
more than fifty men with him. The Villa
band which his troops encountered in the
MADEIRA section yesterday consisted of
twenty three members. of whom fourteen
were taken prisoners. The survivors
carrying their wounded. escaped into the
Mills.
VILLAS forces consist now of only a
few handfuls" commented Bertani They
viii have to be hunted down like ordinary
escaped criminals
The Apache scouts have gone into
Mexico from Columbus, it was learned
onight Led by Peaches. the captor of
Geronimo, they started south on top of
motor trucks