Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-03-18
REWARDS FOR HEAD OF VILLA
ARE ADDED SPUR TO PURSUERS
Loud Complaints Come From Soldiers
Who Have Not Been Permitted
Yet to Cross the Border.

graph operator in the grimy station
| that he was expecting a telegram from
Washington. His regiment is in Homo
lulu, and he was due back He wired to
| the War Department to be transferred
| to another regiment entering Mexico
and lost no time in getting on the
ground.
! For two nights and day he sat in
the station on seat nearest the opera
tor. He would doZe and his hat would
slip from his bald head, and sometimes
he would rest his head on the opera
tors table and snore until the tramp OF
squad of soldiers or rush of news
paper correspondents would wake him
Always with a smile, he would ask:
ANY message YETI? NO, said the
operator so many times that finally he
only needed to shake his head in 81
! lent negative.
I'm going to FL Paso and wait. but I
certainly wish that transfer" the cap
tain finally said.
Columbus Boom City.
! Columbus with the army here, is like
! a boom city. 1t is worse than any coun-
try village on circus day. 1t is frontier
town. swamped with hungry and busy
| horde that it cannot care for. The two
| little hotels have waiting list, and
after qualifying by sleeping two or more
nights on the floor a guest is entitled to
share a room and bed with somebody
| else-that is, if anybody has left, and
those who leave are becoming fewer ev-
| cry day.
| Vacant and deserted stores are open
l ing as lunchrooms. and all day, until
they are eaten out, line of hungry
people is in front of them, waiting to
get place to sit and eat. What was
left of the stock of the stores after
the bandit raid has been almost ex-
hausted. The soldiers are hungry, the
officers coming from a distance need
supplies and more civilians are in the
town than it ever dreamed of seeing,
even after the railroad made it a reg
| ular stopping place.
| Columbus itself could step into a
western moving picture. with cowboys
dashing in and the postmaster's beau
| tiful daughter being captured by an
Indian. Only there are no Indians, few
Mcxicans and most of the beautiful
daughters have fled to safer spots. Half
| of the houses are adobe, the coolest
building under the burning prairie sun.
and. though there are streets, it is Just
as easy to cut or ride across the smoot h
sand. as the buildings do not number
more than three or four to a block,
Too Excited for Publication.
+ The telephone exchange is in a frame
lean-to in the one-story building of
tne weekly paper Ihere was no issue
| the week of the raid. as the editor was
too excited. but he promises to have
one out today and tell all about it.
The telephone operator, or her
brother, censors all messages The best
restaurant has two tables which seat
four and a counter with three high
chairs. A little woman runs it and
waits on the customers. while her big
husband smokes his pipe and gossips
with the visitors. The surviving lead
ing hardware merchant waits on Gus
toners. with one hand. with three bull
let holes in the other arm, while his
| wife cares for a crying baby and wraps
the bundles.
Nearly every building Has its bullet
holes. Where the front windows of
the stores were smashed in, new glass
is being set. Where there is a clean,
round hole in center of a spider web
of cracked glass, it remains as a souve-
mir of the raid night. Greed of the
bandits to loot stores saved the popu-
lation from massacre. If they had
first attacked the barracks Of the
sleeping soldiers.s and put them to
fight, as is believed was Villas inten-