After Salazar’s defeat at Fronteras, he moved east again, and about a month later appeared near Palomas, a town about three miles from the international boundary south of Columbus, N.M.  At Palomas there was a Federal detachment of about one hundred and thirty men under an old colonel.  They had been sent there to protect various cattle interests in that vicinity; and they had a considerable amount of money, equipment, and ammunition for maintaining and providing rations and forage for themselves and for some outlying detachments.  Salazar, hearing of this, demanded that the money and equipment be immediately surrendered.  Upon being refused, Salazar, with about three hundred and fifty men, attacked.  A furious battle was fought, ending in a house-to-house fight with grenades—­cans filled with dynamite, with fuse attached, which are thrown by hand.  Salazar’s force captured the town after the Federals had suffered more than 50 per cent. in casualties, including the Federal commander, who was wounded several times; the rebels suffered more than 30 per cent. casualties.  The town, in the mean time, was wrecked.  This particular instance shows that the Mexicans fight and fight well from a standpoint of physical courage.  The general idea that the Mexicans would not fight, which Americans obtained during this period, was obtained because they did not care to in the majority of cases.

Meanwhile, General Huerta, having “finished” his Chihuahua campaign in the autumn of 1912, was promoted to the rank of General of Division (Major-General) and decorated for his achievement.  It was rumored in many places at that time that General Huerta was about to turn against the Madero Government.  Madero, suspecting his loyalty, ordered him back to Mexico City.  Huerta took his time about obeying this order, and, when he reported in Mexico City, obtained a sick-leave to have his eyes treated.  Huerta was nearly blind when Felix Diaz’s revolt broke out in Vera Cruz in October, 1912, and probably thus escaped being drawn into that unsuccessful demonstration.

From this time until the coup d’etat of February 8, 1913, there was no large organized resistance to the Madero Administration, although banditism increased at an alarming rate in all parts of the Republic.  The Diaz-Reyes outburst, in Mexico City on February 8, 1913, which resulted in the death of Madero and Suarez and the elevation of Huerta to practical military dictatorship, was brought about by the adherents of the old regime, who looked upon Madero’s extinction as a punishment meted out to a criminal who had raised the slaves against their masters.  This view prevailed to a considerable extent in Mexico south of San Luis Potosi.  In the North, however, the people almost as a whole (at least 90 per cent. in Sonera, and only to a slightly lesser extent in the other provinces) saw in it the cold-blooded murder of their political idol at the hands of unscrupulous moneyed interests and of adherents of the old regime of the days of Porfirio Diaz.