Posse Comes Back Empty Handed

The Bluefield Telegraph, Bluefield, W. Va. Tuesday Morning, March 19, 1912

POSSE COMES BACK TO TOWN EMPTY HANDED

Another Day's Chase of Hillsville Assassins Results Only In Wearing Out Pursuers.

MAY HAVE CROSSED LINE TO ADJOINING STATE

Difficulties of Search Cause Call for Militia to be Seriously Considered But Plan is Temporarily Abandoned And Rewards Increased.

SIDNA EDWARDS, WITH PRICE OF $1,000 ON HEAD, WOUNDED

Hillsville, Va., March 18. --Another day's chase of the courthouse assassins brought the posses back to town tonight, weary and empty handed, and with the suspicion gaining ground that while the searchers have been beating the bush, the Allens, with a good start, are likely to have got across the line to North Carolina or Tennessee. This possibility was recognized today, but it may have been too late. Word was passed over to the sheriffs on the Tennessee line to be on the watch and the North Carolina sheriffs started out to work over toward the Ararat river country to head the outlaws off.

The difficulties of the search caused a call for the state militia to be seriously considered but the plan was temporarily abandoned and Governor Mann issued a proclamation increasing the total rewards to $1,000 for the outlaws, dead or alive, and sent full descriptions to every store, post-office, and cross roads for miles around.

Detective Felts took a posse off into the hills early this morning, up the road that goes over Barbette Knob and Elk Spur and past Fancy Gap near the Devil's Den, where the outlaws were reported to be barricaded in an almost impregnable fortress of mountain rock. The posse saw none of the gang and no evidence of their presence. At least a dozen houses, homes of members of the Allen clan or sympathizers, were searched on the way but no trace of the outlaws was found.

One great disadvantage under which the posses work is the lack of communication and commissary facilities. The post roads, if roads they might be called, wind through oases between "knobs" and "spurs" with which geography of this country abounds. The territory is sparsely settled and it is next to impossible for a posse to stay out much more than a day. Men so equipped are not much of a match for such woodsmen as the Allens and their follows, who could live bountifully while the posse was being starved.

Sidna Edwards, with a price of $1,000 on his head, is supposed to be somewhere with an injured foot. He has had time to join the Allens, if he knows where they are. Meanwhile the indictments for the murders of Judge Massie, Prosecutor Foster, Sheriff Webb and the two bystanders wait to be served.

The state authorities continued to pile rifles and ammunition up into the troubled country today. Shipments of rifles and bullets were made from Roanoke. They will be unloaded at Galax and be brought in wagons. The posses are well armed, with state militia equipment.

NOTE: The article below appears possibly as a late-breaking news item in the same paper.

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SIDNA ALLEN AND SOME OF GANG SURROUNDED

Posse of Forty Men Believed to Have Them Hemmed in at Squirrel's Spur--Help Sent For.

Greensboro, N. C., March 18. --A long-distance telephone message from Mount Airy, N. C., late tonight announced that a message had arrived there asking that every available man be sent to Squirrel's Spur, twelve miles from that place and just inside the Virginia border, where it is believed Sidna Allen and several of his gang are surrounded by a posse of forty men.