The Cockroach

The Cocroach

1903. Orango, youthful village butcher, just turned cowpuncher, enters an adobe hut in Chihuahua, Mexico, rendezvous of the smart sporting fraternity. He sits down to a quiet game. Presently an Army officer questions his play. Orango smiles. The officer cries "cheat," and Orango .shoots Mm dead across the table. Orango dashes out, jumps on a horse, and rides into the night-covered mountains--no longer Orango, but Francisco Villa, bandit, known to his friends as La Cucaracha, "the cockroach."

July 16, 1923. Seven greasers take possession of a cross-roads hut in the outskirts of Parras. After three days of waiting they see an automobile coming down from the big ranch in the hills. As the car slows up at the cross-roads they open fire from seven rifles. Of 40 bullets which catch the car, 16 sink into the body of one man. Pancho Villa has been killed by his enemies. He had no chance to draw his own pistols.

The seven greasers, after hastily assassinating the owner of the hut (dead men don't talk) scamper into a nearby gully, mount their horses and are off.

Dead at the cross-roads are four other men which the soon-completed village crowd recognize as Villa's secretary, Villa's chauffeur, Villa's personal bodyguard.

Two theories were immediately advanced for the assassination. " It was family revenge," say some, and point to one Herrera, the only male Herrera whom Villa did not kill. "It was politics," say others. Some of the assassins, apprehended by Federal troops, are held for investigation.

Villa, the ex-bandit, had been living on his "gift ranch" at Las Nievas, Durango, Mexico. This ranch and an annuity was the price that Obregon's Government paid for Villa's good behavior.

At the height of his fortune Villa commanded 35,000 men. He might, after his capture of Mexico City, have become dictator, but he lost his head, and in March, 1916, at the ebb of his fortunes, fleeing from Obregon, he raided Columbus, N. M. The U. S. Government sent General Perishing and 4,000 men to "get" Villa, dead or alive. The expedition cost $100,000,000 and failed to get Villa, though it broke his power. After his final defeat he promised to settle down and be good, if it were made worth his while. It was.

Villa had begun to take an intelligent interest in the approaching Presidential campaign, an interest hostile to the ambitions of Senor Calles, darling of the radicals and Communists. This fact, rather than Villa's past crimes, probably had direct bearing on his death.

.Mexican papers and President Obregon regret that there has been one more assassination in Mexico. Except, however, for some thousands of Vila devoues, all Mexicans and all Americans are well content.

General Francisco Villa is mourned by five ladies, each claiming to be his widow. This does not include Senora Luz Corral de Villa, his lawful wife, who is living in the United States.