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Show YARNS DOUBTED. The authorities at Washington are beginning to suspect that the Mole St. I Nicholas man who heard firing at eea every night during the Spanish-American war is now. at El Paso. If not the Mole St. Nicholas man, then the .Che Foo liar who flourished during the Russo-Japanese war, or the fellow who kept the wires out of Market Lake, Idaho, hot, when the United States troops were sent into Wyoming some years ago to quell an alleged Indian uprising. Of late the El Paso correspondent corre-spondent has been putting a story on ; the wires nearly every night concerning the whereabouts and movements of Pnu-cho Pnu-cho Villa. According to somo of these yarns the outlaw has been interviewed upon numerous occasions and has threatened threat-ened great slaughter upon his arrival at the border with a handful of men. Stories have also been printed that the bandit was on his way to Chihuahua City to put tho Carranzistas to the sword and turn things topsyturvy. The war department officials have invariably in-variably asked General Funston regarding regard-ing tho reports and the commander on the border has instructed General Pershing Per-shing to investigate and also take measures to round up the bandit in case he came within striking distance of the punitive expedition. General Pershing has just sent the following telegram' to the war department: "Reports regarding re-garding Villa 's movement north eon-tiifuously eon-tiifuously received through El Paso authorities. So far reports cannot be confirmed here, although every possible source of information is being used. ' ' The general goes on to say that the patrols in Santa Clara canyon, where one El Paso story located the bandit, had seen or heard nothing of the much-hunted much-hunted rebel or his band of cutthroats. Now either the EI Paso correspondent who sends out these yarns is an able-bodied able-bodied prevaricator or General Pershing's Per-shing's scouts and intelligence department depart-ment are worse than useless. The gov-ernment gov-ernment officials incline to the first theory and will probably not pay any further attention to wild-eyed rumors regarding Villa from the sensational fountain at El Paso. Some danger will be incurred thereby, for the wolf may come at last after the excitement caused by the false alarms has died away. |