Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1916 — INDIANA SOLDIERS MAY GO TO SANTA MARIA [ARTICLE]

INDIANA SOLDIERS MAY GO TO SANTA MARIA

Several Troopers Are Sent to San Antonio Hospital—Salute Is Fired For Bliss.

Mercedes, Tex., July 20. —Although it is not announced officially and no one knows just when it will happen, it is understood that a cdm'pany and perhaps two companies of the Indiana troops will be sent to Santa Maria, 10 miles from the present Llano Grande camp. This is a point of more than usual importalnce, for it is in the Rabb’s ranch country, which is at the edge of Santa Maria, that the bandits were busy and there is no telling when they may try to cross the Rio Grande river again. For that reason Troop A of the 3rd cavalry, in command of Capt. Philip Mowry, which went there from New York a few days ago, is at Rabb’s ranch, whale thirty more cavalrymen are at the pumping station on the Rio Grande, half a mile away. The town of Santa Maria resembles the page of some old picture book. Adobe houses are filled in among a few modem dwellings and two big signs, “United States Customs House” and “Santa Maria Postoffice,” top two white frame buildings. There is a general store and a modem school house and an old fashioned church.

The Mexicans there are friendly to the Americans and give the army officers a great deal of information. At Rabb’s ranch the Mexican scouts report that there are Mexicans who slip across the rivet, gather what information they can and report to the federal authorities.

Also the river guards or custopis inspectors are found about the ranch When riot on duty. Their business is to patrol the river bank and prevent smuggling. They are men of more than ordinary intelligence, dead shots and of untiring energy. The country about Santa Maria and Rabb’s ranch is about the same as found all through this neighborhood. The roadis are fairly good for this part of Texas. On the ranch are orange and lemon trees, and a few banana palm.s Close by are several fields of cotton. When the Indiana troops get to Rabb’s ranch they will have pure water, from wells sunk forty feet into the ground, and the soil is so hard that nothing drains into the wells.

The Indiana troops will have to face a situation as dangerous as the Mexican bandits, for the mesquite, undergroWth/is infested with rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions. None of the cavalrymen have been bitten by the snakes, but several of them have' been stung by tarantulas and scorpions. The stings did not prove fatal. In order to protect themselves from bandits, the troops have built barricades around their camp. These are about three feet high and two feet across and there are rows of logs filled in with, earth and brick. The top is surmounted by barbed wire. The same barricades are built -arotrnd the camp at thb pumping station on the river. * SoMfiers patrol the roads in all directions, and a border patrol is on the alert up and down the river. . It would be hard for bandits to surprise either camp, so if the Indiana soldiers escape the rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions, they have not much to fear. Although the heat is intense in the day, it is tempered with a breeze from the Gulf of Mexico and the nights are delightfully cool. Only the troops that go to Rabb’s ranch and Santa Maria will find an improvement over the camp at Llano Grande.