American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1916-01-20

son gold medal by Franklin Institute.
Institute. 1906; president United States
Navy Institute, bill
WHEN II MEXICAN KETTLE BOILS OVER.
In NOgales, where Private Littles of the United States
regulars was killed on November 26, the boundary line
between Mexico and this country is represented by "In-
ternatlonal Street" a reasonably wide thOroughfare that
splits with startling precision the rather struggling twin
city. Over this street, not long ago, the Mexican problem
was poised in most uncertain equilibrium. In Nogales,
Sonora, where life at it's calmest is an 0pera-bouffe affair
of noise and ostentation, there was a looting in progress.
The Villistas were retiring and the ceremony was OBJ
served by the Yaquis, as usual, with an orgy of wanton
plundering, beginning with the Chinese shops and working
up as far as time and terrorism permitted. In Nogales,
Arizona, just across the street, where existence is liable
to flow quietly and deep, and Everybody takes everybody
else across the street for a whispered conversation about
the weather" the silence was more profound than usual.
A thin line of khaki-clad United States soldiers fringed
the road. They were astonishingly quiet, as though
awaiting for some h~oped-for occurrence. They had waited
many times before, but this time the luck might be better.
The claim that a watched pot never boils is an exagger-
alton. On this occasion the Mexican kettle did boil over.
While it did not seethe long enough to satisfy the grin
goes stretched from hill to hill along the border, it was
yet able to result in a some what more respectful attitude
toward the United States on the part of the Yaquis. Mr..
Clair Kenamore, a writer on the st. Louis Post Dispatch,
happened to be in Nogales on November 26, and describes
entertainingly the flare-up that cleared the border at this
point and gratified the aspirations of a few long-suffer-
ing army officers. The trouble started, he points out, be-
cause the Mexicans had come to believe that the calm, un-
demonstrative American soldiers were lacking in courage
and manliness. In the Sunday magazine of this newspaper
we read that
For two or three years the Mexicans had been daring
them to fight, but they never had fought. 1t was good
sport to stand before the line, wave a rifle and dare them
to come out and fight. 1t was inadvisable, Mexican Off
GERS said, to shoot these cowardly Americans but it had
been done.
Occasionally on this day, a faint-hearted Vilista would
edge up near the line and suddenly snatch off his belt of
cartridges and throw away his rifle. Then, with both
hands high in air, he would dash across the line and sur
render himself a prisoner.
One rotund Mexican soldier, too rotund for such an en-
terprise, drunken or Drawer than the rest, finally shot at
the American soldiers, lying on their bellies while waiting
the order to fire.
Knabenshue, who is intelligence officer and did not have
any particular business there wanted to take a squad ac-
ross the lie and arrest the shooter. Colonel Sage would not
permit this. He expected to violate his orders to a crtain
degree, as to shooting across the line, but he did not wish
to go to the extent of invasion.
The men who lay nearest the officers could hear the
talk and knew the order to fire would soon come. and their
rifles moved slowly, like needles of a compass, the point be-
ing the fat, loud soldier who had fired at them. Some 9th
er MeXicans fired casually, up in the air or Americanward,
and Colonel Sage decided it time to do something.
Everybody pick out a man, and be sure it is somebody
who is shooting" he said.
The fat man took another shot at the Gringoes.
Kill that man." said Frier to the silent men on the
ground, whose magnetized rifles had not departed from
their lodeStone.
"Fire," said Colonel Sage.
! The fat soldier fell back silent with two bullet holes in
his head and one through his body. The firing kept up
for fifteen minutes and then died down. Every Mexican
ing.
] The firing had started in the middle of the town and rip
Piled, pop, pop, pop, up the line in both ways, 100 yards to
the foot of the steep hills which wall in Portrero Arroyo,
which holds the two towns, and had sputtered up the hills,
like the fuse of a Fourth of July firecracker. After the