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{

INSURGENT MEXICO

INSURGENT
MEXICO

JOHN REED

NEW YORK AND LONDON

D. AFPLETON AND COMPANY

1914

204047

COPTBZGHT, 1914, BT

D. APPLETON AND COBiPANY

XPIBODIS IK THIS BOOK ABK ALSO PBOTECTBD BT THS
FOLLOWING COPTBIQHT:

CopTBioBT, 1914, BT Thx Mstbop(»jxan Maqazink Compant

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• • •

• - •

• • • • •

• • •• •

• • • • •

■

• • •

• • • •

• • •

« •

ranrrBD in thx unitbd btatbs of akxbica

To
PROFESSOR CHARLES TOWN SEND COPELAND

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Dear Copey:

I remember you thought it strange that my first trip
abroad didn't make me want to write about what I saw
there. But since then I have visited a country which stim-
ulated me to express it in words. And as I wrote these
impressions of Mexico I couldn't help but think that I
never would have seen what I did see had it not been for
your teaching me,

I can only add my word to what so many who are writing
already have told you: That to listen to you is to learn
how to see the hidden beauty of the visible world; that to
be your friend is to try to be intellectually honest.

So I dedicate this booh to you with the understanding
that you shall take as your own the parts that please you,
and forgive me the rest.

As ever.
Jack.

New York,
July S, 1914.

On the Border 1

PART I. DESERT WAR

I. Urbina's Country IS

II. The Lion of Duranoo at Home • • • 21

III. The General Goes to War . • • • 27

IV. La Tropa on the March SS

. V. White Nights at Zarca 46

VI. "QuiEN Vive?" 53

VII. An Outpost of the Revolution . • . 59

VIII. The Five Musketeers 64

IX. The Last Nioht 7S

X. The Coming of the Colorados • • • 80

XI. Meester's Flight 87

XII. Elizabetta 99

PART II. FRANCISCO VILLA

I. Villa Accepts A Medal 113

II. The Rise of a Bandit 116

III. A Peon in Politics 122

IV. The Human Side ISO

V. The Funeral of Abram Gonzales . . 1S4

VI. Villa and Carranza 1S7

VII. The Rules of War 140

VIII. The Dream of Pancho Villa . • . 145

PART III. JIMINEZ and POINTS WEST

I. Dona Luisa's Hotel 149

II. Duello a la Frigada 15S

III. Saved by a Wrist-watch I6l

IV. Symbols of Mexico 164

••
vu

viii CONTENTS

PART IV. A PEOPLE IN ARMS

PAOB

I. "On to Torreon!" 175

II. The Army at Yermo 179

III. First Blood . . . . . . . .187

IV. On the Cannon Car 191

V. At the Gates of Gomez 199

VI. The Companeros Reappear .... 204

VII. The Bloody Dawn . ., . . . . 208

VIII. The Artillery Comes Up 215

IX. Battle 220

X. Between Attacks 229

XI. An Outpost in Action 236

XII. Contreras' Men Assault 243

Xril. A Night Attack 247

XIV. The Fall of Gomez Palacio .... 253

PART V. CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

CaRRANZA ^An iMPRESSIOk .... 263

PART VI. MEXICAN NIGHTS

I. El Cosmopolita 281

II. Happy Valley . 289

III. Los Pastores . • • 307

• _•

INSURGENT MEXICO

ON THE BORDER

MERCADO'S Federal army, after its dramatic
and terrible retreat four hundred miles across
the desert when Chihuahua was abandoned,
lay three months at Ojinaga on the Rio Grande.

At Presidio, on the American side of the river, one
could climb to the flat mud roof of the Post Office and
look across the mile or so of low scrub growing in the
sand to the shallow, yellow stream; and beyond to the
low mesa, where the town was, sticking sharply up out
of a scorched desert, ringed round with bare, savage
mountains.

One could see the square, gray adobe houses of
Ojinaga, with here and there the Oriental cupola of an
old Spanish church. It was a desolate land, without
trees. You expected minarets. By day. Federal sol-
diers in shabby white uniforms swarmed about the place
desultorily digging trenches, for Villa and his victori-
ous Constitutionalists were rumored to be on the way.
You got sudden glints, where the sun flashed on field
guns; strange, thick clouds of smoke rose straight in
the still air.

Toward evening, when the sun went down with the
flare of a blast furnace, patrols of cavalry rode sharply

• • -•

•• .: INSURGENT MEXICO

acr<)ss the skyline to the night outposts. And after
i4Tkj mysterious fires burned in the town.
' '/There were thirty-five hundred men in Ojinaga. This
'W'as all that remained of Mercado's army of ten thou-
sand and the five thousand which Paseual Orozeo had
marched north from Mexico City to reinforce him. Of
this thirty-five hundred, forty-five were majors,
twenty-one colonels, and eleven generals.

I wanted to interview Greneral Mercado; but one of
the newspapers had printed something displeasing to
Greneral Salazar, and he had forbidden the reporters the
town. I sent a polite request to General Mercado. The
note was intercepted by General Orozeo, who sent back
the following reply:

EsTssiojD AND HoNORSD Sm: If you set foot inside of
Ojinaga^ I will stand you sideways against a wall^ and
with my own hand take great pleasure in shooting fur-
rows in your back.

But after all I waded the river one day and went up
into/the town. Luckily, I did not meet General Orozeo.
No one seemed to object to my entrance. All the sen-
tries I saw were taking a siesta on the shady side of
adobe walls. But almost immediately I encountered a
courteous officer named Hernandez, to whom I ex-
plained that I wished to see Greneral Mercado.

Without inquiring a,s to my identity, he scowled,
folded his arms, and burst out:

"I am Greneral Orozco's chief of staff, and I will not
take yoit to see General Mercado !"

ON THE BORDER

I said nothing. In a few minutes he explained :

^^Greneral Orozco hates Greneral Mercado! He does
not deign to go to Greneral Mercado's euartel, and Gen-
eral Mercado does not dare to come to Greneral Oroz-
co's cuartel! He is a coward. He ran away from
Tierra Blanca, and then he ran away from Chihua*
hua !"

*nVhat other Grenerals don't you like?" I asked.

He caught himself and slanted an angry look at me,
and then grinned:

**Qa%en sabe. . . . f "

I saw General Mercado, a fat, pathetic, worried, un-
decided little man, who blubbered and blustered a long
tale about how the United States army had come across
the river and helped Villa to win the battle of Tierra
Blanca.

The white, dusty streets of the town, piled high with
filth and fodder, the ancient windowless church with its
three enormous Spanish bells hanging on a rack outside
and a cloud of blue incense crawling out of the black
doorway, where the women camp followers of the army
prayed for victory day and night, lay in hot, breathless
sun. Five times had Ojinaga been lost and taken.
Hardly a house that had a roof, and all the walls gaped
with cannon-shot. In these bare, gutted rooms lived
the soldiers, their women, their horses, their chickens
and pigs, raided from the surrounding country. Guns
were stacked in the comers, saddles piled in the dust.
The soldiers were in rags; scarcely one possessed a
complete uniform. They squatted around little fires in

INSURGENT MEXICO

their doorways, boiling corn-husks and dried meat.
They were ahnost starving.

Along the main street passed an unbroken proces-
sion of sick, exhausted, starving people, driven from
the interior by fear of the approaching rebels, a jour-
ney of eight days over the most terrible desert in the
world. They were stopped by a hundred soldiers along
the street, and robbed of every possession that took the
Federals' fancy. Then they passed on to the river,
and on the American side they had to run the gantlet
of the United States customs and immigration officials
and the Army Border Patrol, who searched them for
arms.

Hundreds of refugees poured across the river, some
on horseback driving cattle before them, some in
wagons, and others on foot. The inspectors were not
very gentle.

"Come down off that wagon !" one would shout to a
Mexican woman with a bundle in her arm.

*'But, sef[or, for what reason? • • ." she would be-
gin.

**Come down there or I'll pull you down!" he would

yeU.

They made an imnecessarily careful and brutal
search of the men and of the women, too.

As I stood there, a woman waded across the ford, her
skirts lifted unconcernedly to her thighs. She wore a
voluminous shawl, which was humped up in front as if
she were carrying something in it.

"Hi, there!" shouted a customs man. "What have
you got under your shawl?"

ON THE BORDER

She slowly opened the front of her dress, and an-
swered placidly:

"I don't know, sefior. It may be a girl, or it may be
a boy."

These were metropolitan days for Presidio, a strag-
gling and indescribably desolate village of about fif-
teen adobe houses, scattered without much plan in the
deep sand and cotton-wood scrub along the river
bottom. Old Kleinmann, the Grerman store-keeper,
made a fortune a day outfitting refugees and supply-
ing the Federal army across the river with provisions.
He had three beautiful adolescent daughters whom he
kept locked up in the attic of the store, because a flock
of amorous Mexicans and ardent cow-punchers prowled
around like dogs, drawn from many miles away by
the fame of these damsels. Halif the time he spent
working furiously in the store, stripped to the waist;
and the remainder, rushing around with a large gun
strapped to his waist, warning off the suitors.

At all times of the day and night, throngs of un-
armed Federal soldiers from across the river swarmed
in the store and the pool hall. Among them circu-
lated dark, ominous persons with an important air,
secret agents of the Rebels and the Federals. Around
im the brush camped hundreds of destitute refugees,
and you could not walk around ^a corner at night with-
out stimibling over a plot or a counterplot. There
were Texas rangers, and United States troopers, and
agents of American corporations trying to get secret
instructions to their employees in the interior.

INSURGENT MEXICO

One MacKenzie stamped about the Post Office in
a high dudgeon. It appeared that he had important
letters for the American Smelting and Refining Com-
pany mines in Santa Eulalia.

^^Old Mercado insists on opening and reading all
letters that pass through his lines," he shouted indig-
nantly.

"But," I said, "he will let them pass, won't he?"

**Certainly," he answered. "But do you think the
American Smelting and Refining Company will submit
to having its letters opened and read by a damned
greaser? It's an outrage when an American corpora-
tion can't send a private letter to its employees! If
this don't bring Intervention," he finished, darkly, ^^I
don't know what will!"

There were all sorts of drummers for arms and am-
munition companies, smugglers and contrabandistas;
also a small, bantam man, the salesman for a portrait
company, which made crayon enlargements from pho-
tographs at $5 apiece. He was scurrying around among
the Mexicans, getting thousands of orders for pictures
which were to be paid for upon delivery, and which;
of course, could never be delivered. It was his first
experience among Mexicans, and he was highly grati-
fied by the hundreds of orders he had received. You
see, a Mexican would just as soon order a portrait, or
a piano, or an automobile as not, so long as he does
not have to pay for it. It gives him a sense of wealth.

The little agent for crayon enlargements made one
comment on the Mexican revolution. He said that
Greneral Huerta must be a fine man, because he un-

ON THE BORDER

derstood he was distantly connected, on his mother's
side, with the distinguished Carey family of Virginia!

The American bank of the river was patroled twice
a day by details of cavalry, conscientiously paralleled
on the Mexican side by companies of horsemen. Both
parties watched each other narrowly across the Bor-
der. Every once in a while a Mexican, .unable to re-
strain his nervousness, took a pot-shot at the Ameri-
cans, and a small battle ensued as both parties scat-
tered into the brush. A little way above Presidio were
stationed two troops of the Negro Ninth Cavalry. One
colored trooper, watering his horse on the bank of
the river, was accosted by an English-speaking Mexi-
can squatting on the opposite shore:

*'Hey, coon!" he shouted, derisively, "when are you
damned Gringos going to cross that line?"

**Chile!" responded the Negro. **We ain't agoin'
to cross that line at all. We're just goin' to pick up
that line an' carry it right down to the Big Ditch !"

Sometimes a rich refugee, with a good deal of gold
sewed in his saddle-blankets, would get across the river
without the Federals discovering it. There were six
big, high-power automobiles in Presidio waiting for
just such a victim. They would soak him one hun-
dred dollars gold to make a trip to the railroad; and
on the way, somewhere in the desolate wastes south of
Marfa, he was almost sure to be held up by masked
men and everything taken away from him. Upon these
occasions the High Sheriff of Presidio County would
bluster into town on a small pinto horse, — a figure true
to the best tradition of "The Girl of the Golden West."

INSURGENT MEXICO

He had read all Owen Wister's novels, and knew what
a Western sheriff ought to look like: two revolvers
on the hip, one slung under his arm, a large knife in
his left boot, and an enormous shotgun over his sad-
dle. His conversation was larded with the most fear*
ful oaths, and he never caught any criminal. He
spent all of his time enforcing the Presidio County
law against carrying firearms and playing poker; and
at night, after the day's work was done, you could
always find him sitting in at a quiet game in the back
of Kleinmann's store.

War and rumors of war kept Presidio at a fever heat.
We all knew that sooner or later the Constitutionalist
army would come overland from Chihuahua and at-
tack Ojinaga. In fact, the major in command of the
Border Patrol had already been approached by the
Federal generals in a body to make arrangements for
the retreat of the Federal army from Ojinaga under
such circumstances. They said that when the rebels
attacked they would want to resist for a respectable
length of time, — say two hours, — and that then they
would like permission to come across the river.

We knew that some twenty-five miles southward, at
La Mula Pass, five hundred rebel volunteers guarded
the only road from Ojinaga through the mountains.
One day a courier sneaked through the Federal lines
and across the river with important news. He said
that the military band of the Federal army had been
marching around the country practicing their music,
and had been captured by the Constitutionalists, who
stood them up in the market-place with rifles pointed

ON THE BORDER

at their heads, and made them play twelve hours at
a stretch. "Thus," continued the message, "the hard-
ships of life in the desert have been somewhat allevi-
ated." We could never discover just how it was that
the band happened to be practicing all alone twenty-
two miles from Ojinaga in the desert.

For a month longer the Federals remained at Oji-
naga, and Presidio throve. Then Villa, at the head
of his army, appeared over a rise of the desert. The
Federals resisted a respectable length of time — ^just
two hours, or, to be exact, until Villa himself at the
head of a battery galloped right up to the muzzles
of the guns, — and then poured across the river in wild
rout, were herded in a vast corral by the American sol-
diers, and afterward imprisoned in a barbed-wire stock-
ade at Fort Bliss, Texas.

But by that time I was already far down in Mexico,
riding across the desert with a hundred ragged Con-
stitutionalist troopers on my way to the front.

PART ONE

DESERT WAR

CHAPTER I

URBINA'S COUNTRY

A PEDDLER from Parral came into town with
a mule-load of mactbche^ — ^you smoke macuche
when you can't get tobacco, — and we strolled
down with the rest of the population to get the news.
This was in Magistral, a Durango mountain village
three days' ride from the railroad. Somebody bought
a little macuche^ the rest of us borrowed from him,
and we sent a boy for some corn-shucks. Everybody
lit up, squatting around the peddler three deep; for
it was weeks since the town had heard of the Revolu-
tion. He was full of the most alarming nmiors : that
the Federals had broken out of Torreon and were
headed this way, burning ranches and murdering pcuA-
ficos; that the United States troops had crossed the
Rio Grande; that Huerta had resigned; that Huerta
was coming north to take charge of the Federal troops
in person; that Pascual Orozco had been shot at Oji-
naga; that Pascual Orozco was coming south with
ten thousand colorados. He retailed these reports with
a wealth of dramatic gesture, stamping around until
his heavy brown-and-gold sombrero wabbled on his
head, tossing his faded blue blanket over his shoulder,
firing imaginary rifles and drawing imaginary swords,

INSURGENT MEXICO

while his audience murmured: **MaV^ and **AdioV* But
the most interesting rumor was that General Urbina
would leave for the front in two days.

A hostile Arab named Antonio Swayfeta happened
to be driving to Parral in a two-wheeled gig the next
morning, and allowed me to go with him as far as Las
Nieves, where the Grenerrl lives. By afternoon we
had climbed out of the mountains to the great upland
plain of Northern Durango, and were jogging down
the mile-long waves of yellow prairie, stretching away
so far that the grazing cattle dwindled into dots and
finally disappeared at the base of the wrinkled purple
mountains that seemed close enough to hit with a
thrown stone. The Arab's hostility had thawed, and
he poured out his life's story, not one word of which
I could understand. But the drift of it, I gathered,
was largely commercial. He had once been to El Paso
and regarded it as the world's most beautiful city. But
business was better in Mexico. They say that there
are few Jews in Mexico because they cannot stand the
competition of the Arabs.

We passed only one human heing all that day — a
ragged old man astride a burro, wrapped in a red-and-
black checked serape, though without trousers, and
hugging the broken stock of a rifle. Spitting, he vol-
unteered that he was a soldier; that after three years
of deliberation he had finally decided to join the Revo-
lution and fight for Libertad. But at his first battle a
cannon had been fired, the first he had ever heard; he
had immediately started for his home in El Oro, where

URBINA'S COUNTRY

he intended to descend into a gold-mine and stay there
until the war was over. . • .

We fell silent, Antonio and I. Occasionally he ad-
dressed the mule in faultless Castilian. Once he in-
formed me that that mule was **all heart" (pura cora-
zon). The sun hung for a moment on the crest of the
red porphyry mountains, aid dropped behind them;
the turquoise cup of sky held an orange powder of
clouds. Then all the rolling leagues of desert glowed
and came near in the soft light. Ahead suddenly
reared the solid fortress of a big rancho, such as one
comes on once a day in that vast land, — a mighty
square of blank walls, with loop-holed towers at the
corners, and an iron-studded gate. It stood grim and
forbidding upon a little bare hill, like any castle, its
adobe corrals around it; and below, in what had been
a dry arroyo all day, th^ sunken river came to the sur-
face in a pool, and disappeared again in the sand. Thin
lines of smoke from within rose straight into the high
last sunshine. From the river to the gate moved the
tiny black figures of women with water- jars on their
heads: and two wild horsemen galloped some cattle
toward the corrals. Now the western mountains were
blue velvet, and the pale sky a blood-stained canopy of
watered silk. But by the time we reached the great
gate of the rancho, above was only a shower of stars.

Antonio called for Don Jesus. It is always safe
to call for Don Jesus at a rancho, for that is invaria-
bly the administrador*s name. He finally appeared, a
magnificently tall man in tight trousers, purple silk
undershirt, and a gray sombrero heavily loaded with

INSURGENT MEXICO

sHver braid ; and invited us in. The inside of the wall
consisted of houses, running all the way around. Along
the walls and over the doors hung festoons of jerked
meat, and strings of peppers, and drying clothes.
Three young girls crossed the square in single file,
balancing oIUm of water on their heads, shouting to
each other in the raucous voices of Mexican women.
At one house a woman crouched, nursing her baby;
next door another kneeled to the interminable labor
of I grinding corn-meal in a stone trough. The men-
folk squatted before little corn-husk fires, bundled in
their faded serapes, smoking their hojas as they
watched the women work. As we unharnessed they
rose and gathered around, with soft-voiced **Btieno
nochesy* curious and friendly. Where did we come
from? Where going? What did we have of news?
Had the Maderistas taken Ojinaga yet? Was it true
that Orozco was coming to kill the pacificosf Did we
know Panfilo Silveyra? He was a sergentOy one of
Urbina's men. He came from that house, was the
cousin of this man. Ah, there was too much war !

Antonio departed to bargain for com for the mule.
**A tanita— just a little corn," he whined. "Surely
Don Jesus wouldn't charge him anything. • . • Just
so much com as a mule could eat ... !" At one of
the houses I negotiated for dinner. The woman spread
out both her hands. "We are all so poor now," she
said. **A little water, some beans — tortillas. ... It
is all we eat in this house. , • •" Milk? No. Eggs?
No. Meat? No. Coffee? Valgame Dios, no I I ven-
tured that with this money they might be purchased

URBINA'S COUNTRY

at one of the other houses. "Quien sabef** replied she
dreamily. At this moment arrived the husband and
upbraided her for her lack of hospitality. "My house
is at your orders," he said magnificently, and begged
a cigarette. Then he squatted down while she brought
forward the two family chairs and bade us seat our-
selves. The room was of good proportions, with a dirt
floor and a ceiling of heavy beams, the adobe showing
through. Walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and,
to the naked eye, spotlessly clean. In one comer was
a big iron bed, and in the other a Singer sewing ma-
chine, as in every other house I saw in Mexico. There
was also a spindle-legged table, upon which stood a
picture-postcard of Our Lady of Guadelupe, with a
candle burning before it. Above this, on the wall,
hung an indecent illustration clipped from the pages
of Le RirCy in a silver-gilt frame — evidently an object
of the highest veneration.

Arrived now various uncles, cousins, and compadres,
wondering casually if we dragged any cigarros. At
her husband's command, the woman brought a live
coal in her fingers. We smoked. It grew late. There
developed a lively argument as to who would go and
buy provisions for our dinner. Finally they compro-
mised on the woman; and soon Antonio and I sat in
the kitchen, while she crouched upon the altar-like
adobe platform in the corner, cooking over the open
fire. The smoke enveloped up, pouring out the door.
Occasionally a pig or a few hens would wander in
from the outside, or a sheep would make a dash for
the tortSla meal, until the angry voice of the master

INSURGENT MEXICO

of the house reminded the woman that she was not
doing five or six things at once. And she would rise
wearily and belabor the animal with a flaming brand.

All through our supper — ^jerked meat fiery with chUe,
fried eggs, tortUlaSy frijoles, and bitter black coffee,
— the entire male population of the rancho bore us
company, in the room and out. It seemed that some
were especially prejudiced against the Church.
"Priests without shame," cried one, "who come when
we are so poor and take away a tenth of what we
have !"

"And us paying a quarter to the Government for
this cursed warP' . . .

"Shut your mouth !" shrilled the woman. "It is for
God ! God must eat, the same as we. • • •"

Her husband smiled a superior smile. He had once
been to Jimenez and was considered a man of the world*

"God does not eat," he remarked with finality.
"The curas grow fat on us."

"Why do you give it?" I asked.

"It is the law," said several at once.

And not one would believe that that law was re-
pealed in Mexico in the year 1857!

I asked them about Greneral Urbina. "A good man,
all heart." And another: "He is very brave. The
bullets bound off him like rain from a sombrero. . • ."
"He is the cousin of my woman's first husband's sister."
"He is bueno para los negocios del campo** (that is
to say, he is a highly successful bandit and highway-
man). And finally one said proudly: "A few years

URBINA'S COUNTRY

ago he was just a peon like us ; and now he is a Gen-
eral and a rich man."

But I shall not soon forget the hunger-pinched body
and bare feet of an old man with the face of a saint,
who said slowly: "The Revolucion is good. When it
is done we shall starve never, never, never, if God is
served. But it is long, and we have no food to eat, or
clothes to wear. For the master has gone away from
the hacienda, and we have no tools or animals to do
our work with, and the soldiers take all our corn and
drive away the cattle. • • ."

"Why don't the pacificos fight?'»

He shrugged his shoulders. "Now they do not need
us. They have no rifles for us, or horses. They are
winning. And who shall feed them if we do not plant
corn? No, senor. But if the Revolucion loses, then
there will be no more pacificoi. Then we will rise, with
our knives and our horsewhips. • • • The Revolucion
will not lose. ..."

As Antonio and I rolled up in our blankets on the
floor of the granary, they were singing. One of the
young bucks had procured a guitar somewhere, and
two voices, clinging to each other in that peculiar
strident Mexican "barber-shop" harmony, were whin-
ing loudly something about a **tri8ta historia d^amor.''

The rancho was one of many belonging to the Haci-
enda of El Canotillo, and all next day we drove through
its wide lands, which covered more than two million

INSURGENT MEXICO

acres, I was told. The haceridado, a wealthy Spaniard,
had fled the country two years before.

"Who is owner now?'*

"General Urbina," said Antonio. And it was so, as
I soon saw. The great haciendas of Northern Du-
rango, an area greater than the State of New Jersey,
had been confiscated for the Constitutionalist govern-
ment by the General, who ruled them with his own
agents, and, it was said, divided fifty-fifty with the
Revolution.

We drove steadily all day, only stopping long enough
to eat a few tortUlaa. And along about sundown we
saw the brown mud wall that henmied El Canotillo
round, with its city of little houses, and the ancient
pink tower of its church among the alamo trees, —
miles away at the foot of the mountains. The village
of Las Nieves, a straggling collection of adobes the
exact color of the earth of which they are built, lay
before us, like some strange growth of the desert. A
flashing river, without a trace of green along its banks
to contrast it with the scorched plain, made a semi-
circle around the town. And as we splashed across
the ford, between the women kneeling there at their
washing, the sun suddenly went behind the western
mountains. Immediately a deluge of yellow light, thick
as water, drowned the earth, and a golden mist rose
from the groui^d, in which the cattle floated legless.

I knew that the price for such a journey as Antonio
had carried me was at least ten pesos, and he was an
Arab to boot. But when I offered him money, he threw
his arms around me and burst into tears. • • • God

THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME

bless you, excellent Arab ! You are right ; business is
better in Mexico.

CHAPTER n

THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME

AT Greneral Urbina's door sat an old peon with
four cartridge-belts around him, engaged in
the genial occupation of filling corrugated iron
bombs with gunpowder. He jerked his thumb toward
the patio. The Greneral's house, corrals and store-
rooms ran around all four sides of a space as big as
a city block, swarming with pigs, chickens and half-
naked children. Two goats and three magnificent pea-
cocks gazed pensively down from the roof. In and
out of the sitting-room, whence came the phonographic
strains of the ^^Dollar Princess," stalked a train of
hens. An old woman came from the kitchen and dumped
a bucket of garbage on the ground ; all the pigs made
a squealing rush for it. In a corner of the house-
wall sat the GreneraPs baby daughter, chewing on a
cartridge. A group of men stood or sprawled on the
ground around a well in the center of the patio. The
General himself sat in their midst, in a broken wicker
arm-chair, feeding tortillas to a tame deer and a lame
black sheep. Before him kneeled a peon, pouring from
a canvas sack some hundreds of Mauser cartridges.
To my explanations the Greneral returned no an-
swer. He gave me a limp hand, inmiediately with-

INSURGENT MEXICO

drawing it, but did not rise. A broad, medium-sized
man of dark mahogany complexion, with a sparse
black beard up to his cheek-bones, that didn't hide
the wide, thin, expressionless mouth, the gaping nos-
trils, the shiny, small, humorous, animal eyes. For
a good five minutes he never took them from mine. I
produced my papers.

"I don't know how to read," said the General sud-
denly, motioning to his secretary. "So you want to
go with me to battle?" he shot at me in the coarsest
Spanish. **Many bullets!" I said nothing. **Muy
hien! But I don't know when I shall go. Maybe in
five days. Now eat!"

"Thanks, my general, I've already eaten."
**Go and eat," he repeated calmly. **AndaleV*
A dirty little man they all called Doctor escorted me
to the dining-room. He had once been an apothecary in
Parral, but was now a Major. We were to sleep to-
gether that night, he said. But before we reached
the dining-room there was a shout of "Doctor!" A
wounded man had arrived, a peasant with his sombrero
in his hand, and a blood-clotted handkerchief around
his head. The little doctor became all eflSciency. He
dispatched a boy for the family scissors, another for
a bucket of water from the well. He sharpened with
his knife a stick he picked up from the ground. Seat-
ing the man on a box, he took off the bandage, reveal-
ing a cut about two inches long, caked with dirt and
dried blood. First he cut off the hair around the
wound, jabbing the points of the scissors carelessly
into it. The man drew in his breath sharply, but did

THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME

not move. Then the doctor slowly cut the clotted blood
away from the top, whistling cheerfuUy to himself.
"Yes," he remarked, "it is an interesting life, the doc-
tor's." He peered closely at the vomiting blood; the
peasant sat like a sick stone. ^^And it is a life full of
nobility," continued the doctor. ** Alleviating the suf-
ferings of others." Here he picked up the sharpened
stick, thrust it deep in, and slotdtf worked it the entire
length of the cut!

"Pah! The animal has fainted!" said the doctor.
"Here, hold him up while I wash it!" With that he
lifted the bucket and poured its contents over the head
of the patient, the water and blood dribbling down
over his clothes. "These ignorant peons," said the
doctor, binding up the wound in its original bandage,
"have no courage. It is the intelligence that makes
the soul, eh?" • • •

When the peasant came to, I asked: "Are you a
soldier?" The man smiled a sweet, deprecating smile.

"No, sefilor, I am only a pacifico," he said. *^I live in
the Canotillo, where my house is at your orders. . . ."

Some time later — a good deal — ^we all sat down to
supper. There was Lieutenant-Colonel Pablo Seanes,
a frank, engaging youth of twenty-six, with five bullets
in him to pay for the three years' fighting. His con-
versation was sprinkled with soldierly curses, and his
pronunciation was a little indistinct, the result of a
bullet on the jaw-bone and a tongue almost cut in
two by a sword. He was a demon in the field, they
said, and a killer {muy matador) after it. At the first
taking of Torreon, Pablo and two other officers, Major

INSURGENT, MEXICO

Fierro anii Captain Borunda, Iia9 executed alone
eighty unarmed prisoners, each man shooting them
down with his revolver until his hand got tired pulling
the trigger.

"Ofgra/" Pablo said. "Where is the best institute
for the study of hypnotism in the United States? . . .
As soon as this cursed war is over I am going to study
to become a hypnotist. . . ." With that he turned
and began to make passes at Lieutenant Borrega, who
was called derisively "The Lion of the Sierras," be-
cause of his prodigious boasting. The latter jerked
out his revolver : "I want no business with the devil !"
he screamed, amid the uproarious laughter of the
others.

Then there was Captain Fernando, a grizzled giant
of a man in tight trousers, who had fought twenty-
one battles. He took the keenest delight in my frag-
mentary Spanish, and every word I spoke sent him into
bellows of laughter that shook down the adobe from
the ceiling. He had never been out of Durango, and
declared that there was a great sea between the United
States and Mexico, and that he believed all the rest
of the earth to be water. Next to him sat Longinos
Giiereca, with a row of decayed teeth across his round,
gentle face every time he smiled, and a record for sim-
ple bravery that was famous throughout the army.
He was twenty-one, and already First Captain. He
told me that last night his own men had tried to kill
him. . . . Then came Patricio, the best rider of wild
horses in the State, and Fidencio next to him, a pure-
blooded Indian seven feet tall, who always fought standi

THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME

ing up. And last Raphael Zalarzo, a tiny hunchback
that Urbina carried in his train to amuse him, like
any medieval Italian duke.

When we had burned our throats with the last en-
chfiada^ and scooped up our last frijole with a tor-
tilla^ — forks and spoons being unknown, — the gentle-
men each took a mouthful of water, gargled it, and
spat it on the floor. As I came out into the patio, I
saw the figure of the Greneral emerge from his bed-
room door, staggering slightly. In his hand he carried
a revolver. He stood for a moment in the light of
another door, then suddenly went in, banging it be-
hind him.

I was already in bed when the doctor came into the
room. In the other bed reposed the Lion of the Sierras
and his momentary mistress, now loudly snoring.

^*Yes,'' said the Doctor, "there has been some little
trouble. The General has not been able to walk for
two months from rheumatism. . • . And sometimes he
is in great pain, and comforts himself with aguardiente.
. • • To-night he tried to shoot his mother. He al-
ways tries to shoot his mother • • • . because he loves
her very much." The Doctor peeped at himself in
the mirror, and twisted his mustache. **This Revolu-
cion. Do not mistake. It is a fight of the poor against
the rich. I was vei^ poor before the Revolucion and
now I am very rich." He pondered a moment, and then
began removing his clothes. Through his filthy undjer-
shirt tiie Doctor honored me with his one English sen-
tence: "I have mooch lices," he said, with a proud
smile. • • •

INSURGENT MEXICO

I went out at dawn and walked around Las Nieves.
The town belongs to General Urbina, people, houses,
animals and immortal souls. At Las Nieves he and
he alone wields the high justice and the low. The
town's only store is in his house, and I bought some
cigarettes from the Lion of the Sierras, who was de-
tailed store-clerk for the day. In the patio the Gen-
eral was talking with his mistress, a beautiful, aristo-
cratic-looking woman, with a voice like a hand-saw.
When he noticed me he came up and shook hands, say-
ing that he'd like to have me take some pictures of
him. I said that that was my purpose in life, and
asked him if he thought he would leave soon for the
front. *^In about ten days, I think," he answered. I
began to get uncomfortable.

"I appreciate your hospitality, my General," I told
him, ^^but my work demands that I be where I can see
the actual advance upon Torreon. If it is convenient, I
should like to go back to Chihuahua and join General
Villa, who will soon go south." Urbina's expression
didn't change, but he shot at me: ^^What is it that
you don't like here? You are in your own house! Do
you want cigarettes? Do you want aguardiente, or
sotol, or cognac? Do you want a woman to warm
your bed at night? Everything you want I can give
you! Do you want a pistol? Ahorse? Do you want
money?" He jerked a handful of silver dollars from
his pocket and threw them jingling on the ground at
my feet.

I said : ^^Nowhere in Mexico am I so happy and con-

THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR

tented as in this house." And I was prepared to go
further.

For the next hour I took photographs of General
Urbina: General Urbina on foot, with and without
sword ; General Urbina on three different horses ; (Jen-
eral Urbina with and without his family ; Greneral Ur-
bina's three children, on horseback and off; General

Urbina's mother, and his mistress; the entire family,
armed with swords and revolvers, including the phono-
graph, produced for the pvurpose, one of the children
holding a placard upon which was inked: ^^Greneral
Tomas Urbina R."

CHAPTER in

THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR

WE had finished breakfast and I was resigning
myself to the ten days in Las Nieves, when
the General suddenly changed his mind. He
came out of his room, roaring orders. In five min-
utes the house was all bustle and confusion, — officers
rushing to pack their scrapes, mozos and troopers sad-
dling horses, peons with armfuls of rifles rushing to
and fro. Patricio harnessed five mules to the great
coach, — an exact copy of the Deadwood Stage. A
courier rode out on the run to summon the Tropa,
which was quartered at the CanotUlo. Rafaelito loaded
the Greneral's baggage into the coach; it consisted of
a typewriter, four swords, one of them bearing the

INSURGENT MEXICO

emblem of the Knights of Pythias, three uniforms, the
General's branding-iron, and a twelve-gallon demijohn
of sotol.

And there came the Tropa, a ragged smoke of brown
dust miles along the road. Ahead flew a little, squat,
black figure, with the Mexican flag streaming over
him ; he wore a floppy sombrero loaded with five pounds
of tarnished gold braid, — once probably the pride of
some imperial hacendado. Following him closely were
Manuel Paredes, with riding boots up to his hips, fas-
tened with silver buckles the size of dollars, beating
his mount with the flat of a saber; Isidro Amayo,
making his horse buck by flapping a hat in his eyes;
Job6 Yaliente, ringing his immense silver spurs inlaid
with turquoises; Jesus Mancilla, his flashing brass
chain around his neck ; Julian Reyes, with colored pic-
tures of Christ and the Virgin fastened to the front
of his sombrero ; a struggling tangle of six behind, with
Antonio Guzman trying to lasso them, the coils of
his horsehair rope soaring out of the dust. They came
on the dead nm, all Indian shouts and cracking re-
volvers, until they were only a hundred feet away, then
jerked their little cow-ponies cruelly to a staggering
halt with bleeding mouths, a whirling confusion of
men, horses and dust.

This was the Tropa when I first saw them. About
a hundred, they were, in all stages of picturesque rag^
gedness; some wore overalls, others the charro jackets
of peons, while one or two sported tight vaquero trou-
sers. A few had shoes, most of them only cowhide
sandals, and the rest were barefooted. Sabas Gutier-

THE GENERAL GOES TO WAK

rez was garbed in an ancient frockcoat, split up the
back for riding. Rifles slung at their saddles, four or
five cartridge-belts crossed over their chests, high, flap-
ping sombreros, immense spurs chiming as they rode,
bright-colored serapes strapped on behind — ^this was
their uniform.

The Greneral was with his mother. Outside the door
crouched his mistress, weeping, her three children
around her. For almost an hour we waited, then Ur-
bina suddenly burst out of the door. With scarcely
a look at his family, he leaped on his great, gray
charger, and spurred furiously into the street. Juan
Sanchez blew a blast on his cracked bugle, and the
Tropa, with the Gkneral at its head, took the Canotillo
road.

In the meanwhile Patricio and I loaded three cases
of dynamite and a case of bombs into the boot of the
coach. I got up beside Patricio, the peons let go of
the mules' heads, and the long whip curled around their
bellies. Galloping, we whirled out of the village, and
took the steep bank of the river at twenty miles an
hour. Away on the other side, the Tropa trotted along
a more direct road. The Canotillo we passed without
stopping.

^*ArrS mulasl PutasI HiJM de la Ho — — /" yelled
Patricio, the whip hissing. The Camino Real was a
mere track on uneven ground; every time we took a
little arroyo the dynamite came down with a sicken-
ing crash. Suddenly a rope broke, and one case
bounced off the coach and fell upon rocks. It was a

INSURGENT MEXICO

cool morning, however, and we strapped it on again
safely. . . .

Almost every hundred yards along the road were lit-
tle heaps of stones, surmounted by wooden crosses, —
each one the memorial of a murder. And occasionally a
tall, whitewashed cross uprose in the middle of a side-
road, to protect some little desert rancho from the
visits of the devil. Black shiny chaparral, the height
of a mule's back, scraped the side of the coach ; Span-
ish bayonet and the great barrel-cactus watched us
like sentinels from the skyline of the desert. And al-
ways the mighty Mexican vultures circled over us, as
if they knew we were going to war.

Late in the afternoon the stone wall which bounds
the million acres of the Hacienda of Torreon de Canas
swung into sight on our left, marching across deserts
and mountains like the Great Wall of China, for more
than thirty miles; and, soon afterward, the hacienda
itself. The Tropa had dismounted around the Big
House. They said that General Urbina had suddenly
been taken violently sick, and would probably be un-
able to leave his bed for a week.

The Casa Grande, a magnificent porticoed palace but
one story high, covered the entire top of a desert rise.
From its doorway one could see fifteen miles of yellow,
rolling plain, and, beyond, the interminable ranges of
bare mountains piled upon each other. Back of it lay
the great corrals and stables, where the Tropa's even-
ing fires already sent up myriad columns of yellow
smoke. Below, in the hollow, more than a hundred
peons' houses made a vast open square, where chil-

THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR

dren and animals romped together, and the women
kneeled at their eternal grinding of corn. Out on the
desert a troop of vctqtieros rode slowly home; and
from the river, a mile away, the endless chain of black-
shawled women carried water on their heads. • • • It
is impossible to imagine how close to nature the peons
live on these great haciendas. Their very houses are
built of the earth upon which they stand, baked by the
sun. Their food is the corn they grow; their drink
the water frcmi the dwindled river, carried painfully
upon their heads ; the clothes they wear are spun from
the wool, and their sandals cut from the hide of a newly
slaughtered steer. The animals are their constant
companions, familiars of their houses. Light and
darkness are their day and night. When a man and a
woman fall in love they fly to each other without the
formalities of a courtship, — ^and when they are tired
of each other they simply part. Marriage is very
costly (six pesos to the priest), and is considered a
very swagger extra ; but it is no more binding than the
most casual attachment. And of course jealousy is a
stabbing matter.

We dined in one of the lofty, barren solas of the
Casa Grande ; a room with a ceiling eighteen feet high,
and walls of noble proportions, covered with cheap
American wallpaper. A gigantic mahogany sideboard
occupied one side of the place, but we had no knives
and forks. There was a tiny fireplace, in which a fire
was never lighted, yet the chill of death abode there
day and night. The room next door was hung with
heavy, spotted brocade, though there was no rug on the

INSURGENT MEXICO

eoncrete floor. No pipes and no plumbing in all the
house, — ^you went to the well or the river for water.
And candles the only light! Of course the duefk) had
long fled the country; but the hacienda in its prime
must have been as splendid and as uncomfortable as
a medieval castle.

The cura or priest of the hacienda church presided
at dinner. To him were brought the choicest viands,
which he sometimes passed to his favorites after help-
ing himself. We drank sotol and agtuimiel, while ihe
cura made away with a whole bottle of looted anisette.
Exhilarated by this. His Reverence descanted upon
the virtues of the confessional, especially where young
girls were concerned. He also made us understand
that he possessed certain feudal rights over new brides.
"The girls, here," he said, "are very passionate. . . ."

I noticed that the rest didn't laugh much at this,
though they were outwardly respectful. After we
were out of the room, Jos£ Valiente hissed, shaking so

tiiat he could hardly speak: "I know the dirty !

And my sister • . . ! The Revolucion will have some-
thing to say about these euros!" Two high Constitu-
tionalist officers afterward hinted at a little-known pro-
gram to drive the priests out of Mexico; and Villa's
hostility to the euros is well known.

Patricio was harnessing tiie coach when I came out
in the morning, and the Tropa were saddling up. The
doctor, who was remaining with the General, strolled
up to my friend. Trooper Juan Vallejo.

**That's a pretty horse you've got there," he said,
^^and a nice rifle. Lend them to me."

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

**But I haven't any other ^" began Juan.

"I am your superior officer,*' returned the doctor.
And that was the last we ever saw of doctor, horse
and rifle.

I said farewell to the Greneral, who was lying in tor-
ture in bed, sending bulletins to his mother by tele-
phone every fifteen minutes. *TVIay you journey hap-
pily," he said. "Write the truth. I commend you to
PabKto."

CHAPTER IV

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

AND so I got inside the coach, with Rafaelito,
Pablo Seafles, and his mistress. She was a
strange creature. Young, slender, and beauti-
ful, she was poison and a stone to everybody but
Pablo. I never saw her smile and never heard her
8^7 A gentle word. Sometimes she treated us with
dull ferocity ; sometimes with bestial indifference. But
Pablo she cradled like a baby. When he lay across
the seat with his head in her lap, she would hug
it fiercely to her breast, making noises like a tigress
with her young.

Patricio handed down his guitar from the box, where
he kept it, and to Rafael's accompaniment the Lieuten-
ant-Colonel sang love-ballads in a cracked voice. Every
Mexican knows hundreds of these. They are not writ-
ten down, but often composed extemporaneously, and
handed along by word of mouth. Some of them are

INSURGENT MEXICO

yery beautiful^ some grotesque, and others as satirical
as any French popular song* He sang:

"Exiled I wandered through the world —

Exiled by the government.

I came back at the end of the year.

Drawn by the fondness of love.

I went away with the purpose

Of staying away forever.

And the love of a woman was the only thing

That made me come ba^Jc.**

And then *^Los Hijos de la Noche**:

"/ am of the children of the night
Who wander aimlessly in the darkness.
The beautiful moon with its golden rays
Is the companion of my sorrows.

"/ am going to lose myself from thee.
Exhausted with weeping;
I am going sailing, saiUng,
By the shores of the sea.

*^You wHl see at the time of our parting
I wiU not allow you to love another.
For if so it should be, I would ruin your face.
And many blows we would give one another.

**So I am going to become an American.
Go with God, Antonia.

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

Say farewell to my friends.

O may the Americans allow me to pass

And open a saloon

On the other side of the River F*

The Hacienda of El Centro turned out to give us
lunch. And there Fidencio o£Fered me his horse to
ride for the afternoon.

The Tropa had already ridden on ahead, and I could
see them, strung out for half a mile in the black mes-
quite brush, the tiny red-white-and-green flag bobbing
at their head. The mountains had withdrawn some-
where beyond the horizon, and we rode in the midst
of a great bowl of desert, rolling up at the edges to
meet the furnace-blue of the Mexican sky. Now that
I was out of the coach, a great silence, and a peace be-
yond anything I ever felt, wrapped me around. It is
almost impossible to get objective about the desert;
you sink into it, — ^become a part of it. Galloping
along, I soon caught up with the Tropa.

"Aye, meester!" they shouted. **Here comes mees-
ter on a horse! Que taly meester? How goes it? Are
you going to fight with us?''

But Captain Fernando at the head of the column
turned and roared: "Come here, meester!'' The big
man was grinning with delight. "You shall ride with
me," he shouted, clapping me on the back. ^^Drink,
now," and he produced a bottle of sotol about half
full. *^Drink it alL Show you're a man." **It'8 too
much," I laughed. "Drink it," yelled the chorus as
the Tropa crowded up to see. I drank it. A howl of

INSURGENT MEXICO

laughter and applause went up. Fernando leaned
over and gripped my hand. **Grood for you, com-
pafleroV* he bellowed, rolling with mirth. The men
crowded around, amused and interested. Was I going
to fight with them? Where did I come from? What
was I doing? Most of them had never heard of re-
porters, and one hazarded the opinion darkly that I
was a Gringo and a Porfirista, and ought to be shot.

The rest, however, were entirely opposed to this view.
No Porfirista would possibly drink that much goiol at
a gulp. Isidro Amayo declared that he had been in
a brigade in the first Revolution which was accom-
panied by a reporter, and that he was called Corre-
sponsal de Guerra, Did I like Mexico? I said: ^'I
am very fond of Mexico. I like Mexicans too. And I
like sotol^ aguardiente^ mescal, tequila, pulque, and
other Mexican customs !" They shouted with laughter.

Captain Fernando leaned over and patted my arm.
**Now you are with the men {los hombres.) When we
win the Revolucion it will be a government by the men,
—not by the rich. We are riding over the lands of
the men. They used to belong to the rich, but now
they belong to me and to the compafleroM**

"And you will be the army?" I asked.

^^When the Revolucion is won," was the astonishing
reply, "there will be no more army. The men are sick
of armies* It is by armies that Don Porfirio robbed

us."

"But if the United States should invade Mexico?"
A perfect storm broke everywhere. **We are more
vaUente than the Americanos — ^The cursed Gringos

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

would get no further south than Juarez — ^Let's see
them try it — ^We'd drive them back over the Border on
the run, and burn their capital the next day • • •!"

"No," said Fernando, **you have more money and
more soldiers. But the men would protect us. We
need no army. The men would be fighting for their
houses and their women."

"What are you fighting for?" I asked. Juan San-
chez, the color-bearer, looked at me curiously. "Why,
it is good, fighting. You don't have to work in the
mines - - - '''

• • •

Manuel Paredes said: **We are fighting to restore
Francisco I. Madero to the Presidency." This ex-
traordinary statement is printed in the program of
the Revolution. And everywhere the Constitutionalist
soldiers are known as "Maderistas." "I knew him,"
continued Manuel, slowly. "He was always laughing,
fidways."

"Yes," said another, "whenever there was any
trouble with a man, and all the rest wanted to fight
him or put him in prison, Pancho Madero said : ^ Just
let me talk to him a few minutes. I can bring
him around.' "

"He loved baUei,** an Indian said. "Many a time
I've seen him dance all night, and all the next day, and
the next night. He used to come to the great Hacien-
das and make speeches. When he began the peons
hated him; when he ended they were crying. . . ."

Here a man broke out into a droning, irregular tune,
such as always accompanies the popular ballads that
spring up in thousands on every occasion:

INSURGENT MEXICO

**In Nineteen hundred and ten
Madero was imprisoned
In the National Palace
The eighteenth of February

**Four days he was imprisoned
In the Hall of the Intendancy
Because he did not wish
To renounce the Presidency

**Then EUmquet and Felix Diaz
Martyred him there
They were the hangmen
Feeding on his hate,

**They crushed. . • •
VntU he fainted
With play of cruelty
To make him resign.

**Then with hot irons
They burned him without mercy
And only unconsciousness
Calmed the awful flames.

**But it was aU in vain
Because his mighty courage
Preferred rather to die
His was a great heartl

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

"Tfcw was the end of the life
Of him who was the redeemer
Of the Indian Republic
And of aU the poor.

**They took him out of the Vcilace
And teU us he was kiUed in an assault
What a cymdsml
What a shameless lie!

"0 Street of Lecumberri
Your cheerfulness has ended forever
For through you passed Madero
To the Penitentiary.

**That twenty-second of February

Wm always be remembered in the Indian Republic.

God has pardoned him

And the Virgin of GuadeVupe.

*^Good'bye Beautiful Mexico
Where our leader died
Good-bye to the palace
Whence he issued a living corpse

^^Sefiores, there is nothing eternal

Nor anything sincere in life

See what happened to Don Francisco I. Madero!**

INSURGENT MEXICO

By the time he was half-way through, the entire
Tropa was humming the tune, and when he finished
there was a moment of jingling silence.

**We are fighting," said Isidro Amayo, "for Liber-
tad."

"What do you mean by Libertad?"
"Libertad is when I can do what I wantT*
"But suppose it hurts somebody else?"
He shot back at me Benito Juarez' great sentence:
"Peace is the respect for the rights of others !"
I wasn't prepared for that. It startled me, this
barefooted mezt%zo*s conception of Liberty. I submit
that it is the only correct definition of Liberty — to do
what I want to! Americans quote it to me triiunph-
aiitly as an instance of Mexican irresponsibility. But
I think it is a better definition than ours — ^Liberty is
the right to do what the Courts want. Every Mexican
schoolboy knows the definition of peace and seems to
understand pretty well what it means, too. But, they
say, Mexicans don't want peace. That is a lie, and a
foolish one. Let Americans take the trouble to go
through the Maderista army, asking whether they want
peace or not! The people are sick of war.

But, just to be square, FU have to report Juan San-
chez' remark:

i "Is there war in the United States now?" be asked.
y "No," I said untruthfully.

"No war at all?" He meditated for a moment.
**How do you pass the time, then . . . ?"

Just about then somebody saw a coyote sneaking
through the brush, and the cfntire Tropa gave chase

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

with a whoop. They scattered rollicking over the
desert, the late sun flashing from cartridge-belts and
spurs, the ends of their bright serapes flying out be-
hind. Beyond them, the scorched world sloped gently
up, and a range of far lilac mountains jiunped in the
heat waves like a bucking horse. By here, if tradi-
tion is right, passed the steel-armored Spaniards in
their search for gold, a blaze of crimson and silver
that has left the desert cold and dull ever since. And,
topping a rise, we came upon the first sight of the
Hacienda of La Mimbrera, a walled enclosure of houses
strong enough to stand a siege, stretching steeply down
a hill, with the magnificent Casa Grande at the top.

In front of this house, which had been sacked and
burned by Orozco's General, Che Che Campa, two years
before, the coach was drawn up. A huge fire had been
kindled, and ten compafleros were slaughtering sheep.
Into the red glare of the firelight they staggered, with
the struggling, squealing sheep in their arms, its blood
f ountaining upon the ground, shining in the fierce light
like something phosphorescent.

The officers and I dined in the house of the admims-
trader Don Jesus, the most beautiful specimen of man-
hood I have ever seen. He was much over six feet tall,
slender, white-skinned — a pure Spanish type of the
highest breed. At one end of his dining-room, I re-
member, hung a placard embroidered in red, white and
green: **Viva Mexico!" and at the other, a second,
which read: *Tiva Jesus!"

It was after dinner, as I stood at the fire, wonder-

INSURGENT MEXICO

ing where I was to sleep, that Captain Fernando
touched me on the arm.

**Will you sleep with the companeroaf^
We walked across the great open square, in the
furious light of the desert stars, to a stone store-house
set apart. Inside, a few candles stuck against the wall
illumined the rifles stacked in the comers, the sad-
dles on the floor, and the blanket-rolled companeros
with their heads on them. One or two were awake,
talking and smoking. In a comer, three sat muffled
in their scrapes, playing cards. Five or six had voices
and a guitar. They were singing "Pascual Orozco,"
beginning:

**They say that Pasctud Orozco has turned his coat
Because Don Terrazzas seduced him;
They gave him many millions and they bought him
And sent him to overthrow the government.

**Orozco believed it
And to the war he went;
But the Maderista cannon
Was his calamity.

**If to thy window shall come Porfirio Diaz^
Give him for charity some cold tortillas;
If to thy window shall come General Huertay
Spit in his face and slam the door.

**If to thy window shall come Inez Salazar^
Lock your trunk so that he can^t steal;
If to thy window shall come Maclovio Herrera,
Give him dvrmer and put the cloth on the table,**

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

They didn't distinguish me at first, but soon one of
the card-players said : "Here comes Meester !" At that
the others roused, and woke the rest. "That's right —
it's good to sleep with the hombres — ^take this place,
amigo — here's my saddle — ^here there is no crookedness
— ^here a man goes straight. . . ."

**May you pass a happy night, compa^rOf** they
said. "Till morning, then."

Pretty soon somebody shut the door. The room be-
came full of smoke and fetid with human breath. What
little silence was left from the chorus of snoring was
entirely obliterated by the singing, which kept up, I
guess, until dawn. The companeroi had fleas. . • .

But I rolled up in my blankets and lay down upon
the concrete floor very happily. And I slept better
than I had before in Mexico.

At dawn we were in the saddle, larking up a steep
roll of barren desert to get warm. It was bitter cold.
The Tropa were wrapped in scrapes up to their eyes,
so that they looked like colored toadstools under their
great sombreros. The level rays of the sun, burning
as they fell upon my face, caught them unaware, glori-
fying the scrapes to more brilliant colors than they
possessed. Isidro Amayo's was of deep blue and yel-
low spirals; Juan Sanchez had one brick red. Captain
Fernando's was green and cerise; against them flashed
a purple and black zigzag pattern. • • •

We looked back to see the coach pulled to a stop,
and Patricio waving to us. Two of the mules had
given out, raw from the traces, and tottering with the

INSURGENT MEXICO

fatigue of the last two days. The Tropa scattered to
look for mules. Soon they came back, driving two
great beautiful animals that had never seen harness.
No sooner had they smelled the coach than they made
a desperate break for freedom. And now the Tropa
instantly went back to their native profession — they
became vaqueros. It was a pretty sight, the rope-
coils swinging in the air, the sudden snake-like shoot
of the loops, the little horses bracing themselves against
the shock of the running mule. Those mules were de-
mons. Time after time they broke the riatas; twice
they overturned horse and rider. Pablo came to the
rescue. He got on Sabas's horse, drove in the spurs,
and went after one mule. In three minutes he had
roped him by the leg, thrown him, and tied him. Then
he took the second with equal dispatch. It was not
for nqthing that Pablo was Lieutenant-Colonel at
twenty-six. Not only could he iSght better than his
men, but he could ride better, rope better, shoot better,
chop wood better, and dance better.

The mules' legs were tied, and they were dragged
with ropes; to the coach, where the harness was slipped
on them in spite of their frantic struggles. When all
was ready, Patricio got on the box, seized the whip,
and told us to cut away. The wild animals scrambled
to their feet, bucking and squealing. Above the uproar
came the crack of the heavy whip, and Patricio's bel-
low: ''Anddlet hijos de la Gran* Ch /" and they

jerked forward, running, the big coach taking the ar-
royos like an express train. Soon it vanished behind

LA TROPA ON THE MARCH

its own pall of dust, and appeared hours afterward,
crawling up the side of a great hill, miles away. . . •

Panchito was eleven years old, already a trooper
with a rifle too heavy for him, and a horse that they
had to lift him on. His compadre was Victoriano, a
veteran of fourteen. Seven others of the Tropa were
under seventeen. And there was a sullen, Indian-faced
woman, riding side-saddle, who wore two cartridge-
belts. She rode with the hombres — slept with them in
the cuartels.

"Why are you fighting?" I asked her.

She jerked her head toward the fierce figure of Ju-
lian Reyes.

"Because he is," she answered. "He who stands
under a good tree is sheltered by a good shade."

**A good rooster will crow in any chicken-coop,"
capped Isidro.

*^A parrot is green all over," chimed in someone
else.

**Faces we see, but hearts we do not comprehend,"
said Jos£, sentimentally.

At noon we roped a steer, and cut his throat. And
because there was no time to build a fire, we ripped
the meat from the carcase and ate it raw.

^^OigOy meester," shouted Jose. "Do the United
States soldiers eat raw meat?"

I said I didn't think they did.

"It is good for the hombres. In the campaign we
have no time for anything but carne crudo. It makes
us brave."

INSURGENT MEXICO

By late afternoon we had caught up with the coach,
and galloped with it down through the dry arroyo
and up through the other side, past the great ribota
court that flanks the Hacienda of La Zarca. Unlike
La Mimbrera, the Casa Grande here stands on a level
place, with the peons' houses In long rows at its flanks,
and a fla.t desert barren of chaparral for twenty miles
in front. Che Che Campa also paid a visit to La Zarca.
The big house is a black and gaping ruin.

CHAPTER V

WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA

OF course, I took up quarters at the cuartel.
And right here I W£^nt to mention one fact.
Americans had insisted that the Mexican was
fundamentally dishonest — that I might expect to have
my outfit stolen the first day out. Now for two weeks
I lived with as rough a band of ex-outlaws as there
was in the army. They were without discipline and
without education. They were, many of them. Gringo-
haters. They had not been paid a cent for six weeks,
and some were so desperately poor that they couldn't
boast sandals or scrapes. I was a stranger with a good
outfit, unarmed. I had a hundred and fifty pesos,
which I put conspicuously at the head of my bed when
I slept. And I never lost a thing. But more than
that, I was not permitted to pay for my food; and
in a company where money was scarce and tobacco al-

WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA

most unknown, I was kept supplied with all I could
smoke by the compafleros. Every suggestion from me
that I should pay for it was an insult.

The only thing possible was to hire music for a baUe.
Long after Juan Sanchez and I rolled up in our
blankets that night, we could hear the rhythm of the
music, and the shouts of the dancers. It must have
been midnight when somebody threw open the door
and yelled : "Meester ! Oiga^ meester ! Are you asleep ?
Come to the baile! Arriba! AnddUr*

"Too sleepy !" I said. After some further argument
the messenger departed, but in ten minutes back he
came. *TE1 Capitan Fernando orders you to come at
once! VamonosF* Now the others woke up. "Come to
the baile, meester!" they shouted. Juan Sanchez sat
up and began pulling on his shoes. "Now we're off!"
said he. "The meester is going to dance! Captain's
orders ! Come on, meester !"

"m go if all the Tropa does," I said. They raised
a yell at that, and the night was full of chuckling men
pulling on their clothes.

Twenty of us reached the house in a body. The
mob of peons blocking door and window opened to let
us pass. "The meester!" they cried. "The meester's
going to dance!"

Capitan Fernando threw his arms about me, roar-
ing: "Here he comes, the companerol Dance now! Go
to it! They're going to dance the jotaF*

*TBut I don't know how to dance the jota!**

Patricio, flushed and panting, seized me by the arm.

INSURGENT MEXICO

**Come on, it's easy! Pll introduce you to the best
girl in the Zarca!"

There was nothing to do. The window was jammed
with faces, and a hundred tried to crowd in at the
door. It was an ordinary room in a peon^s house,
whitewashed, with a hiunpy dirt floor. In the light of
two candles sat the musicians. The music struck up
*^Pv£ntes d Chihtuihtui.^* A grinning silence fell. I
gathered the young lady under my arm, and started
the preliminary march around the room customary be-
fore the dance begins. We waltzed painfully for a
moment or two, and suddenly they all began to yell:
''Ora! Oral Now!"

"What do you do now?"

**Vueltal Vuelta! Loose her!" a perfect yell.

"But I don't know how !"

"The fool doesn't know how to dance," cried one.

Another began the mocking song:

**The Gringos all are fools^

They^ve never been m Sonora^

And when they want to say: ^Diez Reales/

They call it ^Dollar an* a qtiarta* . •

But Patricio bounded into the middle of the floor,
and Sabas after him; each seized a muchacha from
the line of women sitting along one end of the room.
And as I led my partner back to her seat, they
**vuelta*d.** First a few waltz steps, — then the man
whirled away from the girl, snapping his fingers,
throwing one arm up to cover his face, while the girl

.WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA

put one hand on her hip and danced after him. They
approached each other, receded, danced around each
other. The girls were dumpy and dull, Indian-faced
and awkward, bowed at the shoulder from much grind-
ing of corn and washing of clothes. Some of the
men had on heavy boots, some none; many wore pis-
tols and cartridge-belts, and a few carried rifles slung
from their shoulders.

The dance was always preceded by a grand march-
around; then, after the couple had danced twice the
circuit of the room, they walked again. There were
two-steps, waltz and mazurka beside the jota. Each
girl kept her eyes on the ground, never spoke, and
stumbled heavily after you. Add to this a dirt floor
full of arroyos, and you have a form of torture un-
equaled anywhere in the world. It seemed to me I
danced for hours, spurred on by the chorus: ^*Dance,
meester ! No floje! Keep it up ! Don't quit !"

Later there was another jota^ and here's where I al-
most got into trouble. I danced this one successfully
— ^with another girl. And.afterward, when I asked my
original partner to two-step, she was furiously angry.

"You shamed me before them all,*' said she. **You
— ^you said you didn't know how to dance the jotaH
As we marched around the room, she appealed to her
friends: "Domingo! Juan! Come out and take me
away from this Gringo! He won't dare to do any-
thing!"

Half a dozen of them started onto the floor, and
the rest looked on. It was a ticklish moment. But all

INSURGENT MEXICO

at once the good Fernando glided in front, a revolver
in his hand.

"The Americano is my friend !'* said he, "Get back
there and mind your business! . . •"

The horses were tired, so we rested a day in La
Zarca. Behind the Casa Grande lay a ruined garden,
full of gray alamo trees, figs, vines, and great barrel-
cactuses. It was walled around by high adobe walls on
three sides, over one of which the ancient white tower
of the church floated in the blue sky. The fourth
side opened upon a reservoir of yellow water, and be-
yond it stretched the western desert, miles upon miles
of tawny desolation. Trooper Marin and I lay under
a fig tree, watching the vultures sail over us on quiet
wing. Suddenly the silence was broken by loud, swift
music.

Pablo had found a pianola in the church, where it
had escaped Che Che Campa's notice the previous year ;
with it was one roll, the "Merry Widow Waltz." Noth-
ing would do but that we carry the instrument out into
the ruined patio. We took turns playing the thing
all day long; Rafaelito volunteering the information
, that the "Merry Widow" was Mexico's most popular
piece. A Mexican, he said, had composed it.

The finding of the pianola suggested that we give
another baile that night, in the portico of the Casa
Grande itself. Candles were stuck upon the pillars, the
faint light flickering upon broken walls, burned and
blackened doorways, the riot of wild vines that had
twisted imchecked aroimd the roof-beams. The en-

WHITE NIGHTS AT ZAKCA

tire patio was crowded with blanketed men, making
holiday, even yet a little uncomfortable in the great
house which they had never been allowed to enter. As
soon as the orchestra had finished a dance, the pianola
immediately took up the task. Dance followed dance,
without any rest. A barrel of sotol further complicated
things. As the evening wore on the assembly got more
and more exhilarated. Sabas, who was Pablo's orderly,
led off with Pablo's mistress. I followed. Immediately
afterward Pablo hit her on the head with the butt end
of his revolver, and said he'd shoot her if she danced
with anyone else, and her partner too. After sitting
some moments meditating, Sabas rose, pulled his re-
volver, and informed the harpist that he had played
a wrong note. Then he shot at him. Other coni"
pafieros disarmed Sabas, who immediately went to sleep
in the middle of the dance-floor.

The interest in Meester's dancing soon shifted to
other phenomena. I sat down beside Julian Reyes, he
with the Christ and Virgin on the front of his som-
brero. He was far gone in sotol — ^his eyes burned like
a fanatic's.

He turned on me suddenly:

"Are you going to flght with us?"

"No," I said. "I am a correspondent. I am for-
bidden to fight."

"It is a lie," he cried. "You don't fight because
you are afraid to fight. In the face of God, our Cause
is Just."

"Yes, I know that. But my orders are not to fight."

"What do I care for orders?" he shrieked. "We

INSURGENT MEXICO

want no correspondents. We want no words printed in
a book. We want rifles and killing, and if we die we
shall be caught up among the saints ! Coward ! Huer-
tista! • • ."

"That's enough!'' cried someone, and I looked up to
see Longinos Giiereca standing over me. "Julian
Reyes, you know nothing. This companero comes thou-
sands of miles by the sea and the land to tell his coun-
trymen the truth of the fight for Liberty. He goes
into battle without arms, he's braver than you are, be-
cause you have a rifle. Get out now, and don't bother
him any more!"

He sat down where Julian had been, smiled his home-
ly, gentle smile, and took both my hands in his.

"We shall be compadres, eh?" said Longinos Giiere-
ca. "We shall sleep in the same blankets, and always
be together. And when we get to the Cadena I shall
take you to my home, and my father shall make you
my brother. ... I will show you the lost gold-mines
of the Spaniards, the richest mines in the world. . . .
We'll work them together, eh? . . • We'll be rich,
eh? . . ."

And from that time on until the end, Longinos
Giiereca and I were always together.

But the baUe grew wilder and wilder. Orchestra
and pianola alternated without a break. Everybody
was drunk now. Pablo was boasting horribly of killing
defenseless prisoners. Occasionally, some insult would
be passed, and there would be a snapping of rifle levers
all over the place. Then perhaps the poor exhausted

"QUIEN VIVE?"

women would begin to go home; and what an ominous
shout would go up: "No vaya! Don't go! Stop!
Come back here and dance! Come back here!" And
the dejected procession would halt and straggle back.
At four o'clock, when somebody started the report that
a Gringo Huertista spy was among us, I decided to
go to bed. But the haUe kept up until seven. • • •

CHAPTER VI

"QUIEN VIVE?"

AT dawn I woke to the sound of shooting, and a
cracked bugle blowing wildly. Juan Sanchez
stood in front of the cuartel, sounding Reveille ;
he didn't know which call Reveille was, so he played
them all.

Patricio had roped a steer for breakfast. The ani-
mal started on a plunging, bellowing run for the desert,
Patricio's horse galloping alongside. The rest of the
Tropa, only their eyes showing over their serapes,
kneeled with their rifles to their shoulders. Crash!
In that still air, the enormous sound of guns labored
heavily up. The running steer jerked sideways, — ^his
screaming reached us faintly. Crash! He fell head-
long. His feet kicked in the air. Patricio's pony
jerked roughly up, and his serape flapped like a ban-
ner. Just then the enormous sun rose bodily out of
the east, pouring clear light over the barren plain like
a sea. • • •

INSURGENT MEXICO

Pablo emerged from the Casa Grande, leaning on
his wife's shoulder.

"I am going to be very ill," he groaned, suiting the
action to the word. "Juan Reed will ride my horse."

He got into the coach, weakly took the guitar, and
sang:

"7 remained at the foot of a green maguey
My tmgrateftd love went away with another,
I awoke to the song of the lark:
Oh, what a hangover I have, and the barkeeps won*t
trust me!

"0 God, take away this sickness,

I feel as if I were surely going to die —

The Virgin of ptdqv^ and whisky must save me:

O what a hangover, and nothing to drink! . • ."

It is some sixty^five miles from La Zarca to the
Hacienda of La Cadena, where the Tropa was to be
stationed. We rode it in one day, without water and
without food. The coach soon left us far behind.
Pretty soon, the barrenness of the land gave way to
spiny, hostile vegetation, — the cactus and the mesquite.
We strung out along a deep rut between the gigantic
chaparral, choked with the mighty cloud of alkali
dust, scratched and torn by the thorny brush. Some-
times emerging in an open space, we could see the
straight road climbing the summits of the rolling
desert, until the eye couldn't follow it ; but we knew it
must be there, still farther and farther again. Not a

54!

"QUIEN VIVE?"

breath of wind stirred. The vertical sun beat down
with a fury that made one reel. And most of the troop,
who had been drunk the night before, began to suffer
terribly. Their lips glazed, cracked, turned dark blue.
I didn't hear a single word of complaint; but there
was nothing of the lighthearted joking and rollicking
of other days. Jos6 Valiente taught me how to chew
mesquite twigs, but that didn't help much.

When we had been riding for hours, Fidencio pointed
ahead, saying huskily: '^Here comes a christia/noV*
When you realize that word christiano, which now
means simply Man, is descended among the Indians
from immeasurable antiquity, — ^and when the man that
says it looks exactly as Guatemozin might have looked,
it gives you curious sensations. The christiano in ques-
tion was a very aged Indian driving a burro. No, he
said, he didn't carry any water. But Sabas leaped
from his horse and tumbled the old man's pack on the
ground.

"Ah!" he cried; "fine! Tres piedrcu!*^ and held up
a root of the sotol plant, which looks like a varnished
century-plant, and oozes with intoxicating juices. We
divided it as you divide an artichoke. Pretty soon
everybody felt better. • . .

It was at the end of the afternoon that we rounded
a shoulder of the desert and saw ahead the gigantic
ashen alamo trees that surrounded the spring of the
Hacienda of Santo Domingo. A pillar of brown dust,
like the smoke of a burning city, rose from the corral,
where vaqtieros were roping horses. Desolate and alone
stood the Casa Grande, burned by Che Che Campa a

INSURGENT MEXICO

year ago. And by the spring, at the foot of the alamo
trees, a dozen wandering peddlers squatted around
their fire, their burros munching com. From the foun-
tain to the adobe houses and back moved an endless
chain of women water-carriers, — the symbol of north-
ern Mexico.

"Water!" we shouted, joyously, galloping down the
hill. The coach-horses were already at the spring with
Patricio. Leaping from their saddles, the Tropa threw
themselves on their bellies. Men and horses indiscrimi-
nately thrust in their heads, and drank and drank. • • •
It was the most glorious sensation I have ever felt.

"Who has a cigarro?" cried somebody. For a few
blessed minutes we lay on oui backs smoking. The
sound of music — ^gay music — ^made me sit up. And
there, across my vision, moved the strangest proces-
sion in the world. First came a ragged peon carrying
the flowering branch of some tree. Behind him, an-
other bore upon his head a little box that looked like
a coffin, painted in broad strips of blue, pink and
silver. There followed four men, carrying a sort of
canopy made of gay-colored bunting. A woman walked
beneath it, though the canopy hid her down to the
waist; but on top lay the body of a little girl, with
bare feet and little brown hands crossed on her breast.
There was a wreath of paper flowers in her hair, and
her whole body was heaped with them. A harpist
brought up the rear, playing a popular waltz called
**Recv^do8 de Durango.*^ The funeral procession
moved slowly and gaily along, passing the rihota court,
where the players never ceased their handball game,

"QUIEN VIVE?"

to the little Campo Santo. '^Bah !" spat Julian Reyes
furiously. ^^That is a blasphemy to the dead !"

In the late sunshine the desert was a glowing thing.
We rode in a silent, enchanted land, that seemed some
kingdom under the sea. All aroimd were great cactuses
colored red, blue, purple, yellow, as coral is on the
ocean bed. Behind us, to the west, the coach rolled
along in a glory of dust like Elijah's chariot. • • •
Eastward, imder a sky ulready darkening to stars,
were the rumpled mountains behind which lay La Ca-
dena, the advance post of the Maderista army. It
was a land to love — this Mexico — a land to fight for.
The ballad-singers suddenly began the • interminable
song of "The Bull-Fight," in which the Federal chiefs
are the bulls, and the Maderista generals the torreros;
and as I looked at the gay, lovable, humble hombres
who had given so much of their lives and of their com-
fort to the brave fight, I couldn't help but think of the
little speech Villa made to the foreigners who left Chi-
huahua in the first refugee train:

"This is the latest news for you to take to your peo-
ple. There shall be no more palaces in Mexico. The
tortiUas of the poor are better than the bread of the
rich. Come! • • ."

It was late night — ^past eleven — ^when the coach broke
down on a stretch of rocky road between high moim-
tains. I stopped to get my blankets; and when I
started on again, the compafieros had long vanished
down the winding road. Somewhere near, I knew, was
La Cadena. At any minute now a sentinel might start

INSURGENT MEXICO

up out of the chaparral. For about a mile I de-
scended a steep road that was often the dried bed of
a river, winding down between high mountains. It was
a black night, without stars, and bitter cold. Finally,
the mountains opened into a vast plain, and across that
I could faintly see the tremendous range of the Cadcna,
and the pass that the Tropa was to guard. Barely
three leagues beyond that pass lay Mapimi, held by
twelve hundred Federals. But the hacienda was still
hidden by a roll of the desert.

I was quite upon it, without being challenged, be-
fore I saw it, an indistinct white square of buildings on
the other side of a deep arroyo. And still no sentinel.
"That's funny,'* I said to myself. "They don't keep
very good watch here." I plunged down into the ar-
royo, and climbed up the other side. In one of the
great rooms of the Casa Grande were lights and music.
Peering through, I saw the indefatigable Sabas whirl-
ing in the mazes of the jota, and Isidro Amayo, and
Jos^ Valiente. A baUe! Just then a man with a gun
lounged out of the lighted doorway.

"Quien vive?" he shouted, lazily.

"Madero!" I shouted.

^^ay he live !" returned the sentinel, and went back
to the baile.

• • •

AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION

CHAPTER Vn

AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION

THERE were a hundred and fifty of us stationed
at La Cadena, the advance gui^rd of all the
Maderista army to the West. Our business
was to guard a pass, the Puerta de la Cadena; but
the troops were quartered at the hacienda, ten miles
away. It stood upon a little plateau, a deep arroyo
on one side, at the bottom of which a sunken river
came to the surface for perhaps a hundred yards, and
vanished again. As far as the eye could reach up and
down the broad valley was the fiercest kind of desert,
— dried creek-beds, and a thicket of chaparral, cac-
tus and sword plant.

Directly east lay the Puerta, breaking the tremen-
dous mountain range that blotted out half the sky and
extended north and south beyond vision, wrinkled like
a giant's bed-clothes. The desert tilted up to meet the
gap, and beyond was nothing but the fierce blue of
stainless Mexican sky. From the Puerta you could see
fifty miles across the vast arid plain that the Spaniards
named Llano de los Gigantes^ where the little moun^
tains lie tumbled about ; and four leagues away the low
gray houses of Mapimi. There lay the enemy; twelve
hundred colorados, or Federal irregulars, under the
infamous Colonel Argumendo. The colorados are the
bandits that made Orozco's revolution. They were
so called because their flag was red, and because their

INSURGENT MEXICO

hands were red with slaughter, too. They swept
through Northern Mexico, burning, pillaging and rob-
bing the poor. In Chihuahua, they cut the soles f roiA
the feet of one poor devil, and drove him a mile across
the desert before he died. And I have seen a city of
four thousand souls reduced to five after a visit by the
colorados. When Villa took Torreon, there was no
mercy for the color ados; they are always shot.

The first day we reached La Cadena, twelve of them
rode up to reconnoiter. Twenty-five of the Tropa were
on guard at the Fuerta. They captured one Colorado.
They made him get off his horse, and took away his
rifle, clothes and shoes. Then they made him run naked
through a hundred yards of chaparral and cactus,
shooting at him. Juan Sanchez finally dropped him,
screaming, and thereby won the rifle, which he brought
back as a present to me. The Colorado they left to
the great Mexican buzzards, which flap lazily above
the desert all day long.

When all this happened, my compadre. Captain
Longinos Giiereca, and Trooper Juan Vallejo, and I,
had borrowed the Colonel's coach for a trip to the
dusty little rancho of Bruquilla, — ^Longinos' home. It
lay four desert leagues to the north, where a spring
burst miraculously out of a little white hilL Old
Giiereca was a white-haired peon in sandals. He had
been born a slave on one of the great haciendas; but
years of toil, too appalling to realize, had made him
that rare being in Mexico, the independent owner of
a small property. He had ten children, — soft, dark-

AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION

skinned girls, and sons that looked like New England
farmhands, — and a daughter in the grave.

The Giierecas were proud, ambitious, warm-hearted
folk. Longinos said : ^^This is my dearly loved friend,
Juan Reed, and my brother." And the old man and
his wife put both their arms around me and patted
me on the back, in the affectionate way Mexicans em-
brace.

^^My family owes nothing to the Revolucion," said
'6ino, proudly. ^^Others have taken money and horses
and wagons. The jefes of the army have become rich
from the property of the great haciendas. The Giiere-
cas have given all to the Maderistas, and have taken
nothing but my rank. • • ."

The old man, however, was a little bitter. Holding
up a horsehair rope, he said: ^^Three years ago I had
four HatcLs like this. Now I have only one. One the
colorados took, and the other Urbina's people took,
and the last one Jos£ Bravo. • • . What difference
does it make which side robs you?" But he didn't
mean it all. He was inmiensely proud of his youngest
son, the bravest officer in all the army.

We sat in the long adobe room, eating the most
exquisite cheese, and tortiUas with fresh goat-butter,
— the deaf old mother apologizing in a loud voice for
the poverty of the food, and her warlike son reciting
his personal Iliad of the nine-days' fight around Tor-
reon.

**We got so close," he was saying, "that the hot
air and burning powder stung us in the face. We
got too close to shoot, so we clubbed our rifles ^"

INSURGENT MEXICO

Just then all the dogs began to bark at once. We
leaped from our seats. One didn't know what to ex-
pect in the Cadena those days. It was a small boy
on horseback, shouting that the colorados were enter-
ing the Puerta — and off he galloped.

Longinos roared to put the mules in the coach. The
entire family fell to work with a fury, and in five min-
utes Longinos dropped on one knee and kissed his
father's hand, and we were tearing down the road.
"Don't be killed ! Don't be killed! Don't be killed!"
we could hear the Sefiora wailing.

We passed a wagon loaded with corn-stalks, with a
whole family of women and children, two tin trunks,
and an iron bed, perched on top. The man of the
family rode a burro. Yes, the colorados were coming
— thousands of them pouring through the Puerta. The
last time the colorados had come they had killed his
daughter. For three years there had been war in
this valley, and he had not complained. Because it
was for the Patria. Now they would go to the United

States where But Juan lashed the mules cruelly,

and we heard no more. Farther along was an old man
without shoes, placidly driving some goats. Had he
heard about the colorados? Well, there had been some
gossip about colorados. Were they coming through
the Puerta, and how many?

**Piies, qvien sabe, seflorT*

At last, yelling at the staggering mules, we came
into camp just in time to see the victorious Tropa
straggle in across the desert, firing off many more
rounds of ammunition than they had used in the fig^t,

AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION

They moved low along the ground, scarcely higher on
their broncos than the drab mesquite through which
they flashed, all big sombreros and flapping gay sc-
rapes, the last sunshine on their lifted rifles.

That very night came a courier from General Ur-
bina, saying that he was ill and wanted Pablo Seanes
to come back. So ofF went the great coach, and Pa-
blo's mistress, and Raphaelito, the hunchback, and Fi-
dencio, and Patricio. Pablo said to me: ^^Juanito, if
you want to come back with us, you shall sit beside me
in the coach." Patricio and Raphaelito begged me to
come. But I had got so far to the front now that I
didn't want to turn back. Then the next day my
friends and compafLeros of the Tropa, whom I had
learned to know so well in our march across the desert,
received orders to move to Jarralitos. Only Juan
Vallejo and Longinos Giiereca stayed behind.

The Cadena's new garrison were a difi^erent kind of
men. God knows where they came from, but it was a
place where the troopers had literally starved. They
were the most wretchedly poor peons that I have ever
seen — about half of them didn't have serapes. Some
fifty were known to be rmevas who had never smelt
powder, about the same number were under a dread-
fully incompetent old party named Major Salazar, and
the remaining fifty were equipped with old carbines and
ten rounds of ammunition apiece. Our commanding
officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Petronilo Hernandez,
who had been six years a Major in the Federal army
until the murder of Madero drove him to the other side.
He was a brave, good-hearted little man, with twisted

INSURGENT MEXICO

shoulders, but years of official army red tape had \ut*
fitted him to handle troops like these. Every morning
he issued an Order of the Day, distributing guards,
posting sentinels, and naming the officer on duty. No-
body ever read it. Officers in that army have nothing
to do with the disciplining or ordering of soldiers^
They are officers because they have been brave, and
their job is to fight at the head of their troop — that's
all. The soldiers all look up to some one Greneral, im-
der whom they are recruited, as to their feudal lord.
They call themselves his gente — ^his people; and an
officer of anybody else's gente hasn't much authority
over them. Petronilo was of Urbina's gente; but two-
thirds of the Cadena garrison belonged to Arrieta's
division. That's why there were no sentinels to the
west and north. Lieutenant-Colonel Alberto Redondo
guarded another pass four leagues to the south, so we
thought we were safe in that direction. True, twenty-
five men did outpost duty at the Fuerta, and the
Fuerta was strong. • • •

CHAFTER VIII

THE FIVE MUSKETEERS

THE Casa Grande of La Cadena had been sacked,
of course, by Che Che Campa the year be-
fore. In the patio were corraled the officers'
horses. We slept on the tiled floors of the rooms sur-
rounding it. In the sola of the owner, once barbari-

THE FIVE MUSKETEERS

cally decorated, pegs were driven into the walls to
hang saddles and bridles on, rifles and sabers were
stacked against the wall, and dirty blanket-rolls lay
flung into the comer. At night a fire of corn-cobs was
built in the middle of the floor, and we squatted around
it, while Apolinario and fourteen-year-old Gil Tomas,
who was once a Colorado^ told stories of the Bloody
Three Years.

^^At the taking of Durango," said Apolinario, ^^I
was of the gente of Captain Borunda; he that they
call the Matador, because he always shoots his. prison-
ers. But when Urbina took Durango ther^ weren't
many prisoners. So Borunda^ thirsty for blood, made
the rounds of all the saloons. And in every one he
would pick out some unarmed man and ask him if he
were a Federal. *No, sefior,' the man would say. *You
deserve death because you have not told the truth!'
yelled Borunda, pulling his gun. Bang !"

We all laughed heartily at this.

"That reminds me," broke in Gil, "of the time I
fought with Rojas in Orozco's — ^(cursed be his
motlier!) — ^Revolucion. An old Porfirista officer de-
serted to our side, and Orozco sent him out to teach
the colorados (animals!) how to drill. There was one
droll fellow in our company. Oh! he had a fine sense
of humor. He pretended he was too stupid to learn
the manual of arms. So this cursed old Huertista —
(may he fry in hell!) — ^made him drill alone.

" ^Shoulder arms !' The compa^iero did it all right.

" Tresent arms !' Perfectly.

INSURGENT MEXICO

" Tort arms !' He acted like he didn't know how,
so the old fool went around and took hold of the rifle.

" ^This way !' says he, pulling on it.

" *0h!' says the fellow, *that way!' And he let him
have the bayonet right in the chest. . . ."

After that Fernando Silveyra, the paymaster, re-
counted a few anecdotes of the curas, or priests, that
sounded exactly like Touraine in the thirteenth cen-
tury, or the feudal rights of landlords over their women
tenants before the French Revolution. Fernando ought
to have known, too, for he was brought up for the
Church. There must have been about twenty of us
sitting around that fire, all the way from the most mis-
erably poor peon in the Tropa up to First Captain
Longinos Giiereca. There wasn't one of these men
who had any religion at all, although once they had all
been strict Catholics. But three years of war have
taught the Mexican people many things. There will
never be another Porfirio Diaz; there will never be
another Orozco Revolution ; and the Catholic Church in
Mexico will never again be the voice of God.

Then Juan Santillanes, a twenty-two-year-old svb^
tenientey who seriously informed me that he was de-
scended from the great Spanish hero, Gil Bias, piped

up the ancient disreputable ditty, which begins:

"J am Cowat OUveros
Of the Spanish artillery. . . .'*

Juan proudly displayed four bullet wounds. He
had killed a few defenseless prisoners with his own gun,

THE FIVE MUSKETEERS

he said; giving promise of growing up to be muy mata"
dor (a great killer) some day. He boasted of being the
strongest and bravest man in the army. His idea of
humor seemed to be breaking eggs into the pocket of
my coat. Juan was very young for his years, but
very likable.

But the best friend I had beside 'Gino Giiereca was
Subteniente Luis Martinez. They called him **Gachvr
pine** — the contemptuous name for Spaniards — ^be-
cause he might have stepped out of a portrait of some
noble Spanish youth by Greco. Luis was pure race —
sensitive, gay and high-spirited. He was only twenty,
and had never been in battle. Around the contour of
his face was a faint black beard.

He fingered it, grinning. ^'Nicanor and I made a
bet that we wouldn't shave until we took Torreon.

•

Luis and I slept in different rooms. But at night,
when the fire had gone out and the rest of the fellows
were snoring, we sat at each other's blankets — one
night in his cuartel, the one next to mine — ^talking
about the world, our girls, and what we were going to
be and to do when we really got at it. When the war
was over, Luis was coming to the United States to visit
me; and then we were both coming back to Durango
City to visit the Martinez family. He showed me the
photograph of a little baby, proudly boasting that he
was an uncle already. "What will you do when the
bullets begin to fly?" I asked him.

'*Quien sabef" he laughed. "I guess I'll run!"

It was late. The sentinel at the door had long since

INSURGENT MEXICO

gone to sleep. ^^DonH go," said Luis, grabbing my
coat. ^^Let's gossip a little longer. . • •"

'6ino, Juan Santillanes, Silveyra, Luis, Juan Vallejo
and I rode up the arroyo to bathe in a pool that was
rumored to be there. It was a scorched river bed filled
with white-hot sand, rimmed with dense mesquite and
cactus. Every kilometer the hidden river showed itself
for a little space, only to disappear at a crackling
white rim of alkali. First came the horse pool, the
troopers and their wretched ponie6 gathered around it ;
one or two squatting on the rim, scooping water up
against the animals' sides with calabashes. • • • Above
them kneeled the women at their eternal laundry on the
stones. Beyond that the ancient path from the ha-
cienda cut across, where the never-ending line of black-
shawled women moved with water-jars on their heads.
Still farther up were women bathers, wrapped round
and round with yards of pale blue or white cotton, and
naked brown babies splashing in the shallows. And, last
of all, naked brown men, with sombreros on and bright-
colored serapes draped over their shoulders, smoked
their hojaSt squatting on the rocks. We flushed a coy-
ote up there, and scrambled steeply up to the desert,
pulling at our revolvers. There he went ! We spurred
into the chaparral on the dead run, shooting and yell-
ing. But of course he got away. And later, much
later, we found the mythical pool — a cool, deep basin
worn in the solid rock, with green weeds growing on the
bottom.

When we got back, 'Gino Giiereca became greatly ex-

THE FIVE MUSKETEERS

cited, because his new tordiUo horse had come from
Bruquilla — a four-year-old stallion that his father had
raised .for him to ride at the head of his company.

^^If he is dangerous," announced Juan Santillanes,
as we hurried out, ^^I want to ride him first. I love to
subdue dangerous horses !"

A mighty cloud of yellow dust filled all the corral,
rising high into the still air. Through it appeared the
dim chaotic shapes of many running horses. Their
hoofs made dull thunder. Men were vaguely visible, all
braced legs and swinging arms, handkerchiefs bound
over their faces; wide-spreading rope coils lifted,
circling. The big gray felt the loop tighten on his
neck. He trumpeted and plunged ; the vaquero twisted
the rope around his hip, lying back almost to the
ground, feet plowing the dirt. Another noose gripped
the horse's hind legs — and he was down. They put a
saddle on him and a rope halter.

"Want to ride him, Juanito?'* grinned 'Gino.

"After you,'' answered Juan with dignity. "He's
your horse. • . ."

But Juan Vallejo already was astride, shouting to
them to loose the ropes. With a sort of squealing roar,
the tordiUo struggled up, and the earth trembled to his
furious fight.

We dined in the ancient kitchen of the hacienda, sit-
ting on stools around a packing box. The ceiling was
a rich, greasy brown, from the smoke of generations
of meals. One entire end of the room was taken up by
immense adobe stoves, ovens, and fireplaces, with four

INSURGENT MEXICO

or five ancient crones bending over them, stirring pots
and turning tortillas. The fire was our only light,
flickering strangely over the old women; lighting up
the black wall, up which the smoke fled, to wreathe
around the ceiling and finally pour from the window.
There were Colonel Petronilo, his mistress, a strangely
beautiful peasant woman with a pock-marked face, who
always seemed to be laughing to herself about some-
thing; Don Tomas, Luis Martinez, Colonel Redondo,
Major Salazar, Nicanor, and L The Colonel's mistress
seemed uncomfortable at the table ; for a Mexican peas-
ant woman is a servant in her house. But Don Petro-
nilo always treated her as if she were a great lady.

Redondo had just been telling me about the girl
he was going to marry. He showed me her picture.
She was even then on her way to Chihuahua to get her
wedding dress. ^^As soon as we take Torreon," he said.

**Oigaj seflorr* Salazar touched me on the arm.
"I have found out who you are. You are an agent of
American business men who have vast interests in Mex-
ico. I know all about American business. You are an
agent of the trusts. You come down here to spy upon
the movement of our troops, and then you will se-
cretly send them word. Is it not true?"

"How could I secretly send anybody any word from
here?" I asked. **We're four days' hard ride from a
telegraph line."

"Ah, I know," he grinned cunningly, wabbling a fin-
ger at me. ^^I know many things ; I have much in the
head." He was standing up now. The Major suffered
badly from gout; his legs were wrapped in yards and

THE FIVE MUSKETEERS

yards of woolen bandages, which made them look like
tamales. *^I know all about business. I have studied
much in my youth. These American trusts are invad-
ing Mexico to rob the Mexican people "

"You're mistaken, Major," interrupted Don Petro-
nilo sharply. **This senor is my friend and my guest."

"Listen, mi Coronel,** Salazar burst out with unex-
pected violence. "This sefior is a spy. All Americans
are Porfiristas and Huertistas. Take this warning be-
fore it is too late. I have much in the head. I am a
very smart man. Take this Gringo out and shoot him
— at once. Or you will regret it."

A clamor of voices burst out all together from the
others, but it was interrupted by another sound — a
shot, and then another, and men shouting.

Came a trooper running. "Mutiny in the ranks!"
he cried. **They won't obey orders !"

"Who won't?" snapped Don Petronilo.

"The gente of Salazar !"

"Bad people !" exclaimed Nicanor as we ran. "They
were colorados captured when we took Torreon.
Joined us so we wouldn't kill 'em. Ordered out to-
night to guard the Puerta!"

"Till to-morrow," said Salazar at this point, "I'm
going to bed!"

The peons' houses at La Cadena, where the troops
were quartered, enclosed a great square, like a walled
town. There were two gates. At one we forced our
way through a mob of women and peons fighting to get
out. Inside, there were dim lights from doorways, and
three or four little fires in the open air. A bimch of

INSURGENT MEXICO

frightened horses crowded one another in a comer.
Men ran wildly in and out of their cuartels, with rifles
in their hands. In the center of the open space stood
a group of about fifty men, mostly armed, as if to repel
an attack.

"Guard those gates!" cried the Colonel. "Don't let
anybody out without an order from me!*' The run-
ning troops began to mass at the gates. Don Petro*
nilo walked out alone into the middle of the square.

"What's the trouble, compoflerosf** he asked quietly.

"They were going to kill us all!" yelled somebody
from the darkness. "They wanted to escape! They
were going to betray us to the colorados!"

"It's a lie !" cried those in the center. "We are not
Don Petronilo's gente! Our jefe is Manuel Arrieta !"

Suddenly Longinos Giiereca, unarmed, flashed by us
and fell upon them furiously, wrenching away their
rifles and throwing them far behind. For a moment it
looked as if the rebels would turn on him, but they did
not resist.

"Disarm them !" ordered Don Petronilo. "And lock
them up !"

They herded the prisoners into one large room, with
an armed guard at the door. And long after midnight
I could hear them hilariously singing.

That left Don Petronilo with a hundred effectives,
some extra horses with running sores on their backs,
and two thousand rounds of ammunition, more or less.
Salazar took himself off in the morning, after recom-
mending that all his gente be shot; he was evidently
greatly relieved to be rid of them. Juan Santillanes

7«

THE LAST NIGHT

was in favor of execution, too. But Don Petronilo de-
cided to send them to Greneral Urbina for trial.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST NIGftT

THE days at La Cadena were full of color. In
the cold dawn, when the river pools were
filmed with ice, a trooper would gallop into the
great square with a plunging steer at the end of his
rope. Fifty or sixty ragged soldiers, only their eyes
showing between scrapes and big sombreros, would be-
gin an amateur bull-fight, to the roaring delight of the
rest of the compafleros. They waved their blankets,
shouting the correct bull-fight cries. One would twist
the infuriated animal's tail. Another, more impatient,
beat him with the flat of a sword. Instead of ban-
derillas, they stuck daggers into his shoulder — ^his hot
blood spattering them as he charged. And when at
last he was down and the merciful knife in his brain, a
mob fell upon the carcase, cutting and ripping, and
bearing off chunks of raw meat to their cuartels. Then
the white, burning sun would rise suddenly behind the
Puerta, stinging your hands and face. And the pools
of blood, the faded patterns of the scrapes, the far
reaches of umber desert glowed and became vivid. • • •
Don Petronilo had confiscated several coaches in the
campaign. We borrowed them for many an excursion
— the five of us. Once it was a trip to San Pedro del

INSURGENT MEXICO

Gallo to see a cock-fight, appropriately enough. An-
other time 'Gino Giiereca and I went to see the fabu-
lously rich lost mines of the Spaniards, which he knew.
But we never got past Bruquilla — ^just lounged in the
shade of the trees and ate cheese all day.

Late in the afternoon the Fuerta guard trotted out
to their post, the late sim soft on their rifles and car-
tridge-belts ; and long after dark the detachment re-
lieved came jingling in out of the mysterious dark.

The four peddlers whom I had seen in Santo Do-
mingo arrived that night. They had four burro loads
of macuche to sell the soldiers.

"It's meester!" they cried, when I came down to
their little fire. **Qfie tdl^ meester? How goes it?
Aren't you afraid of the coloradosf"

**How is business?" I asked, accepting the heaped-
up handful of macuche they gave me.

They laughed uproariously at this.

"Business! Far better for us if we had stayed in
Santo Domingo ! This Tropa couldn't buy one cigarro
if they clubbed their money! . • •"

One of them began to sing that extraordinary bal-
lad, "The Morning Song to Francisco Villa." He sang
one verse, and then the next man sang a verse, and so
on around, each man composing a dramatic account of
the deeds of the Great Captain. For half an hour I
lay there, watching them, as they squatted between
their knees, scrapes draped loosely from their shoul-
ders, the firelight red on their simple, dark faces.

THE LAST NIGHT

While one man sang the others stared upon the ground,
wrapt in composition.

**Here is Francisco Villa
With his chiefs and his officers^
Who come to saddle the short-horns
Of the Federal Army.

**Get ready noWj colorados.
Who have been talking so loudy
For Villa and his soldiers
WiU soon take off your hides!

**To'day has come your tamer^
The Father of Rooster Tamers,
To rwn you out of Torreon —
To the devU with your skms!

**The rich with all their money
Have already got their lashing.
As the soldiers of Urbina
Can tell, and those of Maclovio Herrera.

**Fly, fly away, little dove.
Fly over all the prairies.
And say that Villa has come
To drive them all out forever.

** Ambition will ruin itself.
And justice will be the winner.
For VUla has reached Torreon
To pumsh the avaricious.''^

«<

INSURGENT MEXICO

*Fljf <nwiy. Royal Eagle,
Tkete laurels carry to FtZZo,
For he has come to conquer
Bravo and dU his colonels.

Now you sons of the Mosquito,
Your pride wUl come to an end.
If Villa has come to Torreon,
It is because he could do it!

**Viva ViUa and his soldiers!
Viva Herrera and his gente!
You have seen, wicked people.
What a brave man can do.

**With this now I say good-bye;
By the Rose of Castile,
Here is the end of my rhyme
To the great General ViOaV*

After a while I slipped away, and I doubt if they
even saw me go. They sang around their fire for more
than three hours.

But in our cuartel there was other entertainment.
The room was full of smoke from the fire on the floor.
Through it I dimly made out some thirty or forty
troopers squatting or sprawled at full length — ^per-
fectly silent as Silveyra read aloud a proclamation
from the Governor of Durango forever condemning the
lands of the great haciendas to be divided among the
poor.

THE LAST NIGHT

He read :

"Considering: that the principal cause of discontent
among the people in our State^ which forced them to
spring to arms in the year 1910^ was the absolute lack of
individual property; and that the rural classes have no
means of subsistence in the present^ nor any hope for the
future^ except to serve as peons on the haciendas of the
great land owners^ who have monopolized the soil of the
State;

"Considering: that the principal branch of our national
riches is agriculture^ and that there can be no true progress
in agriculture without that the majority of farmers have
a personal interest in making the earth produce. . . .

"Considering^ finally: that the rural towns have been
reduced to the deepest misery^ because the common lands
which they once owned have gone to augment the prop-
erty of the nearest hacienda^ especially under the Dicta-
torship of Diaz; with which the inhabitants of the State
lost their economic^ political^ and social independence^
then passed from the rank of citizens to that of slaves^
without the Government being able to lift the moral level
through education^ because the hacienda where they lived
is private property. . . •

"Therefore^ the Government of the State of Durango
declares it a public necessity that the inhabitants of the
towns and villages be the owners of agricultural lands.

When the paymaster had painfully waded through
all the provisions that followed, telling how the land
was to be applied for, etc., there was a silence.

"That," said Martinez, "is the Mexican Revolucion.**

INSURGENT MEXICO

«1

'It's just what Villa's doing in Chihuahua/' I said.
"It's great. All you fellows can have a farm now."

An amused chuckle ran around the circle. Then a
little, bald-headed man, with yellow, stained whiskers,
sat up and spoke.

"Not us," he said, "not the soldiers. After a Revo-
lucion is done it wants no more soldiers. It is the
pacificos who will get the land — those who did not
fight. And the next generation. . . ." He paused
and spread his torn sleeves to the fire. "I was a school
teacher," he explained, "so I know that Revolucions,
like Republics, are ungrateful. I have fought three
years. At the end of the first Revolucion that great
man, Father Madero, invited his soldiers to the Capital.
He gave us clothes, and food, and bull-fights. We re-
turned to our homes and found the greedy again in
power."

"I ended the war with forty-five pesos," said a man.

"You were lucky," continued the schoolmaster. "No,
it is not the troopers, the starved, unfed, common sol-
diers who profit by the Revolucion. Officers, yes —
some — for they get fat on the blood of the Fatria. But
we — ^no."

"What on earth are you fighting for?" I cried.

"I have two little sons," he answered. "And they
will get their land. And they will have other little sons.
They, too, will never want for food. . . ." The little
man grinned. "We have a proverb in Guadalajara:
*Do not wear a shirt of eleven yards, for he who wants
to be a Redeemer will be crucified.' "

THE LAST NIGHT

««y».

^rve got no little son,'' said fourteen-year-old Gil
Tomas, amid shouts of laughter. ^^I'm fighting so I
can get a thirty-thirty rifle from some dead Federal,
and a good horse that belonged to a millionaire."

Just for fun I asked a trooper with a photo button
of Madero pinned to his coat who that was.

"PtieSy quien sabe^ sefiorf* he replied. "My captain
told me he was a great saint. I fight because it is not
so hard as to work."

"How often are you fellows paid?"

"We were paid three pesos just nine months ago to-
night," said the schoolmaster, and they all nodded.
"We are the real volunteers. The gente of Villa are
professionals."

Then Luis Martinez got a guitar and sang a beauti-
ful little love song, which he said a prostitute had made
up one night in a hordeh

The last thing I remember of that memorable night
was 'Gino Giiereca lying near me in the dark, talking.

"To-morrow," he said, "I shall take you to the lost
gold-mines of the Spaniards. They are hidden in a
caiion in the Western mountains. Only the Indians
know of them — and I. The Indians go there some-
times with knives and dig the raw gold out of the
ground. We'll be rich. . . •"

INSURGENT MEXICO

CHAPTER X

THE CX)MING OF THE COLORADOS

BEFORE sunrise next morning, Fernando Sil-
veyra, fully dressed, came into the room and
said calmly to get up, that the colorados were
coming. Juan Vallejo laughed: "How many, Fer-
nando?"

"About a thousand," he answered in a quiet voice,
rummaging for his bandolier.

The patio was unusually full of shouting men sad-
dling horses. I saw Don Petronilo, half dressed, at his
door, his mistress buckling on his sword. Juan San-
tiUanes was pulling at his trousers with furious haste.
There was a steady rattle of clicks as cartridges
slipped into rifles. A score of soldiers ran to and fro
aimlessly, asking everyone where something was.

I don't think we any of us really believed it. The
little square of quiet sky over the patio gave promise
of another hot day. Roosters crowed. A cow that was
being milked bellowed. I felt hungry.

"How near are they?" I asked.

"Near."

"But the outpost — ^the guard at the Puerta?"

"Asleep," Fernando said, as he strapped on his cart-
ridge-belt.

Pablo Arriola clanked in, crippled by his big spurs.

"A little bunch' of twelve rode up. Our men thought
it was only the daily reconnaissance. So after they

THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS

drove them back, the Puerta guard sat down to break-
fast. Then Argumedo himself and hundreds — ^him-
dreds ''

^^But twenty-five could hold that pass against an
army until the rest got there, . . •''

"They're already past the Puerta,'' said Pablo,
shouldering his saddle. He went out.

"The !" swore Juan SantiUanes, spinning

the chambers of his revolver. "Wait till I get at them !"

"Now meester's going to see some of those shots he
wanted," cried Gil Tomas. "How about it, meester?
Feel scared?"

Somehow the whole business didn't seem real. I said
to myself, "You lucky devil, you're actually going to
see a fight. That will round out the story." I loaded
my camera and hurried out in front of the house.

There was nothing much to see there. A blinding
Sim rose right in the Puerta. Over the leagues and
leagues of dark desert to the east nothing lived but the
morning light. Not a movement. Not a sound. Yet
somewhere out there a mere handful of men were des-
perately trying to hold off an army.

Thin smoke floated up in the breathless air from the
houses of the peons. It was so still that the grinding
of tortilla meal between two stones was distinctly audi-
ble — ^and the slow, minor song of some woman at her
work way around the Casa Grande. Sheep were
maaing to be let out of the corral. On the road to
Santo Domingo, so far away that they were mere col-
ored accents in the desert, the four peddlers sauntered
behind their burros. Little knots of peons were

INSURGENT MEXICO

gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing and looking
east. And around the gate of the big enclosure where
the soldiers were quartered a few troopers held their
horses by the bridle. That was all.

Occasionally the door of the Casa Grande vomited
mounted men — two or three at a time — ^who galloped
down the Puerta road with their rifles in their hands.
I could follow them as they rose and fell over the
waves of the desert, growing smaller all the time, until
they mounted the last roll — ^where the white dust they
kicked up caught the fierce light of the sun, and the
eye couldn't stand it. They had taken my horse, and
Juan Yallejo didn't have one. He stood beside me,
cocking and firing his empty rifle.

**Look!" he shouted suddenly. The western face of
the mountains that flanked the Puerta was in shadow
still. Along their base, to the north and to the south,
too, wriggled little thin lines of dust. They lengthened
out — Oh so slowly. At first there was only one in
each direction; then two others began, farther down,
nearer, advancing relentlessly, like raveling in a stock-
ing — ^like a crack in thin glass. The enemy, spreading
wide around the battle, to take us in the flank !

Still the little knots of troopers poured from the
Casa Grande, and spurred away. Pablo Arriola went,
and Nicanor, waving to me brightly as they passed.
Longinos Giiereca rocketed out on his great tordiUo
horse, yet only half broken. The big gray put down
Kis head and buck- jumped four times across the
square.

"To-morrow for the mines,'* yelled 'Gino over his

THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS

shoulder. "Fm very busy to-day — ^very rich — ^the lost

mines of '' But he was too far away for me to

hear. Martinez followed him, shouting to me with a
grin that he felt scared to death. Then others. It
made about thirty so far. I remember that most of
them wore automobile goggles. Don Petronilo sat his
horse, with field-glasses to his eyes. I looked again
at the lines of dust — ^they were curving slowly down,
the sun glorifying them — ^like scimitars.

Don Tomas galloped past, Gil Tomas at his heels.
But someone was coming. A little running horse ap-
peared on the rise, headed our way, the rider outlined
in a radiant dust. He was going at furious speed, dip-
ping and rising over the rolling land. . • • And as he
spurred wildly up the little hill where we stood, we
saw a horror. A fan-shaped cascade of blood poured
from the front of him. The lower part of his mouth
was quite shot away by a soft-nosed bullet. He reined
up beside the colonel, and tried earnestly, terribly, to
tell him something; but nothing intelligible issued from
the ruin. Tears poured down the poor fellow's cheeks.
He gave a hoarse cry, and, driving his spurs deep in his
horse, fled up the Santo Domingo road. Others were
coming, too, on the dead run — those who had been the
Puerta guard. Two or three passed right through the
hacienda without stopping. The rest threw themselves
upon Don Petronilo, in a passion of rage. "More am-
munition !" they cried. *'More cartridges !"

Don Petronilo looked away. "There isn't any!'*
The men went mad, cursing and hurling their guns on
the ground.

INSURGENT MEXICO

**Twenty-five more men at the Puerta/* shouted the
Colonel. In a few minutes half of the new men gal-
loped out of their cuartel and took the eastern road.
The near ends of the dust lines were now lost to view
behind a swell of groimd.

"Why don't you send them all, Don Petronilo?" I
yelled.

^^Because, my young friend, a whole company of
colorados is riding down that arroyo. You can't see
them from there, but I can."

He, had no sooner spoken than a rider whirled
around the comer of the house, pointing back over his
shoulder to the south, whence he had come.

"They're coming that way, too," he cried. **Thou-
sands! Through the other pass! Redondo had only
five men on guard ! They took them prisoner and got
into the valley before he knew it !"

**Valgaine Diosr* muttered Don Petronilo.

We turned south. Above the umber rise of desert
loomed a mighty cloud of white dust, shining in the
sun, like the biblical pillar of smoke.

**The rest of you fellows get out there and hold
them off !" The last twenty-five leaped to their saddles
and started southward.

Then suddenly the great gate of the walled square
belched men and horses — ^men without rifles. The dis-
armed gente of Salazar! They milled around as if in
a panic. "Give us our rifles !" they shouted. "Where's
our ammunition?"

"Your rifles are in the cuartel," answered the Colo-
Si

THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS

nel, ^^but your cartridges are out there killing colore^
dosr

A great cry went up. **They've taken away our
arms ! They want to murder us !"

"How can we fight, man? What can we do without
rifles?" screamed one man in Don Petronilo's face.

"Come on, compafleros! Let's go out and strangle
'em with our hands, the — coloradosF* yelled one.
Five struck spurs into their horses, and sped furiously
toward the Puerta — ^without arms, without hope. It
was magnificent!

"We'll aU get killed!" said another. "Come on!"
And the other forty-five swept wildly out on the road
to Santo Domingo.

The twenty-five recruits that had been ordered to
hold the southern side had ridden out about half a
mile, and there stopped, seeming uncertain what to do.
Now they caught sight of the disarmed fifty galloping
for the mountains.

"The companeros are fleeing! The compafieros are
fleeing!"

For a moment there was a sharp exchange of cries.
They looked at the dust cloud towering over them.
They thought of the mighty army of merciless devils
who made it. They hesitated, broke — and fled furi-
ously through the chaparral toward the mountains.

I suddenly discovered that I had been hearing shoot-
ing for some time. It sounded immensely far away —
like nothing so much as a clicking typewriter. Even
while it held our attention it grew. The little trivial
pricking of rifles deepened and became serious. Out in

INSURGENT MEXICO

front now it was practically continuous — almost the
roll of a snare-drum.

Don Petronilo was a little white. He called Apoli-
nario and told him to harness the mules to the coach.

"If anything happens that we get the worst of it,"
he said lightly to Juan Yallejo, "call my woman and
you and Reed go with her in the coach. Come on, Fer-
nando — Juanito!" Silveyra and Juan Santillanes
spurred out ; the three vanished toward the Puerta.

We could see them now, hundreds of little black fig-
ures riding everywhere through the chaparral; the
desert swarmed with them. Savage Indian yells
reached us. A spent bullet droned overhead, then an-
other; then one unspent, and then a whole flock sing-
ing fiercely. Thud! went the adobe walls as bits of
clay flew. Peons and their women rushed from house
to house, distracted with fear. A trooper, his face
black with powder and hateful with killing and terror,
galloped past, shouting that all was lost. • • •

Apolinario hurried out the mules with their harness
on their backs, and began to hitch them to the coach.
His hands trembled. He dropped a trace, picked it
up, and dropped it again. He shook all over. All at
once he threw the harness to the ground and took to
his heels. Juan and I rushed forward. Just then a
stray bullet took the off mule in the rump. Nervous
already, the animals plunged wildly. The wagon
tongue snapped with the report of a rifle. The mules
raced madly north into the desert.

And then came the rout, a wild huddle of troopers
all together, lashing their terrified horses. They

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

passed us without stopping, without noticing, all blood
and sweat and blackness. Don Tomas, Pablo Arriola,
and after them little Gil Tomas, his horse staggering
and falling dead right in front of us. Bullets whipped
the wall on all sides of us.

"Come on, meester!" said Juan. "Let's goP' We
began to run. As I panted up the steep opposite bank
of the arroyo, I looked back. Gil Tomas was right be-
hind me, with a red- and black-checked serape round
his shoulders. Don Petronilo came in sight, shooting
back over his shoulder, with Juan Santillanes at his
side. In front raced Fernando Silveyra, bending low
over his horse's neck. All around the hacienda was a
ring of galloping, shooting, yelling men ; and as far as
the eye could reach, on every rise of the desert, came
more.

CHAPTER XI

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

JUAN VALLEJO was already far ahead, running
doggedly with his rifle in one hand. I shouted
to him to turn off the high road, and he obeyed,
without looking back. I followed. It was a straight
path through the desert toward the mountains. The
desert was as bald as a billiard table here. We could
be seen for miles. My camera got between my legs.
I dropped it. My overcoat became a terrible weight.
I shook it off. We could see the compafleros fleeing
wildly up the Santo Domingo road. Beyond them unex-

INSURGENT MEXICO

pecteiily appeared a wave of galloping men — the flank-
ing party from the south. The shooting broke out
again — and then pursuers and pursued vanished
aroimd the comer of a little hill. Thank God the path
was diverging from the road !

I ran on — ran and ran and ran, until I could run no
more. Then I walked a few steps and ran again. I
was sobbing instead of breathing. Awful cramps
gripped my legs. Here there was more chaparral,
more brush, and the foothills of the western mountains
were near. But the entire length of the path was visi-
ble from behind. Juan Yallejo had reached the foot-
hills, half a mile ahead. I saw him crawling up a little
rise. Suddenly three armed horsemen swept in behind
him, and raised a shout. He looked around, threw his
rifle far into the brush, and fled for his life. They shot
at him, but stopped to recover the rifle. He disap-
peared over the crest, and then they did, too.

I ran. I wonder e< ;l wh^^ time j t was. I wasn't very
frightened. Everything still was so unreal, like a page
out of Richard Harding Davis. It just seemed to me
that if I didn't get away I wouldn't be doing my job
well. I kept thinking to myself: "Well, this is cer-
tainly an experience. I'm going to have something to
write about."

Then came yells and hoofs drumming in the rear.
About a hundred yards behind ran little Gil Tomas, the
ends of his gay serape flying out straight. And about
a hundred yards behind him rode two black men with
crossed bandoliers and rifles in their hands. They shot.
Gil Tomas raised a ghastly little Indian face to me,

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

and ran on. Again they shot. One bullet z-z-z-m-m-d
by my head. The boy staggered, stopped, wheeled, and
doubled suddenly into the chaparral. They turned after
him. I saw the foremost horse's hoofs strike him. The
color ados jerked their mounts to their haunches over
him, shooting down again and again. • . .

I ran into the chaparral, topped a little hill, tripped
on a mesquite root, fell, rolled down a sandy incline,
and landed in a little arroyo. Dense mesquite covered
the place. Before I could stir the colorados came
plunging down the hillside. ^'There he goes!" they
yelled, and, jumping their horses over the arroyo not
ten feet from where I lay, galloped off into the desert.
I suddenly fell asleep.

I couldn't have slept very long, for when I woke the
sun was still in about the same place, and a few scat-
tered shots could be heard way to the west, in the direc-
tion of Santo Domingo. I stared up through the brush
tangle into the hot sky, where one great vulture slowly
circled over me, wondering whether or not I was dead.
Not twenty paces away a barefooted Indian with a
rifle crouched on his motionless horse. He looked up
at the vulture, and then searched the face of the desert.
I lay still. I couldn't tell whether he was one of ours
or not. After a little time he jogged slowly north over
a hill and disappeared.

I waited about half an hour before crawling out of
the arroyo. In the direction of the hacienda they nf^re
still shooting— ^making sure of the dead, I afterward
learned. I couldn't see it. The little valley in which I

INSURGENT MEXICO

was ran roughly east and west. I traveled westward,
toward the sierra. But it was still too near the fatal
path. I stooped low and ran up over the hill, without
looking back. Beyond was another, higher, and then
another still. Running over the hills, walking in the
sheltered valleys, I bore steadily northwest, toward the
always-nearing mountains. Soon there were no more
sounds. The sun burned fiercely down, and the long
ridges of desolate country wavered in the heat. High
chaparral tore my clothes and face. Underfoot were
cactuses, century plants, and the murderous espadasy
whose long, interlaced spikes slashed my boots, drawing
blood at every step; and beneath them sand and jagged
stones. It was terrible going. The big still forms of
Spanish bayonet, astonishingly like men, stood up all
around the skyline. I stood stiffly for a moment on
the top of a high hill, in a clump of them, looking back.
The hacienda was already so far away that it was only
a white blur in the immeasurable reaches of the desert.
A thin line of dust moved from it toward the Puerta —
the colorados taking back their dead to Mapimi.

Then my heart gave a jump. A man was coining
silently up the valley. He had a green serape over one
arm, and nothing on his head but a blood-clotted hand-
kerchief. His bare legs were covered with blood from
the espadas. He caught sight of me all of a sudden,
and stood still; after a pause he beckoned. I went
down to where he was; he never said a word, but led
the way back down the valley. About a hundred yards
farther he stopped and pointed. A dead horse sprawled
in the sand, its stiff legs in the air ; beside it lay a man,

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

disemboweled by a knife or a sword — evidently a colo^
radoy because his cartridge-belt was almost full. The
man with the green serape produced a wicked-looking
dagger, still ruddy with blood, fell on his knees, and
began to dig among the espadas. I brought rocks*
We cut a branch of mesquite and made a cleft cross out
of it. And so we buried him.

"Where are you bound, compa^rof** I asked.

"For the sierra," he answered. "And you?"

I pointed north, where I knew the Giiercas' ranch
lay.

"The Pelayo is over that way — eight leagues."

"What is the Pelayo?"

^^Another hacienda. There are some of ours at the
Pelayo, I think. . . ."

We parted with an **adios.**

For hours I went on, running over the hilltops, stag-
gering through the cruel espadasy slipping down the
steep sides of dried river beds. There was no water. I
hadn't eaten or drunk. It was intensely hot.

About eleven I rounded the shoulder of a mountain
and saw the small gray patch that was Bruquilla. Here
passed the Camino Real, and the desert lay flat and
open. A mile away a tiny horseman jogged along. He
seemed to see me ; he pulled up short and looked in my
direction a long time. I stood perfectly motionless.
Pretty soon he went on, getting smaller and smaller,
until at last there was nothing but a little puff of dust.
There was no other sign of life for miles and miles. I
bent low and ran along the side of the road, where
there was no dust. Half a league westward lay the

INSURGENT MEXICO

GHierca's house, hidden in the gigantic row of
alamo trees that fringed its running brook. A long
way off I could see a little red spot on the top of the
low hill beside it; when I came nearer, I saw it was
father Giiereca, staring toward the east. He came
running down when he saw me, clenching his hands.

^^What has passed? What has passed? Is it true
that the colorados have taken the Cadena?"

I told him briefly what had happened.

^^And Longinos?'' he cried, wrenching at my arm.
**Have you seen Longinos?"

"No," I said. "The compaiieros all retreated to
Santo Domingo."

"You must not stay here," said the old man, trem-
bling.

**Let me have some water — ^I can hardly speak."

**Yes, yes, drink. There is the brook. The colora-
dos must not find you here." The old man looked
around with anguish at the little rancho he had fought
so hard to gain. "They would destroy us all."

Just then the old mother appeared in the doorway.

"Come here, Juan Reed," she cried. "Where is my
boy? Why doesn't he come? Is he dead? Tell me the
truth!"

^^Oh, I think they all got away all right," I told her.

"And you! Have you ea»ten? Have you break-
fasted?"

"I haven't had a drop of water since last night, nor
any food. And I came all the way from La Cadena on
foot."

"Poor little boy ! Poor little boy !" she wailed, put-

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

ting her arms around me. ^^Sit down now, and I will
cook you something."

Old Giiereca bit his lip in an agony of apprehension.
Finally hospitality won.

"My house is at your orders," he muttered. "But
hurry ! Hurry ! You must not be seen here ! I will go
up on the hill and watch for dust !"

I drank several quarts of water and ate four fried
eggs and some cheese. The old man had returned and
was fidgeting aroimd.

"I sent all my children to Jarral Grande," he said.
"We heard this morning. The whole valley is fleeing
to the mountains. Are you ready?"

"Stay here," invited the Sefiora. **We will hide you
from the colorados until Longinos comes home !"

Her husband screamed at her. "Are you mad? He
mustn't be found here! Are you ready now? Come on
then !"

I limped along down through a burnt, yellow corn-
field. "Follow this path," said the old man, "through
those two fields and the chaparral. It will take you
to the highroad to the Pelayo. May you go well!"
We shook hands, and a moment later I saw him shuf-
fling back up the hill with flapping sandals.

I crossed an immense valley covered with mesquite
as high as my head. Twice horsemen passed, probably
only pacificosy but I took no chances. Beyond that
valley lay another, about seven miles long. Now there
were bare mountains all around, and ahead loomed a
range of fantastic white, pink, and yellow hills. After
about four hours, with stiff legs and bloody feet, a

INSURGENT MEXICO

backache anid a spinning head, I rounded these and
came in sight of the alamo trees and low adobe walls
of the Hacienda del Pelayo.

The peons gathered around, listening to my story.

**Qiie carrai-iri-il^ they murmured. **But it is im-
possible to walk from La Cadena in one day! Pobre-
cito! You must be tired! Come now and eat. And
to-night there will be a bed.''

"My house is yours," said Don Felipe, the black-
smith, ^^ut are you quite sure the colorados are not
coming this way? The last time they paid us a visit" (he
pointed to the blackened walls of the Casa Grande) "they
killed four pacificos who refused to join them." He put
his arm through mine. "Come now, amigo, and eat."

"If there were only some place to bathe first !"

At this they smiled and led me behind the hacienda,
along a little stream overhung with willows, whose
banks were the most vivid green. The water gushed
out from under a high wall, and over that wall reared
the gnarled branches of a giant alamo. We entered a
little door ; there they left me.

The ground inside sloped sharply up, and the wall — ^it
was faded pink — followed the contour of the land. Sunk
in the middle of the enclosure was a pool of crystal water.
The bottom was white sand. At one end of the pool the
water f ountained up from a hole in the bottom. A faint
steam rose from the surface. It was hot water.

There was a man already standing up to his neck in
the water, a man with a circle shaved on the top of
his head.

"Seflior," he said, "are you a Catholic?"

MEE STERNS FLIGHT

"No.''

"Thank God," he returned briefly. "We Catholics
are liable to be intolerant. Are you a Mexican?"

"No, senor."

"It is well," he said, smiling sadly. "I am a priest
and a Spaniard. I have been made to understand that
I am not wanted in this beautiful land, senor. God is
good. But He is better in Spain than He is in Mex-

ICO. . . ."

I let myself slowly down into the pellucid, hot depths.
The pain and the soreness and the weariness fled shud-
dering up my body. I felt like a disembodied spirit.
Floating there in the warm embrace of that marvelous
pool, with the crooked gray branches of the alamo
above our heads, we discussed philosophy. The fierce
sky cooled slowly, and the rich sunlight climbed little
by little up the pink wall.

Don Felipe insisted that I sleep in his house, in his
bed. This bed consisted of an iron frame with loose
wooden slats stretched across it. Over these was laid
one tattered blanket. My clothing covered me. Don
FeUpe, his wife, his grown son and daughter, his two
small infants, all of whom had been accustomed to use
the bed, lay down upon the soft floor. There were also
two sick persons in the room — a very old man covered
with red spots, too far gone to speak, and a boy with
extraordinarily swollen tonsils. Occasionally a cen-
tenarian hag entered and ministered unto the patients.
Her method of treatment was simple. With the old
man she merely heated a piece of iron at the candle
and touched the spots. For the boy's case she made

INSURGENT MEXICO

a paste of corn-meal and lard, and gently rubbed his
elbows with it, loudly saying prayers. This went on at
intervals all night. Between treatments the babies
would wake up at intervals and insist upon being
nursed. • • • The door was shut early in the evening,
and windows there were none.

Now all this hospitality meant a real sacrifice to
Don Felipe, especially the meals, at which he unlocked
a tin trunk and brought me with all reverence his pre-
cious sugar and coffee. He was, like all peons, incredi-
bly poor and lavishly hospitable. The giving up of his
bed was a mark of the highest honor, too. But when I
tried to pay him in the morning he wouldn't hear of it.

"My house is youBS," he repeated. ** *A stranger
might be God,' as we say."

Finally I told him that I wanted him to buy me
some tobacco, and he took the money. I knew then
that it would go to the right place, for a Mexican can
be trusted never to carry out a commission. He is de-
lightfully irresponsible.

At six o'clock in the morning I set out for Santo
Domingo in a two-wheeled cart driven by an old peon
named Froilan Mendarez. We avoided the main road,
jolting along by a mere track that led behind a range
of hills. After we'd traveled for about an hour, I had
an unpleasant thought.

**What if the compafleros fled beyond Santo Do-
mingo and the color ados are there?"

"What indeed?" murmured Froilan, chirruping to
the mule.

"But if they are, what'll we do?"

MEESTER'S FLIGHT

Froilan thought a minute, "We might say we were
cousins to President Huerta," he suggested, without a
smile. Froilan was a barefooted peon, his face and
hands incredibly damaged by age and dirt; I was a
ragged Gringo. • • •

We jogged on for several hours. At one place an
armed man started out of the brush and hailed us.
His lips were split and leathery with thirst. The
espadas had slashed his legs terribly. He had escaped
over the Sierra, climbing and slipping all night. We
gave him all the water and food we had, and he went on
toward the Pelayo.

Long after noon our cart topped the last desert rise,
and we saw sleeping below us the long spread-out ha-
cienda of Santo Domingo, with its clump of tall alamos
like palm trees around the oasis-like spring. My heart
was in my mouth as we drove down. In the big ribota
court the peons were playing hand ball. Up from the
spring moved the long line of water carriers. A fire
sent up thin smoke among the trees.

We came upon an aged peon carrying fagots. **No,"
he said, "there had been no colorados. The Maderis-
tas? Yes, they had come last night — ^hundreds of
them, all running. But at dawn they had gone back to
La Cadena to *lift the fields' (bury the dead).''

From around the fire under the alamos came a great
shout: "The meester! Here comes the meester! Qtie
tal, compafierof How did you escape?" It was my
old friends, the peddlers. They crowded around
eagerly, questioning, shaking my hand, throwing their
arms around me.

INSURGENT MEXICO

^^Ah, but that was close! Carramba, but I was
lucky! Did I know that Longinos Giiereca was killed?
Yes, but he shot six colorados before they got him.
And Martinez also, and Nicanor, and Redondo."

I felt sick. Sick to think of so many useless deaths
in such a petty fight. Blithe, beautiful Martinez;
'Gino Giiereca, whom I had learned to love so much ;
Redondo, whose girl was even then on her way to Chi-
huahua to buy her wedding dress; and jolly Nicanor.
It seems that when Redondo found that his flank had
been turned his troop deserted him; so he galloped
alone toward La Cadena, and was caught by three hun-
dred colorados. They literally shot him to pieces.
'Gino, and Luis Martinez, and Nicanor, with five
others, held the eastward side of the hacienda unaided
until their cartridges were gone, and they were sur-
rounded by a ring of shooting men. Then they died.
The colorados carried off the Colonel's woman.

^^But there's a man who's been through it all," said
one of the peddlers. "He fought till his last cartridge
was gone, and then cut his way through the enemy with
a saber."

I looked around. Surrounded by a ring of gaping
peons, his lifted arm illustrating the great deed, was
— ^Apolinario! He caught sight of me, nodded coldly,
as to one who has run from the fight, and went on with
his recitaL

All through the long afternoon Froilan and I played
ribota with the peons. It was a drowsy, peaceful day.
A gentle wind rustled the high branches of the great

ELIZABETTA

tree3, and the late sun, from behind the hlU that is
back of Santo Domingo, warmed with color their lofty
tops.

It was a strange sunset. The sky became overcast
with light cloud toward the end of the afternoon. First
it turned pink, then scarlet, then of a sudden the whole
firmament became a deep, bloody red.

An inmiense drunken man — an Indian about seven
feet tall — staggered out in the open ground near the
ribota court with a violin in his hand. He tucked it
under his chin and sawed raggedly on the strings, stag-
gering to and fro as he played. Then a little one-
armed dwarf sprang out of the crowd of peons and be-
gan to dance. A dense throng made a circle around
the two, roaring with mirth.

And just at that moment there appeared against the
bloody sky, over the eastern hill, the broken, defeated
men — on horseback and on foot, wounded and whole,
weary, sick, disheartened, reeling and limping down
to Santo Domingo. • • •

CHAPTER Xn

ELIZABETTA

SO, against a crimson sky, the beaten, exhausted
soldiers came down the hill. Some rode, their
horses hanging we&ry heads — occasionally two
on a horse. Others walked, with bloody bandages
around their foreheads and arms. Cartridge-belts

INSURGENT MEXICO

were empty, rifles gone. Their hands and faces were
foul with sweaty dirt and stained still with powder.
Beyond the hill, across the twenty-mile arid waste that
lay between us and La Cadena, they straggled. There
were not more than fifty left, including the women — ^the
rest had dispersed in the barren mountains and the
folds of the desert — ^but they stretched out for miles;
it took hours for them to arrive.

Don Petronilo came in front, with lowered face and
folded arms, the reins hanging loose upon the neck of
his swaying, stumbUng horse. Right behind him came
Juan Santillanes, gaunt and white, his face years
older. Fernando Silveyra, all rags, dragged along at
his saddle. As they waded the shallow stream they
looked up and saw me. Don Petronilo weakly waved
his hand; Fernando shouted, *TVhy, there's meester!
How did you escape? We thought sure they had shot
you."

"I ran a race with the goats," I answered. Juan
gave a laugh. **Scared to death, eh?"

The horses thrust eager muzzles into the stream,
sucking fiercely. Juan cruelly spurred across, and we
fell into each other's arms. But Don Petronilo dis-
mounted in the water, dully, as if in a dream, and,
wading up to the tops of his boots, came to where I
was.

He was weeping. His expression didn't change, but
slow, big tears fell silently down his cheeks.

"The colorados captured his wife !" murmured Juan
in my ear.

I was filled with pity for the man.

100

..• .

ELIZABETTA

•::•:-

"It is a terrible thing, mi CoroneU" I said-'gently,
"to feel the responsibility for all these brave fe^ws
who died. But it was not your fault.'' ]/••,

"It is not that," he replied slowly, staring throt^fa*
tears at the pitiful company crawling down from the^^**'
desert. ' ^.•'

**I, too, had many friends who died in the battle,'' *.' *
I went on. "But they died gloriously, fighting for
their country."

"I do not weep for them," he said, twisting his hands
together. "This day I have lost all that is dear to me.
They took my woman who was mine, and my commis-
sion and all my papers, and all my money. But I am
wrenched with grief when I think of my silver spurs
inlaid with gold, which I bought only last year in
Mapimi!" He turned away, overcome.

And now the peons began to come down from their
houses, with pitying cries and loving offers. They
threw their arms around the soldiers' necks, assisting
the wounded, patting them shyly on the shoulders and
calling them "brave." Desperately poor themselves,
they offered food, and beds, and fodder for the horses,
inviting them to stay at Santo Domingo until they
should become well. I already had a place to sleep.
Don Pedro, the chief goatberd, had given me his room
and his bed in a gush of warm-hearted generosity, and
had removed himself and his family to the kitchen. He
did so without hope of recompense, for he thought I
had no money. And now everywhere men, women and
children left their houses to make way for the de-
feated and weary troops.

101

• •

. :.• ...INSURGENT MEXICO

Fj&Tpando, Juan and I went over and begged some
toWpcb from the four peddlers camped under the trees
btffjde the spring. They had made no sales for a week,
and were ahnost starving, but they loaded us lavishly
*'with Tnacuche. We talked of the battle, lying there on
• our elbows watching the shattered remnants of the
garrison top the hill.

**You have heard that 'Gino Giiereca fell," said Fer-
nando. ^^Well, I saw him. His big gray horse that he
rode for the first time was terrified by the bridle and
saddle. But once he came where the bullets were fljjlpg
and the guns roaring, he steadied at once. Pure facc^
that horse. . • . His fathers must have been all war-
riors. Around 'Gino were four or five more heroes,
with almost all their cartridges gone. They fought
until on the front and on both sides double galloping
lines of colorados closed in. 'Gino was standing beside
his horse — suddenly a score of shots hit the animal all
at once, and he sighed and fell over. The rest ceasecL
firing in a sort of panic. *We're lost!' they crie4*'?9f
*Run while there is yet a chance!' 'Gino shook hi|^
smoking rifle at them. ^>No,' he shouted. ^Give the
compafleroa time to get away!' Shortly after that
they closed around him, and I never saw him until we
buried his body this morning. • • • It was the devil's
hell out there. The rifles were so hot you couldn't
touch the barrels, and the whirling haze that belched
out when they shot twisted everything like a mir-
age. • • • -^^^

Juan broke in. **We rode straight out toward the
Puerta when the retreat began, but almost immediately

10«

ELIZABETTA

we saw it was no use. The colonidoi broke over our
little handfuls of men like waves of the sea. Martinez
was just ahead. He never had a chance even to fire his
gun — and this was his first battle, too. They hit him
as he rode. • • • I thought how you and Martinez
loved each other. You used to talk together at night
so warmly, and never wished to leave each other to
sleep. . . ."

Now the tall, naked tops of the trees had dulled with
the passing of the light, and seemed to stand still
£mong the swarming stars in the deep dome overhead.

f riW peddlers had kindled their tiny fire ; the low, con-
tented murmur of their gossip floated to us. Open
doors of the peons' huts shed wavering candlelight.
Up from the river wound a silent line of black-robed
girls with water- jars on their heads. Women ground
their corn-meal with a monotonous stony scraping.
Dogs barked. Drumming hoofs marked the passing of

•^ the cabaUada to the river. Along the ledge in front of
Don Pedro's house the warriors smoked and fought the
battle over again, stamping around and shouting
descriptive matter. "I took my rifle by the barrel

and smashed in his grinning face, just as " some

one was narrating, with gestures. The peons squatted
around, breathlessly listening. • • • And still the
ghastly procession of the defeated straggled down the
road and across the river.

It was not yet quite dark. I wandered down to the

3bank to watch them, in the vague hope of finding some
of my compadres who were still reported missing. And
it was there that I first saw Elizabetta.

103

INSURGENT MEXICO

There was nothing remarkable about her. I think I
noticed her chiefly because she was one of the few
women in that wretched company. She was a very
dark-skinned Indian girl, about twenty-five years old,
with the squat figure of her drudging race, pleasant
features, hair hanging forward over her shoulders in
two long plaits, and big, shining teeth when she smiled.
I never did find out whether she had been just a peon
woman working around La Cadena when the attack had
come, or whether she was a vieja — ^a camp follower of
the army.

Now she was trudging stolidly along in the dust be-
hind Captain Felix Romero's horse — and had trudged
so for thirty miles. He never spoke to her, never
Ipoked back, but rode on unconcernedly. Sometimes
> he would get tired of carrying his rifle and hand it
back to her to carry, with a careless "Here! Take
this!'' I found out later that when they returned to
La Cadena after the battle to bury the dead he had
found her wandering aimlessly in the hacienda, ap-
parently out of her mind ; and that, needing a woman,
he had ordered her to follow him. Which she did, un-
questioningly, after the custom of her sex and country.

Captain Felix let his horse drink. EMzabetta halted,
too, knelt and plunged her face into the water.

"Come on," ordered the Captain. ^'AndaleP* She
rose without a word and waded through the stream.
In the same order they climbed the near bank, and
there the Captain dismounted, held out his hand for the
rifle she carried, and said, "Get me my supper !" Then

104

ELIZABETTA

he strolled away toward the houses where the rest of
the soldiers sat.

Elizabetta fell upon her knees and gathered twigs
for her fire. Soon there was a little pile burning. She
called a small boy in the harsh, whining voice that all
Mexican women have, "Aiel chamaco! Fetch me a lit-
tle water and com that I may feed my man!" And,
rising upon her knees above the red glow of the flames,
she shook down her long, straight black hair.* She
wore a sort of blouse of faded light blue rough cloth.
There was dried blood on the breast of it.

"What a battle, senorita !" I said to her.

Her teeth flashed as she smiled, and yet there was a
puzzling vacancy about her expression. Indians have
mask-like faces. Under it I could see that she was.
desperately tired and even a little hysterical. But she
spoke tranquilly enough.

"Perfectly," she said. "Are you the Gringo who ran
so many miles with the colorados after you shooting?"
And she laughed — catching her breath in the middle of
it as if it hurt.

The chamaco shambled up with an earthen jar of
water and an armful of corn-ears that he tumbled at
her feet. Elizabetta unwound from her shawl the
heavy little stone trough that Mexican women carry,
and began mechanically husking the com into it.

"I do not remember seeing you at La Cadena," I
said. "Were you there long?"

"Too long," she answered simply, without raising
her head. And then suddenly, "Oh, but this war is no
game for women!" she cried.

106

INSURGENT MEXICO

Don Felix loomed up out of the dark, with a ciga-
rette in his mouth.

"My dinner," he growled. "Is it pronto?**

**Lv£gOy ItLegoT* she answered. He went away again.

"Listen, seiior, whoever you are!" said Elizabetta
swiftly, looking up to me. "My lover was killed yes-
terday in the battle. This man is my man, but, by
God and all the Saints, I can't sleep with him this
night. Let me stay then with you!"

There wasn't a trace of coquetry in her voice. This
blundering, childish spirit had found itself in a situa-
tion it couldn't bear, and had chosen the instinctive
way out. I doubt if she even knew herself why the
thought of this new man so revolted her, with her lover
scarcely cold in the ground. I was nothing to her, nor
she to me. That was all that mattered.

I assented, and together we left the fire, the Cap-
tain's neglected corn spilling from the stone trough.
And then we met him a few feet into the darkness.

"My dinner!" he said impatiently. His voice
changed. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going with this senor," Elizabetta answered
nervously. "I'm going to stay with him "

"You ^" began Don Felix, gulping. "You are

my woman. Oiga^ seiior, this is my woman here !"

"Yes," I said. "She is your woman. I have noth-
ing to do with her. But she is very tired and not well,
and I have offered her my bed for the night."

"This is very bad, sefior!" exclaimed the Captain,
in a tightening voice. "You are the guest of this

106

ELIZABETTA

Tropa and the Colonel's friend, but this is my woman
and I want her "

"Oh!" Elizabetta cried out. '^ntil the next time,
sefior!" She caught my arm and pulled me on.

We had been living in a nightmare of battle and
death — ^all of us. I think everybody was a little dazed
and excited. I know I was.

By this time the peons and soldiers had begun to
gather around us, and as we went on the Captain's
voice rose as he retailed his injustice to the crowd.

"I shall appeal to the Colonel," he was saying. **I
shall tell the Colonel!" He passed us, going toward
the Colonel's cuartel, with averted, mumbling face,

**0%ga^ mi CoronelP* he cried. **This Gringo has
taken away my woman. It is the grossest insult!"

"Well," returned the Colonel cahnly, "if they both
want to go, I guess there isn't anything we can do
about it, eh?"

The news had traveled like light. A throng of small
boys followed us close behind, shouting the joyful in-
delicacies they shout behind rustic wedding parties.
We passed the ledge where the soldiers and the wounded
sat, grinning and making rough, genial remarks as at a
marriage. It was not coarse or suggestive, their ban-
ter ; it was frank and happy. They were honestly glad
for us.

As we approached Don Pedro's house we were aware
of many candles within. He and his wife and daugh-
ter were busy with brooms, sweeping and resweeping
the earthen floor, and sprinkling it with water. They
had put new linen on the bed, and lit the rush candle

107

INSURGENT MEXICO

before the table altar of the Virgin, Over the doorway
hung a festoon of paper blossoms, faded relics of many
a Christmas Eve celebration — for it was winter, and
there were no real flowers.

Don Pedro was radiant with smiles. It made no dif-
ference who we were, or what our relation was. Here
were a man and a maid, and to him it was a bridal.

"May you have a happy night," he said softly, and
closed the door. The frugal Elizabetta immediately
made the rounds of the room, extinguishing all the
candles but one.

And then, outside, we heard music beginning to tune
up. Some one had hired the village orchestra to sere-
nade us. Late into the night they played steadily,
right outside our door. In the next house we heard
them moving chairs and tables out of the way ; and just
before I went to sleep they began to dance there, eco-
nomically combining a serenade with a baUe.

Without the least embarrassment, Elizabetta lay
down beside me on the bed. Her hand reached for
mine. She snuggled against my body for the comfort-
ing human warmth of it, murmured, "Until morning,'*
and went to sleep. And calmly, sweetly, sleep came to
me. . • .

When I woke in the morning she was gone. I opened
my door and looked out. Morning had come daz-
zlingly, all blue and gold — a heaven of flame-trimmed
big white clouds and windy sky, and the desert brazen
and luminous. Under the ashy bare trees the ped-
dlers' morning fire leaped horizontal in the wind. The
black women, with wind-folded draperies, crossed the

108

ELIZABETTA

open ground to the river in single file, with red water-
jars on their heads. Cocks crew, goats clamored for
milking, and a hundred horses drummed up the dust as
they were driven to water.

Elizabetta was squatted over a little fire near the
corner of the house, patting tortillas for the Captain's
breakfast. She smiled as I came up, and politely asked
me if I had slept well. She was quite contented now;
you knew from the way she sang over her work.

Presently the Captain came up in a surly manner
and nodded briefly to me.

"I hope it's ready now," he grunted, taking the tor-
tiUas she gave him. ^^You take a long time to cook a
little breakfast. Carramha! Why is there no coflTee?"
He moved oflT, munching. "Get ready,'* he flung back
over his shoulder. "We go north in an hour."

"Are you going?" I asked curiously. Elizabetta
looked at me with wide-open eyes.

"Of course I am going. Segurol Is he not my
man?" She looked after him admiringly. She was no
longer revolted.

"He is my man," she said. "He is very handsome,
and very brave. Why, in the battle the other day "

Elizabetta had forgotten her lover.

PART TWO

FRANCISCO VILLA

CHAPTER I

VILLA ACCEPTS A MEDAL

IT was while Villa was in Chihuahua City, two
weeks before the advance on Torreon, that the
artillery corps of his army decided to present
him with a gold medal for personal heroism on the field.

In the audience hall of the Governor's palace in Chi-
huahua, a place of ceremonial, great luster chandeliers,
heavy crimson portieres, and gaudy American wallpa-
per, there is a throne for the governor. It is a gilded
chair, with lion's claws for arms, placed upon a dais
under a canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by a
heavy, gilded, wooden cap, which tapers up to a crowh.

The officers of artillery, in smart blue uniforms faced
with black velvet and gold, were solidly banked across
one end of the audience hall, with flashing new swords
and their gilt-braided hats stiffly held under their arms.
From the door of that chamber, around the gallery,
down the state staircase, across the grandiose inner
court of the palace, and out through the imposing
gates to the street, stood a double line of sol-
diers, with their rifles at present arms. Four regi-
mental bands grouped in one wedged in the crowd. The
people of the capital were massed in solid thousands on
the Plaza de Armas before the palace.

lis

INSURGENT MEXICO

''Taviener "Here he comes ^ "Viva ViUa P' "Viva
Madero r "ViUa, the Friend of the Poor !"

The roar began at the back of the crowd and swept
like fire in heavy growing crescendo until it seemed to
toss thousands of hats above their heads. The band in
the courtyard struck up the Mexican national air,
and Villa came walking down the street.

He was dressed in an old plain khaki uniform, with
several buttons lacking. He hadn't recently shaved,
wore no hat, and his hair had not been brushed. He
walked a little pigeon-toed, humped over, with his hands
in his trousers pockets. As he entered the aisle be-
tween the rigid lines of soldiers he seemed slightly em-
barrassed, and grinned and nodded to a compadre here
and there in the ranks. At the foot of the grand stair-
case, Governor Chao and Secretary of State Terrazzas
joined him in fuU-dress uniform. The band threw off
all restraint, and, as Villa entered the audience cham-
ber, at a signal from someone in the balcony of the
palace, the great throng in the Plaza de Armas uncov-
ered, and all the brilliant crowd of officers in the room
saluted stiffly.

It was Napoleonic!

ViUa hesitated for a minute, puUing his mustache
and looking very uncomfortable, finally gravitated to-
ward the throne, which he tested by shaking the arms,
and then sat down, with the Governor on his right and
the Secretary of State on his left.

Senor Bauche Alcalde stepped forward, raised his
right hand to the exact position which Cicero took
when denouncing Catiline, and pronounced a short dis-

114

VILLA ACCEPTS A MEDAL

course, indicting Villa for personal bravery on the field
on six counts, which he mentioned in florid detail. He
was followed by the Chief of Artillery, who said: "The
army adores you. We will follow you wherever you
lead. You can be what you desire in Mexico." Then
three other officers spoke in the high-flung, extrava-
gant periods necessary to Mexican oratory. They
called him "The Friend of the Poor," "The Invincible
General," "The Inspirer of Courage and Patriotism,"
"The Hope of the Indian Republic." And through it
all Villa slouched on the throne, his mouth hanging
open, his little shrewd eyes playing around the room.
On e or twice he yawned, but for the most part he
seemed to be speculating, with some intense interior
amusement, like a small boy in church, what it was all
about. He knew, of course, that it was the proper
thing, and perhaps felt a slight vanity that all this
conventional ceremonial was addressed to him. But it
bored him just the same.

Finally, with an impressive gesture, Colonel Servin
stepped forward with the small pasteboard box which
held the medal. General Chao nudged Villa, who stood
up. The officers applauded violently; the crowd out-
side cheered; the band in the court burst into a tri-
tunphant march.

Villa put put both hands eagerly, like a child for a
new toy. He could hardly wait to open the box and
see what was inside. An expectant hush fell upon every-
one, even the crowd in the square. Villa looked at the
medal, scratching his head, and, in a reverent silence,
said clearly: "This is a hell of a little thing to give

115

INSURGENT MEXICO

a man for all that heroism you are talking about!"
And the bubble of Empire was pricked then and there
with a great shout of laughter.

They waited for him to speak — ^to make a conven-
tional address of acceptance. But as he looked around
the room at those brilliant, educated men, who said
that they would die for Villa, the peon, and meant it,
and as he caught sight through the door of the ragged
soldiers, who had forgotten their rigidity and were
crowding eagerly into the corridor with eyes fixed
eagerly on the compafiero that they loved, he realized
something of what the Revolution signified.

Puckering up his face, as he did always when he con-
centrated intensely, he leaned across the table in front
of him and poured out, in a voice so low that people
could hardly hear : "There is no word to speak. All I
can say is my heart is all to you.'* Then he nudged
Chao and sat down, spitting violently on the floor ; and
Chao pronounced the classic discourse.

CHAPTER n

THE RISE OF A BANDIT

VILLA was an outlaw for twenty-two years.
When he was only a boy of sixteen, delivering
milk in the streets of Chihuahua, he killed a
government official and had to take to the mountains.
The story is that the official had violated his sister,
but it seems probable that Villa killedi hiih on account

116

THE RISE OF A BANDIT

of his insufferable insolence. That in itself would not
have outlawed him long in Mexico, where human life
is cheap; but once a refugee he committed the unpar-
donable crime of stealing cattle from the rich hacenda-
do8. And from that time to the outbreak of the Ma-
dero revolution the Mexican government had a price
on his head.

Villa was the son of ignorant peons. He had never
been to school. He hadn't the slightest conception of
the complexity of civilization, and when he finally
came back to it, a mature man of extraordinary native
shrewdness, he encountered the twentieth century with
the naive simplicity of a savage.

It is almost impossible to procure accurate informa-
tion about his career as a bandit. There are accounts
of outrages he committed in old files of local newspa-
pers and government reports, but those sources are
prejudiced, and his name became so prominent as a
bandit that every train robbery and hold-up and mur-
der in northern Mexico was attributed to Villa. But
an immense body of popular legend grew up among the
peons around his name. There are many traditional
songs and ballads celebrating his exploits — ^you can
hear the shepherds singing them around their fires in
the mountains at night, repeating verses handed down
by their fathers or composing others extemporane-
ously. For instance, they tell the story of how Villa,
fired by the story of the misery of the peons on the
Hacienda of Los Alamos, gathered a small army and
descended upon the Big House, which he looted, and
distributed the spoils among the poor people. He

117

INSURGENT MEXICO

idrove off thousands of cattle from the Terrazzas range
and ran them across the border. He would suddenly
descend upon a prosperous mine and seize the bullion.
When he needed com he captured a granary belonging
to some rich man. He recruited almost openly in the
villages far removed from the well-traveled roads and
railways, organizing the outlaws of the mountains.
Many of the present rebel soldiers used to belong to
his band and several of the Constitutionalist generals,
like Urbina. His range was confined mostly to southern
Chihuahua and northern Durango, but it extended
from Coahuila right across the Republic to the State
of Sinaloa.

His reckless and romantic bravery is the subject of
countless poems. They tell, for example, how one of
his band named Reza was captured by the rurales and
bribed to betray Villa. Villa heard of it and sent word
into the city of Chihuahua that he was coming for
Reza. In broad dayli^t he entered the city on horse-
back, took ice cream on the Plaza — ^the ballad is very
explicit on this point — and rode up and down the
streets until he found Reza strolling with his sweet-
heart in the Sunday crowd on the Paseo Bolivar, where
he shot him and escaped. In time of famine he fed
whole districts, and took care of entire villages evicted
by the soldiers under Forfirio Diaz's outrageous land
law. Everywhere he was known as The Friend of the
Poor. He was the Mexican Robin Hood.

In all these years he learned to trust nobody. Often
in his secret journeys across the country with one
faithful companion he camped in some desolate spot

118

THE RISE OF A BANDIT

and dismissed his guide; then, leaving a fire burning,
he rode all night to get away from the faithful com-
panion. That is how Villa learned the art of war, and
in the field to-day, when the army comes into camp at
night. Villa flings the bridle of his horse to an orderly,
takes a serape over his shoulder, and sets out for the
hills alone. He never seems to sleep. In the dead of
night he will appear somewhere along the line of out-,
posts to see if the sentries are on the job; and in the
morning he returns from a totally different direction.
No one, not even the most trusted officer of his staff,
knows the least of his plans until he is ready for action.

When Madero took the field in 1910, Villa was still
an outlaw. Perhaps, as his enemies say, he saw a
chance to whitewash himself ; perhaps, as seems proba-
ble, he was inspired by the Revolution of the peons.
Anyway, about three months after they rose in arms.
Villa suddenly appeared in El Paso and put himself,
his band, his knowledge of the country and all his for-
tune at the command of Madero. The vast wealth that
people said he must have accumulated during his
twenty years of robbery turned out to be 86S silver
pesos^ badly worn. Villa became a Captain in the Ma-
derista army, and as such went to Mexico City with
Madero and Was made honorary general of the new
rurales. He was attached to Huerta's army when it
was sent;«north to put down the Orozco Revolution,
yilla. ^^oomianded the garrison of Parral, and defeated
OrozcO?nth an inferior force in the only decisive bat-
tle of rite- war.

•^..-

119

IXSURGEXT ]IIEXICO

Hneita pat Villa in coimwind of the adrmnoe, and kt
liini and the veterans of Madero's army do the danger-
oas and dirty work while the old line Federal regiments
1*7 back under ibe protection of their artOkry. In
Junenez Hoerta suddenly summoned Villa before a
court-martial and charged him with insubordination —
c l a iming to have wired an order to Villa in l^arral,
which order Villa said he never received. The court-
martial lasted fifteen minutes, and Huerta's most pow-
erful future antagonist was sentenced to be shot.

Alfonso Madero, who was on Huerta's staff, stayed
the execution, but President Madero, forced to back
up the orders of his commander in the field, imprisoned
Villa in the Penitentiary of the capitaL During all
this time Villa never wavered in his loyalty to Madero
— an unheard-of thing in Mexican history. For a long
tune he had passionately wanted an education. Now he
wasted no time in regrets or political intrigue. He set
himself with all his force to learn to read and write.
Villa hadn't the slightest foundation to work upon. He
spoke the crude Spanish of the very poor — ^what is
called pelado. He knew nothing of the rudiments or
philosophy of language; and he started out to learn
those first, because he always must know the why of
things. In nine months he could write a very fair
hand and read the newspapers. It is interesting now
to see him read, or, rather, hear him, for he has to
drone the words aloud like a small child. Finally, the
Madero government connived at his escape from
prison, either to save Huerta's face because Villa's
friends had demanded an investigation, or because Ma-

ISO

THE RISE OF A BANDIT

(dero was convinced of his innocence and didn't dare
openly to release him.

From that time to the outbreak of the last revolu-
tion, Villa lived in El Paso, Texas, and it was from
there that he set out, in April, 1913, to conquer Mex-
ico with four companions, three led horses, two pounds
of sugar and coffee, and a pound of salt.

There is a little story connected with that. He
hadn't money enough to buy horses, nor had any of
his companions. But he sent two of them to a local
livery stable to rent riding horses every day for a week.
They always paid carefully at the end of the ride, so
when they asked for eight horses the livery stable man
had no hesitation about trusting them with them. Six
months later, when Villa came triumphantly into
Juarez at the head of an army of four thousand men,
the first public act he committed was to send a man
with double the price of the horses to the owner of the
livery stable.

He recruited in the mountains near San Andres, and
so great was his popularity that within one month he
had raised an army of three thousand men; in two
months he had driven the Federal garrisons all over the
State of Chihuahua back into Ckihuahua City; in six
months he had taken Torreon; and in seven and a half
Juarez had fallen to him, Mercado's Federal army had
evacuated Chihuahua, and Northern Mexico was al-
most free.

INSURGENT MEXICO

CHAPTER m

A PEON IN POLITICS

VILLA proclaimed himself military governor of
the State of Chihuahua, and began the ex-
traordinary experiment— extraordinary be-
cause he knew nothing about it — of creating a govern-
ment for 800,000 people out of his head.

It has often been said that Villa succeeded because
he had educated advisers. As a matter of fact, he was
almost alone. What advisers he had spent most of
their time answering his eager questions and doing
what he told them. I used sometimes to go to the Gov-
ernor's palace early in the morning and wait for him
in the Governor's chamber. About eight o'clock Syl-
vestre Terrazzas, the Secretary of State, Sebastian
Vargas, the State Treasurer, and Manuel Chao, then
Interventor, would arrive, very bustling and busy, with
huge piles of reports, suggestions and decrees which
they had drawn up. Villa himself came in about eight-
thirty, threw himself into a chair, and made them read
out loud to him. Every minute he would interject a
remark, correction or suggestion. Occasionally he
waved his finger back and forward and said: "No
sirve.** When they were all through he began rapidly
and without a halt to outline the policy of the State of
Chihuahua, legislative, financial, judicial, and even edu-
cational. When he came to a place that bothered him,
he said: ^How do they do that?" And then, after

122

A PEON IN POLITICS

it was carefully explained to him: *^Why?" Most of
the acts and usages of government seemed to him ex-
traordinarily unnecessary and snarled up. For exam-
ple, his advisers proposed to finance the Revolution
by issuing State bonds bearing SO or 40 per cent, in-
terest. He said, ^^I can understand why the State
should pay something to people for the rent of their
money, but how is it just to pay the whole sum back
to them three or four times over?" He couldn't see
why rich men should be granted huge tracts of land
and poor men should not. The whole complex struc-
ture of civilization was new to him. You had to be a
philosopher to explain anything to Villa; and his ad-
visers were only practical men.

There was the financial question. It came to Villa in
this way. He noticed, all of a sudden, that there was
no money in circulation. The farmers who produced
meat and vegetables refused to come into the city mar-
kets any more because no one had any money to buy
from them. The truth was that those possessing sil-
ver or Mexican bank-notes buried them in the ground.
Chihuahua not being a manufacturing center, and the
few factories there having closed down, there was noth-
ing which could be exchanged for food. So, like a
blight, the paralysis of the production of food began
all at once and actual starvation stared at the town
populations. I remember hearing vaguely of several
highly elaborate plans for the relief of this condition
put forward by Villa's advisers. He himself said:
**Why, if all they need is money, let's print some." So

123

INSURGENT MEXICO

they inked up the printing press in the basement of
the Governor's palace and ran off two million pesos
on strong paper, stamped with the signatures of gov-
ernment officials, and with Villa's name printed across
the middle in large letters. The counterfeit money,
which afterward flooded El Paso, was distinguished
from the original by the fact that the names of the
officials were signed instead of stamped.

This first issue of currency was guaranteed by abso-
lutely nothing but the name of Francisco Villa. It was
issued chiefly to revive the petty internal commerce of
the State so that the poor people could get food. And
yet almost immediately it was bought by the banks of
El Paso at 18 to 19 cents on the dollar because Villa
guaranteed it.

Of course he knew nothing of the accepted ways of
getting his money into circulation. He began to pay
the army with it. On Christmas Day he called
the poor people of Chihuahua together and gave them
$15 apiece outright. Then he issued a short decree,
ordering the acceptance of his money at par through-
out the State. The succeeding Saturday the market-
places of Chihuahua and the other nearby towns
swarmed with farmers and with buyers. Villa issued
another proclamation, fixing the price of beef at seven
cents a pound, milk at five cents a quart, and bread at
four cents a loaf. There was no famine in Chihuahua.
But the big merchants, who had timidly reopened their
stores for the first time since his entry into Chihuahua^
placarded their goods with two sets of price marks —
one for Mexican silver money and bank-bills, and the

124

A PEON IN POLITICS

other for *Villa money.' He stopped that by another
decree, ordering sixty days' imprisonment for anybody
who discriminated against his currency.

But still the silver and bank-bills refused to come
out of the ground, and these Villa needed to buy arms
and supplies for his army. So he simply proclaimed
to the people that after the tenth of February Mexican
silver and bank-bills would be regarded as counterfeit,
and that before that time they could be exchanged for
his own money at par in the State Treasury. But the
large sums of the rich still eluded him. Most of the
financiers declared that it was all a bluff, and held on.
But lo ! on the morning of February tenth, a decree was
pasted up on the walls all over Chihuahua City, an-
nouncing that from that time on all Mexican silver
and bank-notes were counterfeit and could not be ex-
changed for Villa money in the Treasury, and anyone
attempting to pass them was liable to sixty days in the
penitentiary. A great howl went up, not only from
the capitalists, but from the shrewd misers of distant
villages.

About two weeks after the issue of this decree, I was
taking lunch with Villa in the house which he had con-
fiscated from Manuel Gomeros and used as his official
residence. A delegation of three peons in sandals ar-
rived from a village in the Tarahumare to protest
against the Counterfeit Decree.

^^But, mi General,^^ said the spokesman, *Ve did not
hear of the decree until to-day. We have been using
bank-bills and silver in our village. We had not seen
your money, and we did not know. . . ."

185

INSURGENT MEXICO

^rSTou have a good deal of money?" interrupted Villa
suddenly.

"Yes, mi General.**

**Three or four or five thousand, perhaps?"

*^More than that, mi General.**

**Sefiores," Villa squinted at them ferociously, "sam-
ples of my money reached your village within twenty-
four hours after it was issued. You decided that my
government would not last. You dug holes under your
fireplaces and put the silver and bank-notes there. You
knew of my first proclamation a day after it was posted
up in the streets of Chihuahua, and you ignored it.
The Counterfeit Decree you also knew as soon as it was
issued. You thought there was always time to change
if it became necessary. And then you got frightened,
and you three, who have more money than anyone
else in the village, got on your mules and rode down
here. Sefiores, your money is counterfeit. You are
poor men !"

**Valgame diosl** cried the oldest of the three, sweat-
ing profusely.

"But we are ruined, mi General! — ^I swear to you —
We did not know — ^We would have accepted — ^There is
no food in the village "

The Greneral in Chief meditated for a moment.

**I will give you one more chance," he said, "not for
you, but for the poor people of your village who can
buy nothing. Next Wednesday at noon bring all your
money, every cent of it, to the Treasury, and I will see
what can be done."

To the perspiring financiers who waited hat in hand

126

A PEON IN POLITICS

out In the hall, the news spread by word of mouth ; and
Wednesday at high noon one could not pass the Treas-
ury door for the eager mob gathered there^

Villa's great passion was schools. He believed that
land for the people and schools would settle every ques-
tion of civilization. Schools were an obsession with
him. Often I have heard him say: *^When I passed
such and such a street this morning I saw a lot of kids.
Let's put a school there." Chihuahua has a population
of under 40,000 people. At different times Villa estab-
lished over fifty schools there. The great dream of his
life has been to send his son to school in the United
States, but at the opening of the term in February he
had to abandon it because he didn't have money enough
to pay for a half year's tuition.

No sooner had he taken over the government of
Chihuahua than he put his army to work running the
electric light plant, the street railways, the telephone,
the water works and the Terrazzas flour mill. He
delegated soldiers to administer the great haciendas
which he had confiscated. He manned the slaughter-
house with soldiers, and sold Terrazzas's beef to the
people for the government. A thousand of them he
put in the streets of the city as civil police, prohibiting
on pain of death stealing, or the sale of liquor to the
army. A soldier who got drunk was shot. He even
tried to run the brewery with soldiers, but failed be-
cause he couldn't find an expert maltster. **The only
thing to do with soldiers in time of peace," said Villa,

127

INSURGENT MEXICO

*^is to put them to work. An idle soldier is always
thinking of war/'

In the matter of the political enemies of the Revolu-
tion he was just as simple, just as effective. Two
hours after he entered the Governor's palace the for-
eign consuls came in a body to ask his protection for
SOO Federal soldiers who had been left as a police force
at the request of the foreigners. Before answering
them, Villa said suddenly: ^^Which is the Spanish con-
sul?'* Scobell, the British vice-consul, said: **I repre-
sent the Spaniards." "All right!" snapped Villa.
^^Tell them to begin to pack. Any Spaniard caught
within the boundaries of this State after five days will
be escorted to the nearest wall by a £ring squad."

The consuls gave a gasp of horror. Scobell began a
violent protest, but Villa cut him short.

"This is not a sudden determination on my part,"
he said; ^'I have been thinking about this since 1910.
The Spaniards must go."

Letcher, the American consul, said: **General, I
'don't question your motives, but I think you are mak-
^g A grave political mistake in expelling the Span-
iards. The government at Washington will hesitate a
long time before becoming friendly to a party which
makes use of such barbarous measures."

"Senor Consul," answered Villa, "we Mexicans have
had three hundred years of the Spaniards. They have
not changed in character since the Conqvistadores.
They disrupted the Indian empire and enslaved the
people. We did not ask them to mingle their blood
with ours. Twice we drove them out of Mexico and

128

A PEON IN POLITICS

allowed them to return with the same rights as Mex-
icans, and they used these rights to steal away our
land, to make the people slaves, and to take up arms
against the cause of liberty. They supported Porfirio
Diaz. They were perniciously active in politics. It
was the Spaniards who framed the plot that put Huerta
in the palace. When Madero was murdered the
Spaniards in every State in the Republic held banquets
of rejoicing. They thrust on us the greatest super-
stition the world has ever known — ^the Catholic Church.
They ought to be killed for that alone. I consider we
are being very generous with them.'*

Scobell insisted vehemently that five days was too
short a time, that he couldn't possibly reach all the
Spaniards in the State by that time ; so Villa extended
the time to ten days.

The rich Mexicans who had oppressed the people
and opposed the Revolution, he expelled promptly from
the State and confiscated their vast holdings. By a
simple stroke of the pen the 17,000,000 acres and in-
numerable business enterprises of the Terrazzas family
became the property of the Constitutionalist govern-
ment, as well as the great lands of the Creel family
and the magnificent palaces which were their town
houses. Remembering, however, how the Terrazzas
exiles had once financed the Orozco Revolution, he im-
prisoned Don Luis Terrazzas, Jr., as a hostage in his
own house in Chihuahua. Some particularly obnoxious
political enemies were promptly executed in the peni-
tentiary. The Revolution possesses a black book in
which are set down the names, offenses, and property of

129

INSURGENT MEXICO

those who have oppressed and robbed the people. The
Grermans, who had been particularly active politically,
the Englishmen and Americans, he does not yet dare to
molest. Their pages in the black book will be opened
when the Constitutionalist government is established in
Mexico City; and there, too, he will settle the account
of the Mexican people with the Catholic Church.

Villa knew that the reserve of the Banco Minero,
amounting to about $500,000 gold, was hidden some-
where in Chihuahua. Don Luis Terrazzas, Jr., was a di-
rector of that bank. When he refused to divulge the
hiding-place of the money, Villa and a squad of soldiers
took him out of his house one night, rode him on a
mule out into the desert, and strung him up to a tree
by the neck. He was cut down just in time to save
his life, and led Villa to an old forge in the Terrazzas
iron works, under which was discovered the reserve of
the Banco Minero. Terrazzas went back to prison
badly shaken, and Villa sent word to his father in £1
Paso that he would release the son upon payment of
^$500,000 ransom.

CHAPTER IV

THE HUMAN SIDE

VTTJ.A has two wives, one a patient, simple woman
who was with him during all his years of out-
lawry, who lives in El Paso, and the other a
cat-like, slender young girl, who is the mistress of his

130

THE HUMAN SffiE

house in Chihuahua. He is perfectly open about it,
though lately the educated, conventional Mexicans who
have been gathering about him in ever-increasing num-
bers have tried to hush up the fact. Among the peons
it is not only not unusual but customary to have more
than one mate.

One hears a great many stories of Villa's violating
women. I asked him if that were true. He pulled his
mustache and stared at me for a minute with an in-
scrutable expression. ^^I never take the trouble to
deny such stories," he said. ^^They say I am a bandit,
too. Well, you know my history. But tell me ; have
you ever met a husband, father or brother of any
woman that I have violated?'* He paused: "Or even
a witness?"

It is fascinating to watch him discover new ideas.
Remember that he is absolutely ignorant of the
troubles and confusions and readjustments of modern
civilization. ^^Socialism," he said once, when I wanted
to know what he thought of it: "Socialism — ^is it a
thing? I only see it in books, and I do not read much."
Once I asked him if women would vote in the new Re-
public. He was sprawled out on his bed, with his coat
unbuttoned. ^^Why, I don't think so," he said, startled,
suddenly sitting up. "What do you mean — ^vote? Do
you mean elect a government and make laws?" I said I
did and that women already were doing it in the United
States. **Well," he said, scratching his head : "if they
do it up there I donM; see that they shouldn't do it

181

INSURGENT MEXICO

down here." The idea seemed to amuse him enormously.
He rolled it over and over in his mind, looking at me
and away again. **It may be as you say," he said ; "but
I have never thought about it. Women seem to me
to be things to protect, to love. They have no stern-
ness of mind. They can't consider anything for its
right or wrong. They are full of pity and softness.
Why," he said, **a woman would not give an order to
execute a traitor."

"I am not so sure of that, mi General^** I said.
**Women can be crueller and harder than men."

He stared at me, pulling his mustache. And then
he began to grin. He looked slowly to where his wife
was setting the table for lunch. **Oigay*^ he said, ^^come
here. Listen. Last night I caught three traitors
crossing the river to blow up the railroad. What shall
I do with them? Shall I shoot them or not?"

Embarrassed, she seized his hand and kissed it. ^^Oh,
I don't know anything about that," she said, ^^ou
know best."

**No," said Villa. "I leave it entirely to you. Those
men were going to try to cut our communications be-
tween Juarez and Chihuahua. They were traitors —
Federals. What shall I do? Shall I shoot them or
not?"

"Oh, well, shoot them," said Mrs. Villa.

Villa chuckled delightedly. "There is something in
what you say," he remarked, and for Hays afterward
went around asking the cook and the chambermaids
whom they would like to have for President of Mexico.

182

THE HUMAN Sn)E

He never missed a bull-fight, and every afternoon
at four o'clock he was to be found at the cock-pit,
where he fought his own birds with the happy enthu-
siasm of a small boy. In the evening he played
faro in some gambling hall. Sometimes in the late
morning he would send a fast courier after Luis
Leon, the bull-fighter, and telephone personally to
the slaughter-house, asking if they had any fierce
bulls in the pen. They almost always did have, and
we would all get on horseback and gallop through the
streets about a mile to the big adobe corrals. Twenty
cowboys cut the bull out of the herd, threw and tied
him and cut off his sharp horns, and then Villa and
Luis Leoli and anybody else who wanted to would take
the professional red capes and go down into the ring;
Luis Leon with professional caution. Villa as stubborn
and clmnsy as the bull, slow on his feet, but swift
as an animal with his body and arms. Villa would
walk right up to the pawing, infuriated animal, and,
with his double cape, slap him insolently across the
face, and, for half an hour, would follow the greatest
sport I ever saw. Sometimes the sawed-off horns of
the bull would catch Villa in the seat of the trousers
and propel him violently across the ring; then he would
turn and grab the bull by the head and wrestle with
him with the sweat streaming down his face until five
or six companeros seized the bull's tail and hauled him
plowing and bellowing back.

Villa never drinks nor smokes, but he will outdance
the most ardent novio in Mexico. When the order was
given for the army to advance upon Torreon, ViUa

133

INSURGENT MEXICO

stopped off at Camargo to be best man at the wedding
of one of his old compadres. He danced steadily with-
out stopping, they said, all Monday night, all Tues-
day, and all Tuesday night, arriving at the front on
Wednesday morning with blood-shot eyes and an air
of extreme lassitude.

CHAPTER V

THE FUNERAL OP ABRAM GONZALES

THE fact that Villa hates useless pomp and cere-
mony makes it more impressive when he does
appear on a public occasion. He has the knack
of absolutely expressing the strong feeling of the great
mass of the people. In February, exactly one year
after Abram Gonzales was murdered by the Federals
at Bachimba Canon, Villa ordered a great funeral cere-
mony to be held in the City of Chihuahua. Two trains,
carrying the officers of the army, the consuls and repre-
sentatives of the foreign colony, left Chihuahua early
in the morning to take up the body of the dead Gov-
ernor from its resting-place under a rude wooden cross
in the desert. Villa ordered Major Fierro, his S\i-1
perintendent of Railroads, to get the trains ready — •"
but Fierro got drunk and forgot; and when Villa and
his brilliant staff arrived at the railway station the
next morning the regular passenger train to Juarez
was just leaving and there was no other equipment on
hand. Villa himself leaped on to the already moving

134

FUNERAL OF ABRAM GONZALES

engine and compelled the engineer to back the train
up to the station. Then he walked through the train,
ordering the passengers out, and switched it in the
direction of Bachimba. They had no sooner started
than he Summoned Fierro before him and discharged
him from the superintendency of the railroads, appoint-
ing Calzado in his place, and ordered the latter to re*
tuhi at once to Chihuahua and be thoroughly informed
about the railroads by the time he returned. At Ba-
chimba Villa stood silently by the grave with the tears
rolling down his cheeks. For Gonzales had been his
close friend. Ten thousand people stood in the heat
and dust at Chihuahua railway station when the funeral
train arrived, and poured weeping through the narrow
streets behind the army, at the head of which walked
Villa beside the hearse. His automobile was waiting,
but he angrily refused to ride, stumbling stubbornly
along in the dirt of the streets with his eyes on the
ground.

That night there was a velada in the Theater of the
Heroes, an immense auditorium packed with emotional
peons and their women. The ring of boxes was bril-
liant with officers in their full dress, and wedged behind
them up the five high balconies were the ragged poor.
Now, the velada is an entirely Mexican institution.
First there comes a speech, then a ^^recitation" on the
piano, then a speech, followed by a patriotic song ren-
dered by a chorus of awkward little Indian girls from
the public school with squeaky voices, another speech,

186

■fi-
-*

INSURGENT MEXICO

and a soprano solo from "Trovatore" by the wife of
some government official, still another speech, and so
on for at least five hours. Whenever there is a promi-
nent funeral, or a national holiday, or a President's
anniversary, or, in fact, an occasion of the least im-
portance, a velada must be held. It is the conventional
and respectable way of celebrating anything. Villa
sat in the left hand stage box and controlled the pro-
ceedings by tapping a little bell. The stage itself
was brilliantly hideous with black bunting, huge masses
of artificial flowers, abominable crayon portraits of
Madero, Pifio Suarez and the dead Governor, and red,
white and grmi electric lights. At the foot of all this
was a v^y small, plain, black wooden box which held
the body of Abram Gonzales.

The velada proceeded in an orderly and exhausting
manner for about two hours. Local orators, trembling
with stage fright, mouthed the customary Castilian ex-
travagant phrases, and little girls stepped on their
own feet and murdered Tosti's "Good-bye." Villa,
with his eyes riveted on that wooden box, never moved
nor spoke. At the proper time he mechanically tapped
the little bell, but after a while he couldn't stand it
any longer. A large fleshy Mexican was in the mid-
dle of Handel's **Largo" on the grand piano, when Villa
stood erect. He put his foot on the railing of the
box and leaped to the stage, knelt, and took up the
coffin in his arms. Handel's "Largo" petered out.
Silent astonishment paralyzed the audience. Holding
the black box tenderly in his arms as a mother with

186

VILLA AND CARRANZA

her baby, not looking at anyone, Villa started down
the steps of the stage and up the aisle. Instinctively,
the house rose ; and as he passed out through the swing-
ing doors they followed on silently behind him. He
strode down between the lines of waiting soldiers, his
sword banging on the floor, across the dark square to
the Governor's palace; and, with his own hands, put
the coffin on the flower-banked table waiting for it in
the audience hall. It had been arranged that four
generals in turn should stand the death watch, each
for two hours. Candles shed a dim light over the
table and the surrounding floor, but the rest of the
room was in darkness. A dense mass of silent, breath-
ing people packed the doorway. Villa unbuckled his
sword and threw it clattering into a corner. ' Then
he took his rifle from the table and stood the first
watch.

CHAPTER VI

VILLA AND CARRANZA

IT seems incredible to those who don't know him,
that this remarkable figure, who has risen from
obscurity to the most prominent position in Mex-
ico in three years, should not covet the Presidency of
the Republic. But that is in entire accordance with the
simplicity of his character. When asked about it he
answered as always with perfect directness, just in
the way that you put it to him. He didn't quibble

187

INSURGENT MEXICO

over whether he could or could not be President of
Mexico. He said: ^^I am a fighter, not a statesman.
I am not educated enough to be President. I only
learned to read and write two years ago. How could
I, who never went to school, hope to be able to talk
with the foreign ambassadors and the cultivated gen-
tlemen of the Congress? It would be bad for Mexico
if an uneducated man were to be President. There is
one thing that I wiU not do, — ^and that is to take a
position for which I am not fitted. There is only one
order of my Jefe (Carranza) which I would refuse
to obey, — ^if he would command me to be a President
or a Governor." On behalf of my paper I had to ask
him this question five or six times. Finally he became
exasperated. ^^I have told you many times," he said,
**that there is no possibility of my becoming Presi-
dent of Mexico. Are the newspapers trying to make
trouble between me and my Jefe? This is the last time
that I will answer that question. The next corre-
spondent that asks me I will have him spknked and
sent to the border." For days afterward he went
around grumbling humorously about the chatito (pug-
nose) who kept asking him whether he wanted to be
President of Mexico. The idea seemed to amuse him.
Whenever I went to see him after that he used to say,
at the end of our talk: **Well, aren't you going to ask
me to-day whether I want to be President?"

He never referred to Carranza except as "my Jefe,"
and he obeyed implicitly the slightest order from "the

188

VILLA AND CARRANZA

First Chief of the Revolution.'* His loyalty to Car-
ranza was perfectly obstinate. He seemed to think
that in Carranza were embodied the entire ideals of
the Revolution. This, in spite of the fact that many
of his advisers tried to make him see that Carranza
was essentially an aristocrat and a reformer, and that
the people were fighting for more than reform.

Carranza's political program, as set forth in the
plan of Guadelupe, carefully avoids any promise of
settlement of the land question, except a vague en-
dorsement of Madero's plan of San Luis Potosi, and
it is evident that he does not intend to advocate any
radical restoration of the land to the people until he
becomes provisional president — and then to proceed
very cautiously. In the meantime he seems to have
left it to Villa's judgment, as well as all other details
of the conduct of the Revolution in the north. But
Villa, being a peon, and feeling with them, rather than
consciously reasoning it out, that the land question is
the real cause of the Revolution, acted with character-
istic promptness and directness. No sooner had he
settled the details of government of Chihuahua State,
and appointed Chao his provisional governor, than he
issued a proclamation, giving sixty-two and one-half
acres out of the confiscated lands to every male citizen
of the State, and declaring these lands inalienable for
any cause for a period of ten years. In the State of
Durango the same thing has happened and as other
states are free of Federal garrisons, he will pursue the
same policy.

189

INSURGENT MEXICO

CHAPTER VII

THE RULES OF WAR

ON the field, too, Villa had to invent an entirely
original method of warfare, because he never had
a chance to learn anything of accepted military
strategy. In that he is without the possibility of
any doubt the greatest leader Mexico has ever had.
His method of fighting is astonishingly like Napoleon's.
Secrecy, quickness of movement, the adaptation of his
plans to the character of the country and of his sol-
diers, — the value of intimate relations with the rank
and file, and of building up a tradition among the en-
emy that his army is invincible, and that he himself
bears a charmed life, — ^these are his characteristics.
He knew nothing of accepted European standards of
strategy or of discipline. One of the troubles of the
Mexican federal army is that its officers are thoroughly
saturated with conventional military theory. The
Mexican soldier is still mentally at the end of the eigh-
teenth century. He is, above all, a loose, individual,
guerrilla fighter. Red-tape simply paralyzes the ma-
chine. When Villa's army goes into battle he is not
hampered by salutes, or rigid respect for officers, or
trigonometrical calculations of the trajectories of pro-
jectiles, or theories of the percentage of hits in a thou-
sand rounds of rifle fire, or the function of cavalry, in-
fantry «nd artillery in any particular position, or
rigid obedience to the secret knowledge of its superiors.

140

THE RULES OF WAR

It reminds one of the ragged Republican army that
Napoleon led into Italy. It is probable that Villa
doesn't know much about those things himself. But
he does know that guerrilla fighters cannot be driven
blindly in platoons aroimd the field in perfect step,
that men fighting individually and of their own free
will are braver than long volleying rows in the trenches,
lashed to it by officers with the flat of their swords.
And where the fighting is fiercest — ^when a ragged mob
of fierce brown men with hand bombs and rifles rush
the buUet-swept streets of an ambushed town — ^Villa
is among them, like any common soldier.

Up to his day, Mexican armies had always carried
with them hundreds of the women and children of the
soldiers ; Villa was the first man to think of swift forced
marches of bodies of cavalry, leaving their women be-
hind. Up to his time no Mexican army had ever
abandoned its base; it had always stuck closely to
the railroad and the supply trains. But Villa struck
terror into the enemy by abandoning his trains and
throwing his entire effective army upon the field, as
he did at Gomez Palacio. He invented in Mexico that
most demoralizing form of battle — the night attack.
When, after the fall of Torreon last September, he
withdrew his entire army in the face of Orozco's ad-
vance from Mexico City and for five days unsuccess-
fully attacked Chihuahua, it was a terrible shock to
the Federal General when he waked up one morning
and found that Villa had sneaked around the city under
cover of darkness, captured a freight train at Ter-
razzas and descended with his entire army upon the

141

INSURGENT MEXICO

comparatively undefended city of Juarez. It wasn't
fair! Villa found that he hadn't enough trains to
carry all his soldiers, even when he had ambushed and
captured a Federal troop train, sent south by General
Castro, the Federal commander in Juarez. So he tele-
graphed that gentleman as follows, signing the name
of the Colonel in command of the troop train: ^En-
gine broken down at Moctezuma. Send another engine
and five cars." The unsuspecting Castro immediately
dispatched a new train. Villa then telegraphed him:
•'Wires cut between here and Chihuahua. Large force
of rebels approaching from south. What shall I do?"
Castro replied: "Return at once." And Villa obeyed,
telegraphing cheering messages at every station along
the way. The Federal commander got wind of his
coining about an hour before he arrived, and left, with-
out informing his garrison, so that, outside of a small
massacre. Villa took Juarez almost without a shot. And
with the border so near he managed to smuggle across
enough ammunition to equip his almost armless forces
and a week later sallied out and routed the pursuing
Federal forces with great slaughter at Tierra Blanca.

General Hugh L. Scott, in command of the Ameri-
can troops at Fort Bliss, sent Villa a little pamphlet
containing the Rules of War adopted by the Hague
Conference. He spent hours poring over it. It
interested and amused him hugely. He said : **What is
this Hague Conference? Was there a representative
of Mexico there? Was there a representative of the
Constitutionalists there? It seems to me a funny thing

142

THE RULES OF WAR

to make rules about war. It's liot a game. What is
the difference between civilized war and any other kind
of war? If you and I are having a fight in a cantma
we are not going to pull a little book out of our pockets
and read over the rules. It says here that you must
not use lead bullets; but I don't see why not. They
do the work."

For a long time afterward he went around popping
questions at his officers like this : ^^If an invading army
takes a city of the enemy, what must you do with the
women and children?"

As far as I could see, the Rules of War didn't make
any difference in Villa's original method of fighting.
The color ados he executed wherever he captured them;
because, he said, they were peons like the Revolution-
ists and that no peon would volunteer against the
cause of liberty unless he were bad. The Federal of-
ficers also he killed, because, he explained, they were
educated men and ought to know better. But the Fed*
eral common soldiers he set at liberty because most
of them were conscripts, and thought that they were
fighting for the Fatria. There is no case on record
where he wantonly killed a man. Anyone who did so
he promptly executed — except Fierro.

Fierro, the man who killed Benton, was known as
"The Butcher" throughout the army. He was a great
handsome animal, the best and cruellest rider and
fighter, perhaps, in all the revolutionary forces. In
his furious lust for blood Fierro used to shoot down a
hundred prisoners with his own revolver, only stop-
ping long enough to reload. He killed for the pure

148

INSURGENT MEXICO

joy of it. During two weeks that I was in Chihuahua,
Fierro killed fifteen inoffensive citizens in cold blood.
But there was always a curious relationship between
him and Villa. He was Villa's best friend; and Villa
loved him like a son and always pardoned him.

But Villa, although he had never heard of the Rules
of War, carried with his army the only field hospital
of any effectiveness that any Mexican army has ever
carried. It consisted of forty box-cars enameled in-
side, fitted with operating tables and all the latest
appliances of surgery, and manned by more than sixty
doctors and nurses. Every day during the battle shut-
tle trains full of the desperately wounded ran from
the front to the base hospitals at Parral, Jimenez and
Chihuahua. He took care of the Federal wounded just
as carefully as of his own men. Ahead of his own sup-
ply train went another train, carrying two thousand
sacks of flour, and also coffee, corn, sugar, and cigar-
ettes to feed the entire starving population of the
country around Durango City and Torreon.

The common soldiers adore him for his bravery and
his coarse, blunt humor. Often I have seen him
slouched on his cot in the little red caboose in which
he always traveled, cracking jokes familiarly with
twenty ragged privates sprawled on the floor, cjiairs
and tables. When the army was entraining or detrain-
ing. Villa personally would be on hapd in a dirty old
suit, without a collar, kicking mules in, the stomach
and pushing horses in and out of the stock-cars. Get-
ting thirsty all of a sudden, he would grab some sol-
dier's canteen and drain it, in spite of the indignant

144

THE DREAM OF PANCHO VILLA

protests of Its owner; and then tell him to go over to
the river and say that Pancho Villa said that he should
fill it there.

CHAPTER Vin

THE DREAM OF PANCHO VILLA

IT might not be iminteresting to know the pas-
sionate dream — the vision which animates this ig-
norant fighter, "not educated enough to be Presi-
dent of Mexico." He told it to me once in these words :
"When the new Republic is established there will never
be any more army in Mexico. Armies are the greatest
support of tyranny. There can be no dictator with-
out an army.

"We will put the army to work. In all parts of
the Republic we will establish military colonies com-
posed of the veterans of the Revolution. The State
will give them grants of agricultural lands and estab-
lish big industrial enterprises to give them work. Three
days a week they will work and work hard, because
honest work is more important than fighting, and only
honest work makes good citizens. And the other three
days they will receive military instruction and go out
and teach all the people how to fight. Then, when
the Patria is invaded, we will just have to telephone
from the palace at Mexico City, and in half a day all
the Mexican people will rise from their fields and fac-
tories, fully armed, equipped and organized to defend
their children and their homes.

146

INSURGENT MEXICO

^'My ambition is to live my life in one of those mili-
tary colonies among my compafieros whom I love, who
have suffered so long and so deeply with me. I think
I would like the government to establish a leather fac-
tory there where we could make good saddles and bri-
dles, because I know how to do that; and the rest of
the time I would like to work on my little farm, raising
cattle and corn. It would be fine, I think, to help make
Mexico a happy place/'

PART THREE

JIMENEZ AND POINTS WEST

CHAPTER I

DONA LUISA'S HOTEL

I WENT south from Chihuahua on a troop train
bound for the advance near Escalon. Attached
to the five freight cars, filled with horses and
carrying soldiers on top, was a coach in which I was
allowed to ride with two hundred noisy pacificos^ male
and female. It was gruesomely suggestive: car win-
dows smashed, mirrors, lamps and plush seats torn out,
and bullet holes after the manner of a frieze. The
time of our departure was not fixed, and no one knew
when the train would arrive. The railroad had just
been repaired. In places where there had once been
bridges we plunged into arroyos and snorted up the
farther bank on a rickety new-laid track that bent
and cracked under us. All day long the roadside was
lined with immense distorted steel rails, torn up with a
chain and a backing engine by the thorough Orozco
last year. There was a rumor that Castillo's bandits
were planning to blow us up with dynamite sometime
during the afternoon. . . .

Peons with big straw sombreros and beautifully faded
serapes, Indians in blue working clothes and cowhide
sandals, and squat-faced women with black shawls
around their heads, and squalling babies, — ^packed the

149

INSURGENT MEXICO

seats, aisles and platforms, singing, eating, spitting,
chattering. Occasionally there staggered by a ragged
man with a cap labeled ^'conductor" in tarnished gold
letters, very drunk, embracing his friends and severely
demanding the tickets and safe conducts of strangers.
I introduced myself to him by a small present of United
States currency. He said, "Senor, you may travel
freely over the Republic henceforth without payment.
Juan Algomero is at your orders." An officer smartly
uniformed, with a sword at his side, was at the rear
of the car. He was bound for the front, he said, to
lay down his life for his country. His only baggage
consisted of four wooden bird-cages full of meadow-
larks. Farther to the rear two men sat across the
aisle from each other, each with a white sack contain-
ing something that moved and clucked. As soon as
the train started these bags were opened to disgorge
two large roosters, who wandered up and down the
aisles eating criunbs and cigarette butts. The two
owners immediately raised their voices. ^'Cock-fight,
sefiores! Five pesos on this valiant and handsome
rooster. Five pesos, sefiores!" The males at once
deserted their seats and rushed clamoring toward the
center of the car. Not one of them appeared to lack
the necessary five dollars. In ten minutes the two
promoters were kneeling in the middle of the aisle,
throwing their birds. And, as we rattled along, sway-
ing from side to side, swooping down into the gullies
and laboring up the other bank, a whirling mass of
feathers and flashing steel rolled up and down the aisle.
That over, a one-legged youth stood up and played

160

DONA LUISA'S HOTEL

**Whistling Rufus'* on a tin flute. Someone had a
leather bottle of teqvUa, of which we all took a swig.
From the rear of the car came shouts of **Vamonos
a baUart Come on and dance!" And in a moment
five couples, all men, of course, were madly two-step-
ping. A blind old peasant was assisted to climb upon
his seat, where he quaveringly recited a long ballad
about the heroic exploits of the great General Maclovio
Herrera. Everybody was silently attentive and show-
ered pennies into the old man's sombrero. Occasionally
there floated back to us the singing of the soldiers on
the box-cars in front and the sound of their shots as
they caught sight of a coyote galloping through the
mesquite. Then everybody in our car would make a
rush for the windows, pulling at their revolvers, and
shoot fast and furiously.

All the long afternoon we ambled slowly south, the
western rays of the sun burning as they struck our
faces. Every hour or so we stopped at some station,
shot to pieces by one army or the other during the
three years of Revolution; there the train would be
besieged by vendors of cigarettes, pine-nuts, bottles of
milk, camotes^ and tamales rolled in corn-husks. Old
women, gossiping, descended from the train, built
themselves a little fire and boiled coiFee. Squatting
there, smoking their corn-husk cigarettes, they told
one another interminable love stories.

It was late in the evening when we pulled into Jime-
nez. I shouldered through the entire population, come
down to meet the train, passed between the flaring
torches of the little row of candy booths, and went

161

INSURGENT MEXICO

along the street, where drunken soldiers alternated
with painted girls, walking arm in arm, to Dona
Luisa's Station Hotel. It was locked. I pounded on
the door and a little window opened at the side, show-
ing an incredibly ancient woman's face, crowned with
straggly white hair. This being squinted at me through
a pair of steel spectacles and remarked, ^'Well, I guess
you're all right!" Then there came a sound of bars
being taken down, and the door swung open. Dofia
Luisa herself, a great bunch of keys at her belt, stood
just inside. She held a large Chinaman by the ear,
addressing him in fluent and profane Spanish.
**Changor* she said: "What do you mean by telling a
guest at this hotel that there wasn't any more hot
cakes? Why didn't you make some more? Now take
your dirty little bundle and get out of here !" With a
final wrench she released the squealing Oriental. "These
damn heathen," she announced in English, "the nasty
beggars ! I don't take any lip from a dirty Chinaman
who can live on a nickel's worth of rice a day !" Then
she nodded apologetically toward the door. "There's
so many damned drunken generals around to-day that
I've got to keep the door locked. I don't want the

Mexican s in here !"

Dofia Luisa is a small, diunpy American woman more
than eighty years of age — a benevolent New-England-
grandmother sort of person. For forty-five years she
has been in Mexico, and thirty or more years ago, when
her husband died, she began to keep the Station Hotel.
War and peace make no difi^erence to her. The Ameri-
can flag flies over the door and in her house she alone

162

DUELLO A LA FRIGADA

is boss. When Pascual Orozco took Jimenez, his men
began a drunken reign of terror in the town. Orozco
himself — Orozco the invincible, the fierce, who would
as soon kill a person as not — came drunk to the Sta-
tion Hotel with two of his officers and several women.
Dona Luisa planted herself across the doorway — alone
— and shook her fist in his face. ^^Pascual Orozco,'' she
cried, ^^take your disreputable friends and go away
from here. Fm keeping a decent hotel !'' And Orozco
went.

• •

CHAPTER n

DUELLO A LA FRIGADA

Ii^ANDERED up the mile-long, incredibly dilapi-
dated street that leads to the town. A street-
car came past, drawn by one galloping mule
and bulging with slightly intoxicated soldiers. Open
surreys full of officers with girls on their laps rolled
along. Under the dusty, bare alamo trees each win-
dow held its senorita, with a blanket-wrapped cabdUero
in attendance. There were no lights. The nig^t was
dry and cold and full of a subtle exotic excitement;
guitars twanged, snatches of song and laughter and
low voices, and shouts from distant streets, filled the
darkness. Occasionally little companies of soldiers
on foot came along, or a troop of horsemen in high
sombreros and serapes jingled silently out of the black-
ness and faded away again, boimd probably for the
relief of guard.

168

INSURGENT MEXICO

In one quiet stretch of street near tiie boll-rmg,
where there are no houses, I noticed an automobile
speeding from the town. At the same time a gallop-
ing horse came from the other direction, and just in
front of me the headlij^ts of the machine illumined
the horse and his rider, a young oflbrer in a Stetson
hat. The automobile jarred to a grinding stop and
a Yoice from it cried, ^^HaUomt*

^Who speaks?'^ asked the horseman, puIHng his
mount to its haunches.

^^I» Gusman!*^ and the other leaped to the ground
and came into the li^t, a coarse, fat Mexican, with
a sword at his belt.

^'Cima U va^ m Cafitmmy^ The oflkrer flung himself
from his horse. They embraced, patting each other on
the back with both hands.

**Very welL And you? Where are you going?''

••To see Maria.'^

The captain laughed. ""DonH do it,*^ he said; ^m
going to see Maria myself, and if I see you there I shall
certainly kill you.**

'^ut I am going just the same. I am as quick with
my pistol as you, sefior.**

^But you see," returned the other mildlly, ^Sve both
cannot goP

*Terf ectly P*

^'OigaP* said the captain to his chauffeur. ^fTum
your car so as to throw the K^t evenly along the side-
walk. . . . And now we will walk thirty paces apart
and stand with our backs turned until you count three.

164

DUELLO A LA FRIGADA

Then the man who first puts a bullet through the other
man's hat wins. ..."

Both men drew immense revolvers and stood a mo*
ment in the light, spinning the chambers.

**L%sto! Ready!" cried the horseman.

"Hurry it," said the captain. "It is a bad thing
to balk love."

Back to back, they had already begun to pace the
distance.

"One !" shouted the chauffeur.

"Two !"

But quick as a flash the fat man wheeled in the
trembling, uncertain light, threw down his lifted arm,
and a mighty roar went soaring slowly into the heavy
night. The Stetson of the other man, whose back was
still turned, took an odd little leap ten feet beyond
him. He spun around, but the captain was already
climbing into his machine.

**Buenor he said cheerfully. "I win. Until to-mor-
row then, amigoT* And the automobile gathered speed
and disappeared down the street. The horseman slowly
went to where his hat lay, picked it up and examined it.
He stood a moment meditating, and then deliberately
mounted his horse and he also went away. I had al-
ready started some time before. . • .

In the plaza the regimental band was playing "El
Pagare," the song which started Orozco's Revolution.
It was a parody of the original, referring to Madero's
payment of his family's $750,000 war claims as soon
as he became president, that spread like wildfire over

165

INSURGENT MEXICO

Ihi^ Kv^Uks lUftd bad to be suppressed witb police
«^uU ^^^UWrtju ^^£1 Pagare'' is eren now taboo in most
V^\<4utioiMurT circles, and I bare beard of men being
iih^k iw <Mi^((ing it; but in Jimenes at tbis time tbe
uliug^t license prevailed. Moreover, tbe Mexicans, nn-
m^^ th^ Frencb, bave absolutely no feeling for sym-
tnvU. Bitterly antagonistic sides use tbe same flag;
in the plasa of almost every town still stand eulogistic
statues of Porfirio Diaz; even at officers* mess in tbe
field I bave drunk from glasses stamped witb tbe like-
ness of tbe old dictator, while Federal army uniforms
are plentiful in tbe ranks.

But ^^EU Pagare" is a swinging, glorious tune, and
under tbe hundreds of little electric light globes strung
on tbe plaza a double procession marched gaily round
and round. On the outside, in groups of four, went
the men, mostly soldiers. On the inside, in the op-
posite direction, the girls walked arm in arm. As they
passed they threw bandfuls of confetti at one another.
They never talked to one another, never stopped; but
as a girl caught a man's fancy, he sbpped a lover's
note into her hand as she went by, and she answered
With a smile if she liked him. Thus they met, and later
the girl would manage to let the cahaUero know her
address; this would lead to long talks at her window
in the darkness, and then they would be lovers. It was
a delicate business, this handing of notes. Every man
carried a gun, and every man's girl was his jealously
guarded property. It was a killing matter to hand a
note to someone else's girl. The close-packed throng
moved gaily on, thrilling to the music. . . • Beyond

156

DUELLO A LA FRIGADA

the plaza gaped the ruins of Marcos Russek's store,
which these same men had looted less than two weeks
before, and at one side the ancient pink cathedral tow-
ered among its fountains and great trees, with the iron
and glass illuminated sign, ^^Santo Cristo de Bur-
gos,'' shining above the door.

There, at the side of the plaza, I came upon a little
group of five Americans huddled upon a bench. They
were ragged beyond belief, all except a slender youth
in leggings and a Federal officer's uniform, who wore
a crownless Mexican hat. Feet protruded from their
shoes, none had more than the remnants of socks, all
were unshaven. One mere boy wore his arm in a sling
made out of a torn blanket. They made room for me
gladly, stood up, crowded around, cried how good it
was to see another American among all these danmed
greasers.

"What are you fellows doing here?" I asked.

"We're soldiers of fortune!" said the boy with the
wounded arm.

"Aw !" interrupted another. "Soldiers of !"

"Ye see it's this way," began the soldierly looking
youth. "We've been fighting right along in the Bri-
gada Zaragosa — ^was at the battle of Ojinaga and
everything. And now comes an order from Villa to
discharge all the Americans in the ranks and ship 'em
back to the border. Ain't that a hell of a note?"

"Last night they gave us our honorable discharges
and threw us out of the cuartel,'^ said a one-legged man
with red hair.

"And we ain't had any place^to sleep and nothing to

167

-•-*■ *--

INSURGENT MEXICO

eat " broke in a little gray-eyed boy whom they

called the -Major.

"Don't try and panhandle the guy !*' rebuked the sol-
dier indignantly. "Ain't we each going to get fifty Mex
in the morning?"

We adjourned for a short time to a nearby restau-
rant, and when we returned I asked them what they
were going to do.

**The old U. S. for mine,'' breathed a good-looking
black Irishman who hadn't spoken before. "I'm going
back to San Fran and drive a truck again. Fm sick of
greasers, bad food and bad fighting."

"I got two honorable discharges from the United
States army," announced the soldierly youth proudly.
"Served through the Spanish War, I did. I'm the only
soldier in this bunch." The others sneered and cursed
sullenly. "Guess I'll reenlist when I get over the bor-
der."

"Not for mine," said the one-legged man. "I'm
wanted for two murder charges — ^I didn't do it, swear
to God I didn't — ^it was a frame-up. But a poor guy
hasn't got a chance in the United States. When they
ain't framing up some fake charge against me, they
jail me for a *vag.' I'm all right though," he went
on earnestly. *Tm a hard-working man, only I can't
get no job."

The Major raised his hard little face and cruel eyes.
I got out of a reform school in Wisconsin," he said,
and I guess there's some cops waiting for me in El
Paso. I always wanted to kill somebody with a gun,
and I done it at Ojinaga, and I ain't got a bellyful

158

((

DUELLO A LA FRIGADA

yet. They told us we could stay if we signed Mex citi-
zenship papers; I guess I'll sign to-morrow morning."

**The hell you will," cried the others. "That's a
rotten thing to do. Suppose we get Intervention and
you have to shoot against your own people. You won't
catch me signing myself away to be a greaser."

"That's easy fixed," said the Major. "When I go
back to the States I leave my name here. I'm going
to stay down here till I get enough of a stake to go
back to Greorgia and start a child-labor factory."

The other boy had suddenly burst into tears. "I
got my arm shot through in Ojinaga," he sobbed, "and
now they're turning me loose without any money, and
I can't work. When I get to El Paso the cops '11 jail
me and Fll have to write my dad to come and take me
home to California. I run away from there last year,"
he explained.

"Look here. Major," I advised, "you'd better not
stay down here if Villa wants Americans out of the
ranks. Being a Mexican citizen won't help you if In-
tervention comes."

"Perhaps you're right," agreed the Major thought-
fully. "Aw, quit your bawling. Jack ! I guess I'll beat
it over to Galveston and get on a South American boat.
They say there's a revolution started in Peru."

The soldier was about thirty, the Irishman twenty-
five, and the three others somewhere between sixteen
and eighteen.

**What did you fellows come down here for?" I
asked.

169

INSURGENT MEXICO

**Excitement !" answered the soldier and the Irish-
man, grinning. The three boys looked at me with
eager, earnest faces, drawn with hunger and hardship.

"Loot!" they said simultaneously. I cast an eye at
their dilapidated garments, at the throngs of tattered
volunteers parading around the plaza, who hadn't been
paid for three months, and restrained a violent impulse
to shout with mirth. Soon I left them, hard, cold mis-
fits in a passionate country, despising the cause for
which they were fighting, sneering at the gaiety of the
irrepressible Mexicans. And as I went away I said,
**By the way; what company did you fellows belong
to? What did you call yourselves?"

The red-haired youth answered, **The Foreign Le-
gion!" he said.

I want to say right here that I saw few soldiers of
fortune except one — and he was a dry-as-dust scientist
studying the action of high explosives in field-guns —
who would not have been tramps in their own country.

It was late night when I finally got back to the hotel.
Dona Luisa went ahead to see to my room, and I
stopped a moment in the bar. Two or three soldiers,
evidently officers, were drinking there— one pretty far
gone. He was a pock-marked man with a trace of
black mustache; his eyes couldn't seem to focus. But
when he saw me he began to sing a pleasant little song :

To tengo wn pistole
Con manago de TnarfU
Para matar todos los Gringos
Qui viennen por ferrocarrUt

160

SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH

(I have a pistol with a marble handle
(With which to kill all the Americans who come by
railroad !)

I thought it diplomatic to leave, because you can
never tell what a Mexican will do when he's drunk. His
temperament is much too complicated.

Dona Luisa was in my room when I got there. With
a mysterious finger to her lips she shut the door and
produced from beneath her skirt a last year's copy of
the Saturday Evening Fostj in an incredible state of
dissolution. "I got it out of the safe for you," she
said. ^^The damn thing's worth more than anything
in the house. I've been offered fifteen dollars for it by
Americans going out to the mines. You see we haven't
had any American magazines in a year now."

CHAPTER m

SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH

AFTER that what could I do but read the
precious magazine, although I had read it be-
fore. I lit the lamp, undressed, and got into
bed. Just then came an unsteady step on the gallery
outside and my door was flung violently open. Framed
in it stood the pock-marked officer who had been drink-
ing in the bar. In one hand he carried a big revolver.
For a moment he stood blinking at me malevolently,
then stepped inside and closed the door with a bang.

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INSURGENT MEXICO

«1

^I am Lieutenant Antonio Montoya, at your orders,"
he said. ^^I heard there was a Gringo in this hotel and
I have come to kill you."

"Sit down/' said I politely. I saw he was drunkenly
in earnest. He took off his hat, bowed politely and
drew up a chair. Then he produced another revolver
from beneath his coat and laid them both on the ta-
ble. They were loaded.

"Would you like a cigarette?" I offered him the
package. He took one, waved it in thanks, and
lit it at the lamp. Then he picked up the guns and
pointed them both at me. His fingers tightened slowly
on the triggers, but relaxed again. I was too far gone
to do anything but just wait.

"My only difficulty," said he, lowering his weapons,
**is to determine which revolver I shall use."

"Pardon me," I quavered, **but they both appear a
little obsolete. That Colt forty-five is certainly an
1895 model, and as for the Smith and Wesson, between
ourselves it is only a toy."

^True," he answered, looking at them a little rue-
fully. "If I had only thought I would have brought
my new automatic. My apologies, senor." He sighed
and again directed the barrels at my chest, with an ex-
pression of calm happiness. "However, since it is so,
we must make the best of it." I got ready to jump,
to duck, to scream. Suddenly his eye fell upon the ta-
ble, where my two-dollar wrist-watch was lying.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A watch !" Eagerly I demonstrated how to fasten
it on. Unconsciously the pistols slowly lowered. With

162

SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH

parted lips and absorbed attention he watched it de-
lightedly, as a child watches the operation of some new
mechanical toy.

"Ah," he breathed. **QiLe esta bonita! How pretty !"
"It is yours," said I, unstrapping it and offering it
to him. He looked at the watch, then at me, slowly
brightening and glowing with surprised joy. Into his
outstretched hand I placed it. Reverently, carefully,
he adjusted the thing to his hairy wrist. Then he rose,
beaming down upon me. The revolvers fell unnoticed
to the floor. Lieutenant Antonio Montoya threw his
arms around me.

"Ah, compadreT* he cried emotionally.

The next day I met him at Valiente Adiana's store'
in the town. We sat amicably in the back room drink-
ing native agtiardiente, while Lieutenant Montoya, my
best friend in the entire Constitutionalist army, told
me of the hardships and perils of the campaign. For
three weeks now Maclovio Herrera's brigade had lain
at Jimenez under arms, waiting the emergency call for
the advance on Torreon.

"This morning," said Antonio, "the Constitutionalist
spies intercepted a telegram from the Federal com-
mander in Zacatecas City to General Velasco in Tor-
reon. He said that upon mature judgment he had de-
cided that Zacatecas was an easier place to attack than
to defend. Therefore he reported that his plan of
campaign was this. Upon the approach of the Con-
stitutionalist forces he intended to evacuate the city
and then take it again."

163

INSURGENT MEXICO

** Antonio/' I said, **I am going a long journey across
the desert to-morrow. I am going to drive to Magis-
tral. I need a mozo. I will pay three dollars a week."

" *Sta buenoT' cried Lieutenant Montoya. **What-
ever you wish, so that I can go with my amigoT*

"But you are on active service," said I. "How can
you leave your regiment?"

"Oh, that's all right," answered Antonio. "I won't
say anything about it to my colonel. They don't need
me. Why, they've got five thousand other men here."

CHAPTER IV

SYMBOLS OP MEXICO

IN the early dawn, when yet the low gray houses
and the dusty trees were stiff with cold, we laid
a bull-whip on the backs of our two mules and
rattled down the uneven streets of Jimenez and out into
the open country. A few soldiers, wrapped to the eyes
in their serapes, dozed beside their lanterns. There
was a drunken officer sleeping in the gutter.

We drove an ancient buggy, whose broken pole was
mended with wire. The harness was. made of bits of
old iron, rawhide and rope. Antonio and I sat side by
side upon the seat, and at our feet dozed a dark, serious-
minded youth named Frimitivo Aguilar. Frimitivo had
been hired to open and shut gates, to tie up the har-
ness when it broke, and to keep watch over wagon and

164

SYMBOLS OF MEXICO

mules at night, because bandits were reported to in-
fest the roads.

The country became a vast fertile plain, cut up by
irrigating ditches which were overshadowed by long
lines of great alamo trees, leafless and gray as ashes.
Like a furnace door, the white-hot sun blazed upon us,
and the far-stretched barren fields reeked a thin mist.
A cloud of white dust moved with us and around us.
By the church of the Hacienda San Pedro we stopped
and dickered with an aged peon for a sack of corn and
straw for the mules. Farther along was an exquisite
low building of pink plaster, set back from the road in
a grove of green willows. "That?** said Antonio. "Oh,
that is nothing but a flour mill.*' We had lunch in the
long whitewashed, dirt-floored room of a peon's house
at another great hacienda, whose name I forget, but
which I know had once belonged to Luis Terrazzas and
was now the confiscated property of the Constitution-
alist government. And that night we made camp be-
side an irrigation ditch miles from any house, in the
middle of the bandit territory.

After a dinner of chopped-up meat and peppers, tor-
tiUaSy beans and black coffee, Antonio and I gave
Primitivo his instructions. He was to keep watch be-
side the fire with Antonio's revolver and, if he heard
anything, was to wake us. But on no acgount' was he
to go to sleep. If he did we would' kill him. Primi-
tivo said, "iSi, seHor^*^ very gravely, opened his eyes
wide, and gripped the pistol. Antonio and I rolled up
in our blankets by the fire.

I must have gone to sleep at once, because when I

166

INSURGENT MEXICO

was wakened by Antonio's rising, my watch showed only
half an hour later. From the place where Primitivo
had been placed on guard came a series of hearty snores.
The lieutenant walked over to him.

"Primitivo!" he said.

No answer.

"Primitivo, you fool!" Our sentinel stirred in his
sleep and turned over with noises indicative of com-
fort.

"Primitivo !" shouted Antonio, violently kicking him.

He gave absolutely no response.

Antonio drew back and launched a kick at his back
that lifted him several feet into the air. With a start
Primitivo woke. He started up alertly, waving the
revolver.

"Qtden vivef** cried Primitivo.

The next day took us out of the lowlands. We en-
tered the desert, winding over a series of rolling plains,
sandy and covered with black mesquite and here and
there an occasional cactus. Now we began to see be-
side the road those sinister little wooden crosses that
the country people erect on the spot where some man
died a violent death. Around the horizon barren pur-
ple mountains hemmed us in. To the right, across a
vast dry valley, a white and green and gray hacienda
stood like a city. An hour later we passed the first of
those great fortified square ranchos that one comes
across once a day lost in the folds of this tremendous
country. Night gathered straight above in the cloud-
less zenith, while all the skyline still was luminous with

166

SYMBOLS OF MEXICO

clear light, and then the day snufFed out, and
stars burst out in the dome of heaven like a rocket.
Antonio and Frimitivo, in that queer harsh Mexican
harmony which sounds like nothing so much as a fiddle
with frazzled strings, sang "Esperanza^* as we jogged
along. It grew cold. For leagues and leagues around
was a blasted land, a country of death. It was hours
since we had passed a house.

Antonio claimed to know of a water-hole somewhere
vaguely ahead. But toward midnight, which was black
and without moon, we discovered that the road upon
which we were traveling suddenly petered out in a dense
mesquite thicket. Somewhere we had turned off the
Camino Real. It was late and the mules were worn
out. There seemed nothing for it but a "dry camp,"
for so far as we knew there was no water anywhere
near.

Now we had unharnessed the mules and fed them,
and were lighting our fire, when somewhere in the dense
thicket of chaparral stealthy footsteps sounded. They
moved a space and then were still. Our little blaze of
greasewood crackled fiercely, lighting up a leaping,
glowing radius of about ten feet. Beyond that all was
black. Frimitivo made one backward leap into the shel-
ter of the wagon; Antonio drew his revolver, and we
froze beside the fire. The sound came again.

"Who lives ?" said Antonio. There was a little shuf-
fling noise out in the brush, and then a voice.

*^What party are you?" it asked hesitantly.

"Maderistas," answered Antonio. "Fass!"

**It is safe for pacificosf** queried the invisible one.

167

INSURGENT MEXICO

**0n my word," I cried. **Come out that we may see
you."

At that very moment two vague shapes materialized
on the edge of the firelight glow, almost without a
sound — two peons, we saw as soon as they came close,
wrapped tightly in their torn blankets. One was an
old, wrinkled, bent man wearing homemade sandals, his
trousers hanging in rags upon his shrunken legs; the
other a very tall, barefooted youth, with a face so pure
and so simple as to almost verge upon idiocy. Friendly,
warm as sunlight, eagerly curious as children, they
came forward, holding out their hands. We shook
hands with each of them in turn, greeting them with
elaborate Mexican courtesy.

"Good evening, friend. How are you?"

"Very well, graciaa. And you?"

*'Well, gracias. And how are all your people?"

"Well, thanks. And yours?"

**Well, thanks. What have you of new here?"

"Nada. Nothing. And you?"

"Nothing. Sit down."

"Oh, thanks, but I am well standing."

"Sit down. Sit down."

^^A thousand thanks. Excuse us for a moment."

They smiled and faded away once more into the
thicket. In a minute they reappeared, with great arm-
fuls of dried mesquite branches for our fire.

"We are rancheroSy** said the elder, bowing. "We
keep a few goats, and our houses are at your orders,
and our corrals for your mules, and our small stock
of corn. Our ranchitos are very near here in the

168

SYMBOLS OF MEXICO

mesquite. We are very poor men, but we hope you will
do us the honor of accepting our hospitality." It was
an occasion for tact.

"A thousand times many thanks," said Antonio po-
litely, "but we are, unfortunately, in great haste and
must leave early. We would not like to disturb your
household at that hour."

They protested that their families and their houses
were entirely ours, to be used as we saw fit with the
greatest delight on their part. I do not remember how
we finally managed to evade the invitation without
wounding them, but I do recall that it took half an
hour of courteous talking. For we knew, in the first
place, that we would be unable to leave for hours in
the morning if we accepted, because Mexican manners
are that haste to leave a house signifies dissatisfac-
tion with the entertainment; and then, too, one could
not pay for one's lodging, but would have to bestow
a handsome present upon the hosts — ^which we could
none of us afford.

At first they politely refused our invitation to dine,
but after much urging we finally persuaded them to
accept a few tortiUas and chUe, It was ludicrous and
pitifjji'to see how wretchedly hungry they were, and
how they attempted to conceal it from us.

After dinner, when they had brought us a bucket of
water out of sheer kindly thoughtfulness, they stood
for a while by our fire, smoking our cigarettes and
holding out their hands to the blaze. I remember how
their serapes himg from their shoulders, open in front
so the grateful warmth could reach their thin bodies

169

INSURGENT MEXICO

— and how gnarled and ancient were the old man's out-
stretched hands, and how the ruddy light glowed upon
the other's throat, and kindled fires in his big eyes.
Aroimd them stretched the desert, held off only by our
fire, ready to spring in upon us when it should die.
Above the great stars would not dim. Coyotes wailed
somewhere out beyond the firelight like demons in pain.
I suddenly conceived these two human beings as sym-
bols of Mexico — courteous, loving, patient, poor, so
long slaves, so full of dreams, so soon to be free.

"When we saw your wagon coming here,*' said the
old man, smiling, "our hearts sank within us. We
thought you were soldiers, come, perhaps, to take
away our last few goats. So many soldiers have come
in the last few years — so many. It is mostly the Fed-
erals — the Maderistas do not come unless they are
hungry themselves. Poor Maderistas !'*

"Ay,** said the young man, "my brother that I loved
very much died in the eleven days' fighting around
Torreon. Thousands have died in Mexico, and still
more thousands shall fall. Three years — ^it is long for
war in a land. Too long!" The old man murmured,
**Valgame DiosT and shook his head. "Bqfc there
shall come a day ^^ ^^'

"It is said,*' remarked the old man quaveringly, "that
the United States of the North covets our country —
that Gringo soldiers will come and take away my goats
in the end. • • •"

"That is a lie," exclaimed the other, animated. "It
is the rich Americanos who want to rob us, just as the

170

SYMBOLS OF MEXICO

rich Mexicans want to rob us. It is the rich all over
the world who want to rob the poor/'

The old man shivered and drew his wasted body
nearer to the fire. **I have often wondered,'' said he
mildly, *Vhy the rich, having so much, want so much.
The poor, who have nothing, want so very little. Just
a few goats. . . ."

His compadre lifted his chin like a noble, smiling
gently. **I have never been out of this little country
here — ^not even to Jimenez," he sfidd. "But they tell
me that there are many rich lands to the north and
south and east. But this is my land and I love it.
For the years of me, and my father and my grand*
father, the rich men have gathered the com and
held it in their clenched fists before our mouths* And
only blood will make them open their hands to their
brothers."

The fire died down. At his post slept the alert Fri*
mitivo. Antonio stared into the embers, a faint glori--
fied smile upon his mouth, his eyes shining like stars.

**Adior* he said suddenly, as one who sees a vision.
^^When we get into Mexico City what a baUe shall be
held! How drunk I shall get! • • •"

PART FOUR

A PEOPLE IN ARMS

CHAPTER I

"ON TO TORREONI"

AT Yermo there is nothing but leagues and leagues
of sandy desert, sparsely covered with scrubby
mesquite and dwarf cactus 9 stretching away
on the west to jagged, tawny mountains, and on the
east to a quivering skyline of plain. A battered water-
tank, with too little dirty alkali water, a demol-
ished railway station shot to pieces by Orozco's can-
non two years before, and a switch track compose the
town. There is no water to speak of for forty miles.
There is no grass for animals. For three months in the
spring bitter, parching winds drive the yellow dust
across it.

Along the single track in the middle of the desert
lay ten enormous trains, pillars of fire by night and of
black smoke by day, stretching back northward far-
ther than the eye could reach. Around them, in the
chaparral, camped nine thousand men without shelter,
each man's horse tied to the mesquite beside him, where
hung his one serape and red strips of drying meat.
From fifty cars horses and mules were being unloaded.
Covered with sweat and dust, a ragged trooper plunged
into a cattle-car among the flying hoofs, swung himself
upon a horse's back, and jabbed his spurs deep in, with

176

INSURGENT MEXICO

a yell. Then came a terrific drumming of frightened
animals, and suddenly a horse shot violently from the
open door, usually backward, and the car belched flying
masses of horses and mules. Picking themselves up,
they fled in terror, snorting through wide nostrils at
the smell of the open. Then the wide, watchful circle
of troopers turned vaqtieros lifted the great coils of
their lassoes through the choking dust, and the run-
ning animals swirled round and round upon one an-
other in a panic. Officers, orderlies, generals with their
staffs, soldiers with halters, hunting for their mounts,
galloped and ran past in inextricable confusion. Buck-
ing mules were being harnessed to the caissons. Troop-
ers who had arrived on the last trains wandered about
looking for their brigades. Way ahead some men were
shooting at a rabbit. From the tops of the box-cars
and the flat-cars, where they were camped by hundreds,
the soldaderas and their half-naked swarms of children
looked down, screaming shrill advice and asking every-
body in general if they had happened to see Juan Mo-
fieros, or Jesus Hernandez, or whatever the name of
their man happened to be. . . . One man trailing a
rifle wandered along shouting that he had had nothing
to eat for two days and he couldnH find his woman who
made his tortillas for him, and he opined that she had
deserted him to go with some of another bri-
gade. . • . The women on the roofs of the cars said,
**Vdlgame DiosT* and shrugged their shoulders; then
they dropped him down some three-days-old tortUlaSj
and asked him, for the love he bore Our Lady of Guade-
lupe, to lend them a cigarette. A clamorous, dirty

176

ON TO TORREONl"

throng stormed the engine of our train, screaming for
water. When the engineer stood them off with a re-
volver, telling them there was plenty of water in the
water-train, they broke away and aimlessly scattered,
while a fresh throng took their places. Around the
twelve immense tank-cars, a fighting mass of men and
animals struggled for a place at the little faucets cease-
lessly pouring. Above the place a mighty cloud of
dust, seven miles long and a mile wide, towered up into
the still, hot air, and, with the black smoke of the en-
gines, struck wonder and terror into the Federal out-
posts fifty miles away on the mountains back of Ma-
pimi.

When Villa left Chihuahua for Torreon, he closed the
telegraph wires to the north, stopped train service to
Juarez, and forbade on pain of death that anyone
should carry or send news of his departure to the
United States. His object was to take the Federals
by surprise, and it worked beautifully. No one, not
even Villa's staff, knew when he would leave Chihuahua ;
the army had delayed there so long that we all believed
it would delay another two weeks. And then Saturday
morning we woke to find the telegraph and railway cut,
and three huge trains, carrying the Brigada Gonzalez-
Ortega, already gone. The Zaragosa left the next day,
and Villa's own troops the following morning. Moving
with the swiftness that always characterizes him, Villa
had his entire army concentrated at Yermo the day
afterward, without the Federals knowing that he had
left Chihuahua.

There was a mob around the portable field telegraph

177 '

INSURGENT MEXICO

that had been rigged up in the ruined station. Inside,
the instrument was clicking. Soldiers and officers in-
discriminately choked up the windows and the door,
and every once in a while the operator would shout
something in Spanish and a perfect roar of laughter
would go up. It seemed that the telegraph had acci-
dentally tapped a wire that had not been destroyed by
the Federals — ^a wire that connected with the Federal
military wire from Mapimi to Torreon.

**Listen!'' cried the operator. "Colonel Argumedo
in command of the cabecttlos colorados in Mapimi is
telegraphing to Greneral Yelasco in Torreon. He says
that he sees smoke and a big dust cloud to the north,
and thinks that some rebel troops are moving south
from Escalon !"

Night came, with a cloudy sky and a rising wind
that began to lift the dust. Along the miles and miles
of trains, the fires of the soldaderas flared from the
tops of the freight-cars. Out into the desert so far
that finally they were mere pin-points of flame stretched
the innumerable camp-fires of the army, half obscured
by the thick, billowing dust. The storm completely
concealed us from Federal watchers. "Even God,*' re-
marked Major Lejrva, ^^even God is on the side of
Francisco Villa!" We sat at dinner in our converted
box-car, with young, great-limbed, expressionless Gen-
eral Maximo Garcia and his brother, the even huger
red-faced Benito Garcia, and little Major Manuel
Acosta, with the beautiful manners of his race. Gar-
cia had long been holding the advance at Escalon. He
and his brothers — one of whom, Jos6 Garcia, the idol

178

THE ARMY AT YERMO

of the army, had been killed in battle — hvi a short four
years ago were wealthy hacendados^ owners of im-
mense tracts of land. They had come out with Ma-
dero. • • • I remember that he brought us a jug of
whisky, and refused to discuss the Revolution, declar-
ing that he was fighting for better whisky ! As I write
this comes a report that he is dead from a bullet wound
received in the battle of Sacramento. • • •

Out in the dust storm, on a flat-car immediately
ahead of ours, some soldiers lay around their fire with
their heads in their women's laps, singing ^^The Cock-
roach," which tells in hundreds of satirical verses what
the Constitutionalists would do when they captured
Juarez and Chihuahua from Mercado and Orozco.

Above the wind one was aware of the immense sullen
murmur of the host, and occasionally some sentry
challenged in a falsetto howl: **Quien vivef* And the
answer: ''Chiapas r ''Que gentef" "Chaor , . .
Through the night sounded the eerie whistle of the ten
locomotives at intervals as they signaled back and forth
to one another.

CHAPTER n

THE ARMY AT YERMO

AT dawn next morning Gkneral Torribio Ortega
came to the car for breakfast — a lean, dark
Mexican, who is called "The Honorable'* and
"The Most Brave'* by the soldiers. He is by far the
most simple-hearted and disinterested soldier in Mexico.

179

INSURGENT MEXICO

He never kills his prisoners. He has refused to take
a cent from the Revolution beyond his meager salary.
Villa respects and trusts him perhaps beyond all his
Generals. Ortega was a poor man, a cowboy. He sat
there, with his elbows on the table, forgetting his break-
fast, his big eyes flashing, smiling his gentle, crooked
smile, and told us why he was fighting.

**I am not an educated man," he said. ^^But I know
that to fight is the last thing for any people. Only
when things get too bad to stand, eh? And, if we are
going to kill our brothers, something fine must come
out of it, eh? You in the United States do not know
what we have seen, we Mexicans! We have looked on
at the robbing of our people, the simple, poor people,
for thirty-five years, eh? We have seen the rurales
and the soldiers of Forfirio Diaz shoot down our
brothers and our fathers, and justice denied to them.
We have seen our little fields taken away from us, and
all of us sold into slavery, eh? We have longed for
our homes and for schools to teach us, and they have
laughed at us. All we have ever wanted was to be
let alone to live and to work and make our country
great, and we are tired — ^tired and sick of being
cheated. • • ."

Outside in the dust, that whirled along under a sky
of driving clouds, long Mnes of soldiers on horseback
stood in the obscurity, while their officers passed along
in front, peering closely at cartridge-belts and rifles.

"Geronimo," said a Captain to one trooper, "go
back to the ammunition train and fill up the gaps in

180

THE ARMY AT lYERMO

your cartouchera. You fool, you've been wasting your
cartridges shooting coyotes !''

Across the desert westward toward the distant moun-
tains rode strings of cavalry, the first to the front.
About a thousand went, in ten different lines, diverg-
ing like wheel spokes ; the jingle of their spurs ringing,
their red-white-and-green flags floating straight out,
crossed bandoliers gleaming dully, rifles flopping across
their saddles, heavy, high sombreros and many-colored
blankets. Behind each company plodded ten or twelve
women on foot, carrying cooking utensils on their heads
and backs, and perhaps a pack mule loaded with sacks
of corn. And as they passed the cars they shouted back
to their friends on the trains.

"Poco tiempo CaUfornial** cried one.

"Oh! there's a Colorado for you!" yelled another.
"I'll bet you were with Salazar in Orozco's Revolution.
Nobody ever said *Poco tiempo CaUfomia* except Sala-
zar when he was drunk !"

The other man looked sheepish. "Well, maybe I
was," he admitted. "But wait till I get a shot at my
old companeros. I'll show you whether I'm a Maderista
or not !"

A little Indian in the rear cried: "I know how much
of a Maderista you are, Luisito. At the first taking
of Torreon, Villa gave you the choice of turning your
coat or getting a cabronasso or balasso through the
head!" And, joshing and singing, they jogged
southwest, became small, and finally faded into the
dust.

Villa himself stood leaning against a car, hands in his

181

INSURGENT MEXICO

pockets. He wore an old slouch hat, a dirty shirt with-
out a collar, and a badly frayed and shiny brown suit.
All over the dusty plain in front of him men and horses
had sprung up like magic. There was an immense con-
fusion of saddling and bridling — ^a cracked blowing of
tin bugles. The Brigada Zavagosa was getting ready
to leave camp — a flanking column of two thousand men
who were to ride southeast and attack Tlahualilo and
Sacramento. Villa, it seemed, had just arrived at
Yermo. He had stopped off Monday night at Camargo
to attend the wedding of a compadre. His face was
drawn into lines of fatigue.

**Carramhar* he was saying with a grin ; **we started
dancing Monday evening, danced all night, all the next
day, and last night, too! What a battel And what
muchachasl The girls of Camargo and Santa Ros-
alia are the most beautiful in Mexico! I am worn
out — rendidol It was harder work than twenty
battles. . . .*'

Then he listened to the report of some staff officer
who dashed up on horseback, gave a concise order with-
out hesitating, and the officer rode off. He told Sefior
Calzado, General Manager of the Railroad, in what or-
der the trains should proceed south. He indicated to
Sefior Uro, the Quartermaster-general, what supplies
should be distributed from the troop trains. To Senor
Munoz, Director of the Telegraph, he gave the name of
a Federal captcdn surrounded by Urbina's men a week
before and killed with all his men in the hills near La
Cadena, and ordered him to tap the Federal wire and
send a message to Greneral Velasco in Torreon purport-

182

THE ARMY AT YERMO

ing to be a report from this Captain from Conejos,
and asking for orders. • • • He seemed to know and
order everything.

We had lunch with Greneral Eugenio Aguirre Bena-
rides, the quiet, cross-eyed little commander of the
Zaragosa Brigade, a member of one of the culti-
vated Mexican families that gathered aroimd Madero
in the first Revolution; with Raul Madero, brother of
the murdered President, second in command of the
Brigade, who is a graduate of an American University,
and looks like a Wall Street bond salesman ; with Colo-
nel Guerra, who went through Cornell, and Major
LejTva, Ortega's nephew, a historic full-back on the
Notre Dame football team. • • •

In a great circle, ready for action, the artillery was
parked, with caissons open and mules corralled in the
center. Colonel Servin, commander of the guns, sat
perched high up on an immense bay horse, a ridiculous
tiny figure, not more than five feet tall. He was wav-
ing his hand and shouting a greeting across to Gkneral
Angeles, Carranza's Secretary of War — a tall, gaunt
man, bareheaded, in a brown sweater, with a war map
of Mexico hanging from his shoulder ; who straddled a
small burro. In the thick dust-clouds, sweating men
labored. The five American artillery men had squatted
down in the lee of a cannon, smoking. They hailed me
with a shout:

**Say, bo! What in hell did we ever get into this
mess for? Nothing to eat since last night — ^work twelve
hours — say, take our pictures, will you?''

There passed by with a friendly nod the little Cock-

183

INSURGENT MEXICO

ney soldier that had served with Kitchener, and then
the Canadian Captain Treston, bawling for his inter-
preter, so that he could give his men some orders about
the machine guns ; and Captain Marinelli, the fat Ital-
ian soldier of fortune, pouring an interminable and un-
intelligible mixture of French, Spanish and Italian into
the ear of a bored Mexican officer. Fierro rode by,
cruelly roweling his horse with the bloody mouth —
Fierro, the handsome, cruel and insolent — ^The Butcher
they called him, because he killed defenseless prison-
ers with his revolver, and shot down his own men with-
out provocation.

Late in the afternoon the Brigada Zaragosa rode
away southeast over the desert, and another night came
down.

The wind rose steadily in the darkness, growing
colder and colder. Looking up at the sky, which had
been ablaze with polished stars, I saw that all was dark
with cloud. Through the roaring whirls of dust a
thousand thin lines of sparks from the fires streamed
southward. The coaling of the engines' fire boxes made
sudden glares along the miles of trains. At first we
thought we heard the sound of big guns in the distance.
But all at once, unexpectedly, the sky split dazzlingly
open from horizon to horizon, thunder fell like a blow,
and the rain came level and thick as a flood. For a mo-
ment the human hum of the army was silenced. All the
fires disappeared at once. And then came a vast shout
of anger and laughter and discomfiture from the sol-
diers out on the plain, and the most amazing wail of
misery from the women that I have ever heard. The

184

THE ARMY] AT YERMO

two sounds only lasted a minute. The men wrapped
themselves in their serapes and sank down in the shelter
of the chaparral ; and the hundreds of women and chil-
dren exposed to the cold and the rain on the flat-cars
and the tops of the box-cars silently and with Indian
stoicism settled down to wait for dawn. In General
Maclovio Herrera's car ahead was drunken laughter
and singing to a guitar. • • •

Daybreak came with a sound of all the bugles in the
world blowing; and looking out of the car door I saw
the desert for miles boiling with armed, men saddling
and mounting. A hot sun popped over the western
mountains, burning in a clear sky. For a moment the
ground poured up billowing steam, and then there was
dust again, and a thirsty land. There might never
have been rain. A hundred breakfast fires smoked from
the car-tops, and the women stood turning their dresses
slowly in the sun, chattering and joking. Hundreds
of little naked babies danced around, while their
mothers lifted up their little clothes to the heat. A
thousand joyous troopers shouted to each other that
the advance was beginning; away off to the left some
regiment had given away to joy, and was shooting into
the air. Six more long trains had come in during the
night, and aU the engines were whistUng signals. ^I
went forward to get on the first train out, and as I
passed the car of Trinidad Rodriguez, a harsh, femi-
nine voice cried: "Hey, kid! Come in and get some
breakfast.'' Leaning out of the door were Beatrice
and Carmen, two noted Juarez women that had been

186

INSURGENT MEXICO

brought to the front by the Rodriguez brothers. I
went in and sat down at the table with about twelve
men, several of them doctors in the hospital train, one
French artillery captain, and an assortment of Mex-
ican officers and privates. It was an ordinary freight
box-car like all the private cars, with windows cut in
the walls, partitions built to shut out the Chinese cook
in the kitchen, and bunks arranged across sides and
end. Breakfast consisted of heaping platters of red
meat with chiley bowls of frijoleSy stacks of cold flour
tortiUaij and six bottles of Monopole Champagne. Car*
men's complexion was bad, and she was a little stupid
from the gastronomic combination, but Beatrice's
white, colorless face and red hair cut Buster Brown
fashion fairly radiated a sort of malicious glee. She
was a Mexican, but talked Tenderloin English without
an accent. Jumping upi from the table, she danced
around it, pulling the men's hair. ^^Hello, you damned
Gringo," she laughed at me. "What are you doing
here? You're going to get a bullet in you if you don't
get careful !"

A morose young Mexican, already a little drunk,
snapped at her furiously in Spanish : "Don't you talk
to him! Do you understand? I'll tell Trinidad how
you asked the Gringo in to breakfast, and he'll have
you shot!"

Beatrice threw back her head and roared. "Did
you hear what he said? He thinks he owns me, be-
cause he once stayed with me in Juarez! • . . My
God!" she went on. ^'How funny it seems to travel on
the railroad and not have to buy a ticket!"

186

FIRST BLOOD

**Look here, Beatrice," I asked her; "we may not
have such an easy time of it down there. What will
you do if we get licked?"

"Who, me?" she cried. "Why, I guess it won't take
me long to get friends in the Federal army. I'm a good
mixer !"

"What is she saying? What do you say?" asked the
others in Spanish.

With the most perfect insolence Beatrice translated
for them. And in the midst of the uproar that followed
I left. • . .

CHAPTER m

FIRST BLOOD

THE water train pulled out first. I rode on the
cow-catcher of the engine, which was already
occupied by the permanent home of two women
and five children. They had built a little fire of mes-
quite twigs on the narrow iron platform, and were
baking tortillas there; over their heads, against the
windy roar of the boiler, fluttered a little line of
waso. . • •

It was a brilliant day, hot sunshine alternating with
big white clouds. In two thick columns, one on each
side of the train, the army was already moving south.
As far as the eye could reach, a mighty double cloud of
dust floated over them ; and little straggling groups of
mounted men jogged along, with every now and then a
big Mexican flag. Between slowly moved the trains;

187

INSURGENT MEXICO

the pillars of black smoke from their engines, at regu-
lar intervals, growing smaller, until over the northern
horizon only a dirty mist appeared.

I went down into the caboose to get a drink of wa-
ter, and there I found the conductor of the train lying
in his bunk reading the Bible. He was so interested
and amused that he didn't notice me for a minute. When
he did he cried delightedly: **Oiga^ I have found a
great story about a chap called Samson who was muy
hombre — a good deal of a man— =-and his woman. She
was a Spaniard, I guess, from the mean trick she
played on him. He started out being a good Revolu-
tionist, a Maderista, and she made him a p^lonF*

Felon means literally ^^cropped head,'' and is the
slang term for a Federal soldier, because the Federal
army is largely recruited from the prisons.

Our advance guard, with a telegraph field operator,
had gone on to Conejos the night before, and they met
the train in great excitement. The first blood of the
campaign had been spilt; a few colorados scouting
northward from Bermejillo had been surprised and
killed just behind the shoulder of the big mountain
which lies to the east. The telegrapher also had
news. He had again tapped the Federal wire, and sent
to the Federal commander in Torreon, signing the dead
Captain's name and asking for orders, since a large
force of rebels seemed to be approaching from the
north. General Velasco replied that the Captain
should hold Conejos and throw out outposts to the
north, to try and discover how large the force was. At
the same time the telegrapher had heard a message

188

FIRST BLOOD

from Arguinedo, in command at Mapimi, saying that
the entire north of Mexico was coming down on .Tor-
reon, together with the Gringo army!

Conejos was just like Yermo, except that there was
no water tank. A thousand men, with white-bearded
old Greneral Rosalio Hernandez riding ahead, went out
almost at once, and the repair train followed them a
few miles to a place where the Federals had burned two
railroad bridges a few months before. Out beyond the
last little bivouac of the inmiense army spread around
us, the desert slept silently in the heat waves. There
was no wind. The men gathered with their women on
the flat-cars, guitars came out, and all night hundreds
of singing voices came from the trains.

The next morning I went to see Villa in his car. This
was a red caboose with chintz curtains on the windows,
the famous little caboose which Villa has used in all his
journeys since the fall of Juarez. It was divided by
partitions into two rooms — ^the kitchen and the Gren-
eraPs bedroom. This tiny room, ten by twenty feet,
was the heart of the Constitutionalist army. There
were held all the councils of war, and there was scarcely
room enough for the fifteen Generals who met there.
In these councils the vital immediate questions of the
campaign were discussed, the Generals decided what was
to be done, — and then Villa gave his orders to suit him-
self. It was painted a dirty gray. On the walls were
tacked photographs of showy ladies in theathrical poses,
a large picture of Carranza, one of Fierro, and a pic-
ture of Villa himself. Two double-width wooden bunK

189

INSURGENT MEXICO

folded up against the wall, in one of which Villa and
General Angeles slept, and in the other Jose Rodriguez
and Doctor Raschbainn, Villa's personal physician*
That was alL • • •

**Que desea, amigof What do yon want?" said Villa,
sitting on the end of the bonk in bine underclothes. The
troopers who lounged around the place lazily made way
for me.

^I want a horse, wd GentraL**

**CarT'T'r'ai^ our friend here wants a horse P* grinned
Villa sarcastically amid a burst of laughter from the
others. **Why, you correspondents will be wanting an
automobile next! Oiga, senor reporter, do you know
that about a thousand men in my army have no horses?
Here's the train. What do you want a horse forP'

^So I can ride with the advance."

^^No," he smiled. **There are too many balassos —
too many bullets flying in the advance. . . ."

He was hurrying into his clothes as he talked, and
gulping coffee from the side of a dirty tin coffee-pot.
Somebody handed him his gold-handled sword.

"No!" he said contemptuously. **This is to be a
fight, not a parade. Give me my rifle !"

He stood at the door of his caboose for a moment,
thoughtfully looking at the long lines of mounted
men, picturesque in their crossed cartridge-belts and
varied equipment. Then he gave a few quick orders
and mounted his big stallion.

**Vamonosr* cried Villa. The bugles brayed and a
subdued silver clicking ringing sounded as the com-
panies wheeled and trotted southward in the dust. . . •

190

ON THE CANNON-CAK

And so the army disappeared. During the day we
thought we heard cannonading from the southwest^
where Urbina was reported to be coming down from the
mountains to attack Mapimi. And late in the after-
noon news came of the capture of Bermejillo, and a
courier from Benavides said that he had taken Tla-
hualilo.

We were in a fever of impatience to be off. About
sundown Senor Calzado remarked that the repair train
would leave in an hour, so I grabbed a blanket and
walked a mile up the line of trains to it.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE CANNON-CAR

THE first car of the repair train was a steel-en-
cased flat-car, upon which was mounted the
famous Constitutionalist cannon ^^El Nifio,"
with an open caisson full of shells behind it. Behind
that was an armored car full of soldiers, then a car of
steel rails, and four loaded with railroad ties. The en-
gine came next, the engineer and fireman hung with
cartridge-belts, their rifles handy. Then followed two
or three box-cars full of soldiers and their women. It
was a dangerous business. A large force of Federals
were known to be in Mapimi, and the country swarmed
with their outposts. Our army was already far ahead,
except for five hundred men who guarded the trains at
Conejos. If the enemy could capture or wreck the re-

191

INSURGENT MEXICO

pair train the army would be cut off without water,
food or ammimitioii. In the darkness we moved out. I
sat upon the breech of *^£1 Nino," chatting with Cap-
tain Diaz, the commander of the gun, as he oiled the
breech lock of his beloved cannon and curled his verti-
cal mustachios. In the armored recess behind the gun,
where the Captain slept, I heard a curious, subdued
rustling noise.

**What's that?**

**Eh?'' cried he nervously. **0h, nothing, nothing!''

Just then there emerged a young Indian girl with a
bottle in her hand. She couldn't have been more than
seventeen, very lovely. The Captain shot a glance at
me, and suddenly whirled around.

*'What are you doing here?" he cried furiously to
her. "Why are you coming out here?"

*^I thought you said you wanted a drink," she began.

I perceived that I was one too many, and excused
myself. They hardly noticed me. But as I was climb-
ing over the back of the car I couldn't help stopping
and listening. They had gone back to the recess, and
she was weeping.

**Didn't I tell you," stormed the Captain, **not to
show yourself when there are strangers here? I will
not have every man in Mexico looking at you. . . ."

I stood on the roof of the rocking steel car as we
nosed slowly along. Lying on their bellies on the ex-
treme front platform, two men with lanterns examined
each foot of the track for wires that might mean mines
planted under us. Beneath my feet the soldiers and
their women were having dinner around fires built on

192

ON THE CANNON-CAR

the floor. Smoke and laughter poured out of the loop-
holes. • . . There were other fires aft, brown-faced,
ragged people squatting at them, on the car-tops.
Overhead the sky blazed stars, without a cloud. It was
cold. After an hour of riding we came to a piece of
broken track. The train stopped with a jar, the
engine whistled, and a score of torches and lanterns
jerked past. Men came running. The flares clustered
bobbing together as the foremen examined the damage.
A fire sprang up in the brush, and then another. Sol-
diers of the train guard straggled by, dragging their
rifles, and formed impenetrable walls around the fires.
Iron tools clanged, and the ** Wai-hoy !" of men shoving
rails off the flat-car. A Chinese dragon of workmen
passed with a rail on their shoulders, then others with
ties. Four hundred men swarmed upon the broken
spot, working with extraordinary energy and good hu-
mor, until the shouts of gangs setting rails and ties,
and the rattle of sledges on spikes, made a continuous
roar. It was an old destruction, probably a year old,
made when these same Constitutionalists were retreat-
ing north in the face of Mercado's Federal army, and
we had it all fixed in an hour. Then on again. Some-
times it was a bridge burned out, sometimes a hundred
yards of track twisted into grape vines by a chain and
a backing engine. We advanced slowly. At one big
bridge that it would take two hours to prepare, I built
by myself a little fire in order to get warm. Calzado
came past, and hailed me. "WeVe got a hand-car up
ahead," he said, ^^and we're going along down and see
the dead men. Want to come?"

193

INSURGENT MEXICO

**What deaci men?''

"Why, this morning an outpost of eighty rurales was
sent scouting north from Bermejillo. We heard about
it over the wire and informed Benavides on the left.
He sent a troop to take them in the rear, and drove
them north in a running fight for fifteen miles until
they smashed up against our main body and not one
got out alive. They're scattered along the whole way
just where they fell."

In a moment we were speeding south on the hand-
car. At our right hand and our left rode two silent,
shadowy figures on horseback — cavalry guards, with
rifles ready under their arms. Soon the flares and fires
of the train were left behind, and we were enveloped
and smothered in the vast silence of the desert.

"Yes," said Calzado, "the rurales are brave. They
are may hombres. Rurales are the best fighters Diaz
and Huerta ever had. They never desert to the Revo-
lution. They always remain loyal to the established
government. Because they are police."

It was bitter cold. None of us talked much.

"We go ahead of the train at night," said the sol-
dier at my left, "so that if there are any dynamite
bombs underneath "

*We could discover them and dig them out and put
water in them, carramba!" said another sarcastically.
The rest laughed. I began to think of that, and it
made me shiver. The dead silence of the desert seemed
an expectant hush. One couldn't see ten feet from the
track.

**Oigar' shouted one of the horsemen. "It was just

194

ON THE CANNON-CAR

here that one lay." The brakes ground and we tum-
bled off and down the steep embankment, our lanterns
jerking ahead. Something lay huddled around the foot
of a telegraph pole — ^something infinitely small and
shabby, like a pile of old clothes. The rurale was upon
his back, twisted sideways from his hips. He had
been stripped of everything of value by the thrifty
rebels — ^shoes, hat, underclothing. They had left him
his ragged jacket with the tarnished silver braid, be-
cause there were seven bullet holes in it; and his trou-
sers, soaked with blood. He had evidently been much
bigger when alive — ^the dead shrink so. A wild red
beard made the pallor of his face grotesque, until you
noticed that under it and the dirt, and the long lines of
sweat of his terrible fight and hard riding, his mouth
was gently and serenely open as if he slept. His brains
had been blown out.

**Carrair* said one guard. *^There was a shot for the
dirty goat! Right through the head!"

The others laughed. "Why, you don't think they
shot him there in the fight, do you, pendecof** cried his
companion. "No, they always go around and make
sure afterward "

"Hurry up ! I've found the other," shouted a voice
off in the darkness.

We could reconstruct this man's last struggle. He
had dropped off his horse, wounded — for there was
blood on the ground — ^into a little dry arroyo. We
could even see where his horse had stood while he
pumped shells into his Mauser with feverish hands, and
blazed away, first to the rear, where the pursuers came

195

INSURGENT MEXICO

mnning with Indian yells, and then at the hundreds
and hundreds of bloodthirsty horsemen pouring down
from the north, with the Demon Pancho Villa at their
head. He must have fought a long time, perhaps until
they ringed him round with living flame — for we found
hundreds of empty cartridges. And then, when the
last shot was spent, he made a dash eastward, hit at
every step; hid for a moment under the little railroad
bridge, and ran out upon the open desert, where he
fell. There were twenty bullet holes in him. They
had stripped him of all save his underclothes. He lay
sprawled in an attitude of desperate action, muscles
tense, one fist clenched and spread across the dust as if
he were dealing a blow ; the fiercest exultant grin on his
face. Strong, savage, until one looked closer and saw
the subtle touch of weakness that death stamps on life
— ^the delicate expression of idiocy over it all. They
had shot him through the head three times — how exas-
perated they must have been!

Crawling south through the cold night once more.
• • • A few miles and then a bridge dynamited, or a
strip of track wrecked. The stop, the dancing torches,
the great bonfires leaping up from the desert, and the
four hundred wild men pouring furiously out and fall-
ing upon their work. • . • Villa had given orders to
hurry. . • .

About two o'clock in the morning I came upon two
soldaderaa squatting around a fire, and asked them if
they could give me tortillas and coffee. One was an
old, gray-haired Indian woman with a perpetual grin,

196

ON THE CANNON-CAR

the other a slight girl not more than twenty years old,
who was nursing a four-months baby at her breast.
They were perched at the extreme tip of a flat-car,
their fire built upon a pile of sand, as the train jolted
and swayed along. Around them, backed against them,
feet sticking out between them, was a great, inconglom-
erate mass of sleeping, snoring humans. The rest of
the train was by this time dark ; this was the only patch
of light and warmth in the night. As I munched my
tortilla and the old woman lifted a burning coal in her
fingers to light her corn-husk cigarette, wondering
where her Pablo's brigade was this night; and the girl
nursed her child, crooning to it, her blue-enameled ear-
rings twinkling, — ^we talked.

"Ah! it is a life for us vtejas^** said the girl. **Ad%Oj
but we follow our men out in the campaign, and then
do not know from hour to hour whether they live or
die. I remember well when Filadelfo called to me one
morning in the little morning before it was light — ^we
lived in Pachuca — and said : *Come ! we are going out
to fight because the good Pancho Madero has been mur-
dered this day!' We had only been loving each other
eight months, too, and the first baby was not bom. . . .
We had all believed that peace was in Mexico for good.
Filadelfo saddled the burro, and we rode out through
the streets just as light was coming, and into the fields
where the farmers were not yet at work. And I said:
^Why must I come?' And he answered: *Shall I starve,
then? Who shall make my tortillas for me but my
woman?' It took us three months to get north, and
I was sick and the baby was bom in a desert just

197

INSURGENT MEXICO

like this place, and died there because we could not
get water. That was when Villa was going north after
he had taken Torreon."

The old woman broke in : "Yes, and all that is true.
When we go so far and suffer so much for our men,
we are cruelly treated by the stupid animals of Gren-
erals. I am from San Luis Potosi, and my man was
in the artillery of the Federacion when Mercado came
north. All the way to Chihuahua we traveled, the old
fool of a Mercado grumbling about transporting the
viejas* And then he ordered his army to go north
and attack Villa in Juarez, and he forbade the women
to go. Is that the way you are going to do, desgra-
ciado? I said to myself. And when he evacuated Chi-
huahua and ran away with my man to Ojinaga, I just
stayed right in Chihuahua and got a man in the Ma-
derista army when it came in. A nice handsome young
fellow, too, — much better than Juan. I'm not a woman
to stand being put upon.*'

"How much are the tortiUiis and coffee?" I asked.

They looked at each other, startled. Evidently
they had thought me one of the penniless soldiers
crowded on the train.

"What you would like," said the young woman faint-
ly. I gave them a peso.

The old woman exploded in a torrent of prayer.
"God, his sainted Mother, the Blessed Nifio and Our
Lady of Guadelupe have sent this stranger to us to-
night! Here we had not a centavo to buy coffee and
flour with. . . ."

I suddenly noticed that the light of our fire had

198

AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ

^aled, and looked up in amazement to find it was dawn.
Just then a man came running along the train from
up front, shouting something unintelligible, while
laughter and shouts burst out in his wake. The
sleepers raised their curious heads and wanted to know
what was the matter. In a moment our inanimate car
was alive. The man passed, still yelling something
about *^padrey** his face exultant with some tremendous
joke.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Oh!" cried the old woman. "His woman on the
car ahead has just had a baby!"

Just in front of us lay Bermejillo, its pink and blue
and white plastered adobe houses as delicate and ethe-
real as a village of porcelain. To the east, across a
still, dustless desert, a little file of sharp-cut horse-
men, with a red-white-and-green flag over them, were
riding into town. • • •

CHAPTER V

AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ

WE had taken Bermejillo the afternoon before,
— the army breaking into a furious gallop
five kilometers north of the town and pour-
ing through it at top speed, driving the unprepared
garrison in a rout southward, — ^a running fight that
lasted five miles, as far as the Hacienda of Santa Clara,
— and killing a hundred and six colorados. Within a

199

INSURGENT MEXICO

few hoars afterward Urfama came in sight aboTe Ma-
pimi, and the ei^t hundred eolorados there, informed
of the astonishing news that the entire Constitution-
alist army was flanting them on their right, eyacnated
the place, and fled hotlj to Torreon. All oyer the
coontrj the astounded Federals were falling back in a
panic upon the city.

Late in the afternoon a dumpy little train came
down the narrow-gauge track from the directi<m of
Mapimi, and from it proceeded the loud strains of a
string orchestra of ten pieces playing ^^Recuerdos of
Durango," — to which I had so often baSe*d with the
Tropa. The roofs, doors and windows were packed
with Mexicans, singing and beating time with their
heels, as they fired their rifles in a sort of salute upon
entering the town. At the station this curious equi-
page drew up, and from it proceeded — ^who but Pa-
tricio, Greneral Urbina's fighting stage-driver at whose
side I had so often ridden and danced! He threw his
arms around me, yelling: ^^Juanito! Here is Juanito,
mi Generair* In a minute we were asking and an-
swering each other a million questions. Did I haye
the photographs I took of him? Was I going to the
battle of Torreon? Did he know where Don Petronilo
was? And Pablo Seanes? And Raphaelito? And
right in the midst of it somebody shouted **Viya Ur-
bina!" and the old Greneral himself stood at the top
of the steps, — the lion-hearted hero of Durango. He
was lame, and leaned upon two soldiers. He held a
rifle in his hand, — an old, discarded Springfield, with
the si^ts filed down, — ^and wore a double cartridge-

200

AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ

belt around his waist. For a moment he remained there,
absolutely expressionless, his small, hard eyes boring
into me. I thought he did not recognize me, when all
at once his harsh, sudden voice shot out : "That's not
the camera you had! Where's the other one?"

I was about to reply when he interrupted : "I know.
You left it behind you in La Cadena. Did you run
very fast?"

"Yes, mi General.**

"And you've come down to Torreon to run again?"

"When I began to run from La Cadena," I remarked,
nettled, "Don Petronilo and the troops were already
a mile away."

He didn't answer, but came haltingly down the steps
of the car, while a roar of laughter went up from the
soldiers. Coming up to me he put a hand over my
shoulder and gave me a little tap on the back. '^I'm
glad to see you, compa4tero9** he said. . • •

Across the desert the wounded had begun to strag-
gle in from the battle of Tlahualilo to the hospital
train, which lay far up near the front of the line of
trains. On the flat barren plain, as far as I could
see, there were only three Uving things in sight: a
limping, hatless man, with his head tied up in a bloody
cloth; another staggering beside his staggering horse;
and a mule mounted by two bandaged figures far be-
hind them. And in the still hot night we could hear
from bur car groans and screams. . • •

Late Sunday morning we were again on "El Nifio"
at the head of the repair train, moving slowly down

201

INSURGENT MEXICO

the track abreast of the army. "El Chavalito," an-
other cannon mounted on a flat-K;ar, was coupled
behind, then came two armored cars, and the work-
cars. This time there were no women. The army
wore a different air, winding along in two immense
serpents each side of us — ^there was little laughter or
shouting. We were close now, only eighteen miles from
Gomez Palacio, and no one knew what the Federals
planned to do. It seemed incredible that they would
let us get so close without making one stand. Imme-
diately south of Bermejillo we entered a new land. To
the desert succeeded fields bordered with irrigation
ditches, along which grew immense green alamos, tow-
ering pillars of freshness after the baked desolation
we had just passed through. Here were cotton-fields,
the white tufts unpicked and rotting on their stalks;
corn-fields with sparse green blades just showing.
Along the big ditches flowed swift, deep water in the
shade. Birds sang, and the barren western mountains
marched steadily nearer as we went south. It was
siunmer — ^hot, moist siunmer, such as we have at home.
A deserted cotton-gin lay on our left, hundreds of
white bales tumbled in the sun, and dazzling heaps of
cotton-seed left just as the workmen had piled it
months before. . . •

At Santa Clara the massed columns of the army
halted and began to defile to left and right, thin lines
of troops jogging out under the checkered sun and
shade of the great trees, until six thousand men were
spread in one long single front, to the right over fields
and through ditches, beyond the last cultivated field,

SOS

AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ

across the desert to the very base of the mountains;
to the left over the roll of the flat world. The bugles
blared faintly and near, and the army moved for-
ward in a mighty line across the whole country. Above
them lifted a five-mile-wide golden dust-glory. Flags
flapped. In the center, level with them, came the
cannon-car, and beside that Villa rode with his staff.
At the little villages along the way the big-hatted,
white-Moused pacificos stood in silent wonder, watch-
ing this strange host pass. An old man drove his
goats homeward. The foaming wave of troopers broke
upon him, yelling with pure mischief, and all the goats
ran in different directions. A mile of army shouted
with laughter, — ^the dust rolled up from their thou-
sand hoofs, and they passed. At the village of Brit-
tingham the great line halted, while Villa and his staff
galloped up to the peons watching from their little
moimd.

**OyezV* said Villa, **Have any troops passed
through here lately?'*

"iSt, senorT' answered several men at once. **Some
of Don Carlo Argumedo's gente went by yesterday
pretty fast."

"Hum," Villa meditated. "Have you seen that ban-
dit Pancho Villa around here?"

"No, seiior!" they chorused.

"Well, he's the fellow I'm looking for. If I catch
that diahlo it will go hard with him !"

*nVe wish you all success!' cried the pacificoSy po-
litely.

"You never saw him, did you?"

SOS

INSURGENT MEXICO

"No, God forbid P' they said fervently.

"Well!" grinned Villa. "In the future when peo-
ple ask if you know him you will have to admit the
shameful fact! I am Pancho Villa!" And with that
he spurred away, and all the army followed. • • •

CHAPTER VI

THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAR

SUCH had been the surprise of the Federals, and
they had fled in such a hurry, that for many
miles the railroad was intact. But toward after-
noon we began to find little bridges burned and still
smoking, and telegraph poles cut down with an axe —
badly and hastily done bits of destruction that were
easily repaired. But the army had got far ahead,
and by nightfall, about eight miles from Gomez Pa-
lacio, we reached the place where eight solid miles of
torn-up track began. There was no food on our train.
We had only a blanket apiece ; and it was cold. In the
flare of torches and fires, the repair gang fell upon
their work. Shouts and hammering steel, and the thud
of falling ties. ... It was a black night, with a
few dim stars. We had settled down around one fire,
talking and drowsing, when suddenly a new sound smote
the air — a sound heavier than hammers, and deeper
than the wind. It shocked — and was still. Then came
a steady roll, as of distant drums, and then shock!
shock! The hammers fell, voices were silent, we were

S04

THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAR

frozen. Somewhere ahead, out of sight, in the dark-
ness — ^so still it was that the air carried every sound
— ^Villa and the army had flung themselves upon Go-
mez Palacio, and the battle had begun. It deepened
steadily and slowly, until the booffs of cannon fell
echoing upon each other, and the rifle fire rippled like
steel rain.

**AndaleF* screamed a hoarse voice from the roof
of the cannon-car. "What are you doing? Get at
that track! Pancho Villa is waiting for the trains!"

And, with a yell, four hundred raging maniacs flung
themselves upon the break. • . •

I remember how we besought the Colonel in com-
mand to let us go to the front. He would not. Or-
ders were strict that no one should leave the trains.
We pled with him, offered him money, almost got on
our knees to him. Finally he relented a little.

"At three o'clock," he said, "I'll give you the sign
and countersign and let you go."

We curled miserably about a little fire of our own,
trying to sleep, trying at least to get warm. Around
us and ahead the flares and the men danced along the
ruined track; and every hour or so the train would
creep forward a hundred feet and stop again. It was
not hard to repair — the rails were intact. A wrecker
had been hitched to the right-hand rail and the ties
twisted, splintered, torn from their bed. Always the
monotonous and disturbing furious sound of battle fil-
tered out of the blackness ahead. It was so tiresome,
so much the same, that sound; and yet I could not
sleep. • • •

805

INSURGENT MEXICO

About midnight one of our outposts galloped from
the rear of the trains to report that a large body of
horsemen had been challenged coming from the north,
who said they were Urbina's gente from Mapimi. The
Colonel didn't know of any body of troops that were
to pass at that time of night. In a minute everything
was a fury of preparation. Twenty-five armed and
mounted men galloped like mad to the rear, with or-
ders to stop the newcomers for fifteen minutes, — ^if
they were Constitutionalists, by order of the Colonel;
if not, by holding them off as long as possible. The
workmen were hurried back to the train and given their
rifles. The fires were put out, the flares, — all but ten,
— extinguished. Our guard of two hundred slipped
silently into the thick brush, loading their rifles as
they went. On either side of the track the Colonel and
five of his men took up their posts, unarmed, with
torches held high over their heads. And then, out of
the thick blackness, the head of the column appeared.
It was made up of different men from the well-clothed,
well-equipped, well-fed soldiers of Villa's army. These
were ragged, gaunt people, wrapped in faded, tattered
serapes, without shoes on their feet, crowned with the
heavy, picturesque sombreros of the back-country.
Lasso ropes hung coiled at their saddles. Their
mounts were the lean, hard, half-savage ponies of the
Durango mountains. They rode sullenly, contempt-
uous of us. They neither knew the countersign nor
cared to know it. And as they rode, whole files
sang the monotonous, extemporaneous ballads that the
peons compose and sing to themselves as they guard

S06

THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAK

the cattle at night on the great upland plains of the
north.

And, suddenly, as I stood at the head of the line
of flares, a passing horse was jerked to his haunches,
and a voice I knew cried: "Hey! Meester!" The en-
folding serape was cast high in the air, the man fell
from his horse, and in a moment I was clasped in the
arms of Isidro Amaya. Behind him burst forth a
chorus of shouts : **QtLe tal! Meester ! O Juanito, how
glad we are to see you ! Where have you been ? They
said you were killed in La Cadena ! Did you run fast
from the colorados? Mucha stLsto, eh?" They threw
themselves to the ground, clustering around, fifty men
reaching at once to pat me on the back; all my dear-
est friends in Mexico — the compafleros of La Tropa
and the Cadena!

The long file of men, blocked in the darkness, raised
a chorus of shouts: "Move on! Vamonosl What's
the matter? Hurry up! We can't stay here all
night !" And the others yelled back : "Here's meester !
Here's the Gringo we were telling you about who
danced the jota in La Zarca! Who was in La Ca-
dena !" And then the others crowded forward too.

There were twelve hundred of them. Silently, sul-
lenly, eagerly, sniffing the battle ahead, they defiled
between the double line of high-held torches. And
every tenth man I had known before. As they passed
the Colonel shouted to them: "What is the counter-
sign? Turn your hats up in front! Do you know
the countersign?" Hoarsely, exasperatedly, he bawled

207

IXSURGEXT 3IEXICO

mt fhtOL Sonendy and iiiMdeiitlj thej rode by, with-
ont paying the least attentioii to him. *^o hell with
the countersigii f they hooted, langhing at him. *^We
don't need any countersign! TheyHl know well enough
which side we^re on when we b^in to fi^t f

For hoars, it geemed, they jogged past, fading into
the darkness, their horses with nerroos heads tamed
to catch the sound of the guns, the men with growing
eyes fixed on the darkness ahead — ^rode into battle
with their ancient Springfield rifles that had seen ser-
vice for three years, with their meager ten rounds of
ammunition. And when they had all gone the battle
seemed to brighten and quicken with new life. • • •

CHAPTER Vn

THE BLOODY DAWN

THE steady noise of battle filled all the night.
Ahead torches danced, rails clanged, sledges
drummed on the spikes, the men of the repair
gang shouted in the frenzy of their toiL It was after
twelve. Since the trains had reached the beginning of
the torn track we had made half a mile. Now and
then a straggler from the main body came down the
line of trains, shuffled into the light with his heavy
Mauser awry across his shoulders, and faded into the
darkness toward the debauch of sound in the direction
of Gomez Palacio. The soldiers of our guard, squat-
ting about their little fires in the fields, relaxed their

208

THE BLOODY DAWN

tense expectancy; three of them were singing a little
marching song, which began:

/ dorCt want to he a Porfirista^

I don^t want to be an Orozqmstay

But I want to be a volwnteer in the army Maderista!

Curious and excited, we hurried up and down the
trains, asking people what they knew, what they
thought. I had never heard a real killing-sound be-
fore, and it made me frantic with curiosity and ner-.
vousness. We were like dogs in a yard when a dog-
fight is going on outside. Finally the spell snapped
and I found myself desperately tired. I fell into a dead
sleep on a little ledge under the lip of the cannon,
where the laborers tossed their wrenches and sledge-
hammers and crowbars when the train moved forward
a hundred feet, and piled on themselves with shouts and
horseplay.

In the coldness of before dawn I woke with the

Colonel's hand on my shoulder.

"You can go now," he said. "The sign is ^Zaragosa*
and the countersign 'Guerrero.' Our soldiers will be
recognized by their hats pinned up in front. May you
go well!"

It was bitter cold. We threw our blankets around
us, serape fashion, and trudged down past the fury of
the repair gang as they hammered at it under the leap-
ing flares — ^past the five armed men slouching around
their fire on the frontier of the dark.

''Are you off to the battle, companeros?'' cried one
of the gang. "Look out for the buUets!" At that

809

INSURGENT MEXICO

they all laughdd. The sentries cried, **Adio8! Don't
kill them all ! Leave a few pelones for us !"

Beyond the last torch, where the torn track was
wrenched and tumbled about on the uprooted roadbed,
a shadowy figure waited for us.

**Vamono8 together,'* he said, peering at us, "In
the dark three are an army." We stumbled along
over the broken track, silently, just able to make him
out with our eyes. He was a little dumpy soldier with
a rifle and a half-empty cartridge-belt over his breast.
He said that he had just brought a wounded man from
the front to the hospital train and was on his way
back.

"Feel this," he said, holding out his arm. It was
drenched. We could see nothing.

"Blood," he continued unemotionally. **His blood.
He was my compadre in the Brigada Gonzales-Ortega.
We went in this night down there and so many, so
many We were cut in half."

It was the first we had heard, or thought, of wounded
men. All of a sudden we heard the battle. It had
been going on steadily all the time, but we had for-
gotten — the sound was so monstrous, so monotonous.
Far rifle fire came like the ripping of strong canvas,
the cannon shocked like pile-drivers. We were only
six miles away now.

Out of the darkness loomed a little knot of men —
four of them — carrying something heavy and inert in
a blanket slung between. Our guide threw up his rifle
and challenged, and his answer was a retching groan
from the blanket.

210

THE BLOODY DAWN

**Oiga compadre,^^ lisped one of the bearers huskily,
"Where, for the love of the Virgin, is the hospital
train?"

"About a league "

**Valgame Diosl How can we. ..."

"Water! Have you any water?"

They stood with the blanket taut between them, and
something fell from it, drip, drip, drip, on the ties.

That awful voice within screamed once, "To drink !"
and fell away to a shuddering moan. We handed our
canteens to the bearers — ^and silently, bestially, they
drained them. The wounded man they forgot. Then,
sullen, they pitched on. . . .

Others appeared, singly, or in little groups. They
were simply vague shapes staggering in the night, like
drunkards, Hke men incredibly tired. One dragged be-
tween two walkers, his arms around their shoulders. A
mere boy reeled along with the limp body of his father
on his back. A horse passed with his nose to the
ground, two bodies flopping sideways across the sad-
die, and a man walking behind and beating the horse
on the riunp, cursing shrilly. He passed, and we could
hear his falsetto fading dissonantly in the distance.
Some groaned, with the ugly, deadened groan of ut-
termost pain ; one man, slouched in the saddle of a mule,
screamed mechanically every time the mule took a
step. Under two tall cotton-wood trees beside an ir-
rigation ditch a little fire glowed. Three sleepers with
empty cartridge-belts sprawled snoring on the uneven
ground; beside the fire sat a man holding with both
hands his leg straight out to the warmth. It was a

811

■ . *■ jru.

INSURGENT MEXICO

perfectly good leg as far as the ankle — ^there it ended
in a raggedy oozing mess of trousers and shattered
flesh. The man simply sat looking at it. He didn't
even stir as we came near, and yet his chest rose and
fell with calm breathing, and his mouth was slightly
open as if he were day-dreaming. By the side of the
ditch knelt another, A soft lead bullet had entered
his hand between the two middle fingers and then spread
until it hollowed out a bloody cave inside. He had
wrapped a rag around a little piece of stick and was
unconcernedly dipping it in the water and gouging out
the wound.

Soon we were near the battle. In the east, across
the vast level country, a faint gray light appeared.
The noble alamo trees, towering thickly in massy lines
along the ditches to the west, burst into showers of
bird-song. It was getting warm, and there came the
tranquil smell of earth and grass and growing corn — a
calm simuner dawn. Into this the noise of battle broke
like something insane. The hysterical chatter of rifle
fire, that seemed to carry a continuous undertone of
screaming — although when you listened for it it was
gone. The nervous, deadly stab — stab — stab — stab of
the machine guns, like some gigantic woodpecker. The
cannon booming like great bells, and the whistle of
their shells. Boom — ^Pi-i-i-e-e-a-uuu ! And that most
terrible of all the sounds of war, shrapnel exploding.
Crash — ^Whee-e-eaaa ! !

The great hot sun swam up in the east through a
faint smoke from the fertile land, and over the eastern
barrens the heat-waves began to wiggle. It caught the

SIS

THE BLOODY DAWN

startlmgly green tops of the lofty alamos fringing the
ditch that paralleled the railroad on our right. The
trees ended there, and beyond, the whole rampart of
bare mountains, piled range on range, grew rosy. We
were now in scorched desert again, thickly covered with
dusty mesquite. Except for another line of alamos
straggling across from east to west, close to the city,
there were no trees in all the plain but two or three
scattered ones to the right. So close we were,
barely two miles from Gomez Falacio, that we could
look down the torn track right into the town. We
could see the black round water-tank, and back of that
the roundhouse, and across the track from them both
the low adobe walls of the Brittingham CorraL The
smokestacks and buildings and trees of La Esperanza
soap factory rose clear and still, like a little city, to
the left. Almost directly to the right of the railroad
track, it seemed, the stark, stony peak of the Cerro
de la Pila mounted steeply to the stone reservoir that
crowned it, and sloped off westward in a series of
smaller peaks, a spiny ridge a mile long. Most of
Gomez lay behind the shoulder of the Cerro, and at
its western end the villas and gardens of Lerdo made
a vivid patch of green in the desert. The great brown
mountains on the west made a mighty sweep around
behind the two cities, and then fell away south again
in folds on folds of gaunt desolation. And directly
south from Gomez, stretched along the base of thif
range, lay Torreon, the richest city of northerr
Mexico.

213

INSURGENT MEXICO

The shooting never ceased, but it seemed to be sub-
dued to a subordinate place in a fantastic and dis-
ordered world. Up the track in the hot morning light
straggled a river of wounded men, shattered, bleeding,
bound up in rotting and bloody bandages, inconceiva-
bly weary. They passed us, and one even fell and lay
motionless nearby in the dust — and we didn't care.
Soldiers with their cartridges gone wandered aimlessly
out of the chaparral, dragging their rifles, and plunged
into the brush again on the other side of the railroad,
black with powder, streaked with sweat, their eyes va-
cantly on the groimd. The thin, subtle dust rose in
lazy clouds at every footstep, and himg there, parching
throat and eyes. A little company of horsemen jogged
out of the thicket and drew up on the track, looking
toward town. One man got down from his saddle and
squatted beside us.

"It was terrible,*' he said suddenly. **Carramba!
We went in there last night on foot. They were in-
side the water-tank, with holes cut in the iron for
rifles. We had to walk up and poke our guns through
the holes and we killed them all — a death trap! And
then the Corral! They had two sets of loopholes, one
for the men kneeling down and the other for the men
standing up. Three thousand rurales in there — and
they had five machine guns to sweep the road. And
the roundhouse, with three rows of trenches outside
and subterranean passages so they could crawl under
and shoot us in the back. . . . Our bombs wouldn't
work, and what could we do with rifles? Madre de
DiosI But we were so quick — ^we took them by sur-

814

THE ARTILLERY COMES UP

prise. We captured the roundhouse and the water-
tank. And then this morning thousands came — thou-
sands — reinforcements from Torreon — and their artil-
lery — and they drove us back again. They walked up
to the water-tank and poked their rifles through the
holes and killed all of us — ^the sons of the devils !"

We could see the place as he spoke and hear the
hellish roar and shriek, and yet no one moved, and
there wasn't a sign of the shooting — ^not even smoke,
except when a shrapnel shell burst yelling down in the
first row of trees a mile ahead and vomited a puff of
white. The cracking rip of rifle fire and the staccato
machine guns and even the hammering cannon didn't
reveal themselves at all. The flat, dusty plain, the
trees and chimneys of Gomez, and the stony hill, lay
quietly in the heat. From the alamos off to the right
came the careless song of birds. One had the impres-
sion that his senses were lying. It was an incredible
dream, through which the grotesque procession of
wounded filtered like ghosts in the dust*

CHAPTER Vni

THE ARTILLERY COMES UP

OVER to the right, along the base of the line
of trees, heavy dust billowed up, men shouted,
whips snapped, and there was a rumble and a
jangling of chains. We plunged into a little path that
wound among the chaparral and emerged upon a tiny

215

INSURGENT MEXICO

Tillage, lost in the brush near the ditch. It was strik-
ingly like a Chinese or Central American village: fire
or six adobe huts thatched with mud and twigs. It
was called San Ramon, and there a little struggling
knot of men swayed about every door, clamoring for
coffee and tortillas, and waving fiat money. The pa-
cificog squatted in their tiny corrals, selling macuche
at exorbitant prices; their women sweated over the
fire, hammering tortillas and pouring villainous black
coffee. An around, in the open spaces, lay sleepers
like the dead, and men with bloody arms and heads,
tossing and groaning. Presently an officer galloped up,
streaked with sweat, and screamed, *^Gret up, you fools !
Pendecosl Wake up and get back to your companies!
We're going to attack!" A few stirred and stumbled,
cursing, to their weary feet — ^the others still slept.

**Hijos de la !*' snapped the officer, and spurred

his horse upon them, trampling, kicking. • • • The
ground boiled men scrambling out of the way and yell-
ing. They yawned, stretched, still half asleep, and
sifted off slowly toward the front in an aimless way.
. . . The wounded only dragged themselves listlessly
to the shade of the brush.

Along the side of the ditch went a sort of wagon
track, and up this the Constitutionalist artillery were
arriving. One could see the gray heads of the strain-
ing mules, and the big hats of their drivers, and the
circling whips — the rest was masked in dust. Slower
than the army, they had been marching all night. Fast
us rumbled the carriages and caissons, the long, heavy
guns yellow with dust. The drivers and gunners were

216

THE ARTILLERY COMES UP

in fine good humor. One, an American, whose features
were absolutely indistinguishable in the all-mantling
mud of sweat and earth, shouted to know if they were
in time, or if the town had fallen.

I answered in Spanish that there were lots of colora"
do8 yet to kill, and a cheer ran along the line.

"Now we'll show them something," cried a big In-
dian on a mule. "If we could get into their cursed
town without guns, what can we do with them?*'

The alamos ended just beyond San Ramon, and un-
der the last trees Villa, General Angeles, and the staff
sat on horseback at the bank of the ditch. Beyond
that the ditch ran naked across the naked plain into
the town, where it took water from the river. Villa
was dressed in an old brown suit, without a collar, and
an ancient felt hat. He was covered with dirt, and
had been riding up and down the lines all night; but
he bore no trace of fatigue.

When he saw us he called out, "Hello, muchachosi
Well, how do you like it.'^"

"Fine, mi Generair

We were worn out and very dirty. The sight of
us amused him profoundly; he never could take the
correspondents seriously, anyway, and it seemed to
him very droll that an American periodical would
be willing to spend so much money just to get the
news.

"Good," he said with a grin. "I'm glad you like
it, because you're going to get all you want."

The first gun had now come opposite the staff and
unlimbered, the gunners ripping off the canvas covers

217

INSURGENT MEXICO

and tilting up the heavy caisson. The captain of the
battery screwed on the telescopic sight and the crank
of the raising^lever spun. The brass butts of heavy
shells shone in gleaming rows; two men staggered
under the weight of one, and rested it on the ground
while the captain regulated the shrapnel timer. The
breech-lock crashed shut, and we ran far back* Cra-
boom-shock! A soaring whistling Pi-i-i-e-e-eeuu ! flew
high after the shell, and then a tiny white smoke flow*
ered at the foot of the Cerro de la Fila — and, minutes
after, a far detonation. About a himdred yards apart,
all along in front of the gun, picturesque ragged men
stared motionless through their field-glasses. They
burst into a chorus of yells, ^^Too low ! Too far to the
right! Their guns are all along the ridge! Time it
about fifteen seconds later!" Down front the rifle fire
had frittered away to ragged sputtering and the ma-
chine guns were silent. Everybody was watching the
artillery duel. It was about five-thirty in the morning, *
and already very hot. In the fields behind sounded the
parched chirp of crickets ; the lofty fresh tops of the
alamos rustled in a high languid breeze; birds began
to sing again.

Another gun wheeled into line, and the breech-block
of the first clacked again. There came the snap of
the trigger, but no roar. The gunners wrenched open
the breech and hurled the smoking brass projectile on
the grass. Bad shell. I saw Greneral Angeles in his
faded brown sweater, hatless, peering through the sight
and cranking up the range. Villa was spurring his re-
luctant horse up to the caisson. Cra — ^boom — shock!

218

THE ARTILLERY COMES UB

Pi-i-i-e-e-eeuu ! The other gun this time. We saw the
shell burst higher up the stony hill this time. And then
four booms floated to us, and, simultaneously, the en-
emy's shells, which had been exploding desultorily over
the line of trees nearest the city, marched out into the
open desert and leaped toward us in four tremendous
explosions, each nearer. More guns had wheeled into,
line; others filed off to the right along a diagonal
of trees, and a long line of heavy trucks, plunging
mules^ and cursing, shouting men choked up the
dusty road to the rear. The unlimbered mules jingled
back and the drivers threw themselves, exhausted, under
the nearest chaparral.

The Federal shrapnel, well fired and excellently
timed, was bursting now only a few hundred yards in
front of our line, and the minute boom of their guns
was almost incessanL Crash — ^Wheeeeaa! Over our
heads, snapping viciously in the leafy trees, sang the
rain of lead. Our guns replied spasmodically. The
home-made shells, fashioned on converted mining ma-
chinery in Chihuahua, were not reliable. Galloped past
stout Captain Marinelli, the Italian soldier of fortune,
steering as near the newspapermen as possible, with a
serious, Napoleonic look on his face* He glanced once
or twice at the camera man, smiling graciously, but the
latter coldly looked away. With a workmanlike flour-
ish he ordered the wheeling of his gun into position
and sighted it himself. Just then a shell burst deaf-
eningly about a hundred yards in front. The Federals
were getting the range. Marinelli bounded away from
his cannon, mounted his horse, limbered up and came

219

INSURGENT MEXICO

gaDopiiig dnuBaticaDy hmA with lus gun mmhihig
along at a dead mn hfhind, Naut of tbe otlier guns
had retreated. Palfiiig up his foaming diarger in f rmit
of the ca m er a nuuu he ftmir himself to the gioun d and
todL a position*

*^€m^ he said, ^oo can take mj pictoref

*^Go to heD," said the camera man, and a great shoot
of lan^ter went op along the line.

The hij^ cracked note of a bogle thrilled throo^
the racking roar. Immediately nraks dragging their
jan^ng limbers appeared, and shooting men. Hie
caissons snapped shut.

^Going down front,** shouted Colonel Serrin. ^^ot
hitting. Too far away here. . • ."

And the long-halted line snapped taot and wound
out into tbe open desert, under the bursting sheUs.

CHAPTER IX

BATTLE

WE returned along the winding path through
the mesquite, crossed the tom-up track, and
struck out across the dusty plain southeast-
ward. Looking back along the railroad I could see
smoke and the round front of the first train miles
away; and in front of it throngs of active little dots
swarming on the right of way, distorted like things seen
in a wavy mirror. We strode along in a haze of thin
dust. The giant mesquite dwindled until it scarcely

BATTLE

reached to our knees. To the right the tall hill and
the chimneys of the town swam tranquilly in the hot
sun; rifle fire had almost ceased for the moment, and
only dazzling bursts of thick white smoke marked our
occasional shells alorg the ridge. We could see our
drab guns rocking down the plain, spreading along the
first line of alamos, where the searching fingers of the
enemy's shrapnel probed continually. Little bodies of
horsemen moved here and there over the desert, and
stragglers on foot, trailing their rifles.

An old peon, stooped with age and dressed in rags,
crouched in the low shrub gathering mesquite twigs.

"Say, friend,'' we asked him, "is there any way we
can get in close to see the fighting?"

He straightened up and stared at us.

"If you had been here as long as I have," said he,
"you wouldn't care about seeing the fighting. Car^
ramba! I have seen them take Torreon seven times in
three years. Sometimes they attack from Gomez Pa-
lacio and sometimes from the mountains. But it is al-
ways the same — ^war. There is something interesting in
it for the young, but for us old people, we are tired
of war." He paused and stared out over the plain.
"Do you see this dry ditch? Well, if you will get
down in it and follow along it will lead you into the
town." And then, as an afterthought, he added in-
curiously, "What party do you belong to?"

"The Constitutionalists."

"So. First it was the Maderistas, and then the
Orozquistas, and now the — ^what did you call them?
I am very old, and I have not long to live; but this

221

INSURGENT 3IEXICO

WAT — it seems to me that all it accomplishes is to let
us go hungry. Go with God, sefiores." And he bent
again to his slow task, while we descended into the
arroyo. It was a disused irrigation ditch running a
little south of west, its bottom coTered with dusty
weeds, and the end of its straight length hidden from
us by a sort of mirage that looked like a glaring pool
of water. Stooped a little, so as to be hidden from the
outside, we walked along, it seemed, for hours, the
cracked bottom and dusty sides of the ditch reflecting
the fierce heat upon us until we were faint with it.
Once horsemen passed quite near on our right, their
big iron spurs ringing; we crouched down until they
passed, for we didn't want to take any chances. Down
in the ditch the artillery fire sounded Tery faint and
far away, but once I cautiously lifted my head above
the bank and discovered that we were very near the
first line of trees. Shells were bursting along it, and
I could even see the belch of furious haze hurling out
from the mouths of our cannon, and feel the surf of
sound-waves hit me like a blow when they fired. We
were a good quarter of a mile in front of our artil-
lery, and evidently making for the water-tank on the
very edge of the town. As we stooped again the shells
passing overhead whined sharply and suddenly across
the arc of sky and were cut off abruptly until the sul-
len echoless booff! of their explosion. There ahead,
where the railroad trestle of the main line crossed the
arroyo, huddled a little pile of bodies — evidently left
from the first attack. Hardly one was bloody; their
heads and hearts were pierced with the clean, tiny holes

882

BATTLE

of steel Mauser bullets. They lay limply, with the un*
earthly calm, lean faces of the dead. Someone, per-
haps their own thrifty compafleroSy had stripped them
of arms, shoes, hats and serviceable clothing. One
sleeping soldier, squatting on the edge of the heap with
his rifle across his knees, snored deeply. Flies cov-
ered him — ^the dead hummed with them. But the sun
had not yet affected them. Another soldier leaned
against the townward bank of the ditch, his feet rest-
ing on a corpse, banging methodically away at some-
thing he saw. Under the shadow of the trestle four
men sat playing cards. They played listlessly, with-
out talking, their eyes red with lack of sleep. The heat
was frightful. Occasionally a stray bullet came by
screaming, "Where — ^is-s-s-z — ^ye !'* This strange com-
pany took our appearance as a matter of course. The
sharpshooter doubled up out of range and carefully
put another cartridge-clip in his rifle.

"You haven't got another drop of water in that can-
teen, have you?" he asked. ^^Adio! we haven't eaten
or drunk since yesterday!" He guzzled the water,
furtively watching the card players lest they, too,
should be thirsty. "They say that we are to attack the
water-tank and the Corral again when the artillery is
in position to support us. Chi-Auahua hombre! but it
was duro in the night! They slaughtered us in the
streets there. . . ." He wiped his mouth on the back
of his hand and began firing again. We lay beside him
and looked over. We were about two hundred yards
from the deadly water-tank. Across the track and the
wide street beyond lay the brown mud-walls of the

823

INSUBGENT HEXICO

Brittiiij^bain Corral, imiooent looking enough nofir, wifh.
only Mack dots to show the doable line of loop-holes.

^Tbere are the machine guns,'' said our friendL ''See
them, those slim barrels peeping OTer the edge?^ We
couldn't make them oat. Water-tank, Corral and town
lay sleeping in the heat. Dost horered still in the air,
ywnkiwg a thin haze. Aboat fifty yards in front of us
was a shallow exposed ditch, evidently once a Federal
trench, for the dirt had been piled on oar side. Two
hundred drab, dusty soldiers lay in it now, facing
townward — ^the Constitutionalist infantry. Hiey were
sprawled on the ground, in all attitudes of weariness ;
some sleeping on their backs, facing up to the hot sun;
others wearily transferring the dirt with their scooped
hands from rear to front. Before them they had piled
up irregular heaps of rocks. Now infantry, in the
Constitutionalist army, is simply <;aTalry without
horses; all Villa's soldiers are mounted except the ar-
tillery, and those for whom horses cannot be procured.

Of a sudden the artillery in our rear boomed all to-
gether, and over our heads a dozen shells screamed to-
ward the Cerro.

'That is the signal," said the man at our side. He
clambered down into the ditch and kicked the sleeper.
**Come on,*' he yelled. "Wake up. We're going to
attack the pelones/* The snorer groaned and opened
his eyes slowly. He yawned and picked up his rifle
without a word. The card players began to squabble
about their winnings. A violent dispute broke out as
to who owned the pack of cards. Grumbling and still

224

BATTLE

arguing, they stumbled out and followed the sharp-
shooter up over the edge of the ditch.

Rifle fire rang along the edge of the trench in front.
The sleepers flopped over on their stomachs behind
their little shelters — ^their elbows worked vigorously
pumping the guns. The hollow steel water-tank re-
sounded to the rain of thimiping bullets ; chips of adobe
flew from the wall of the Corral. Instantly the wall
bristled with shining barrels and the two awoke crack-
ling with hidden vicious firing. Bullets roofed the
heavens with whistling steel — drummed the smoking
dust up until a yellow curtain of whirling cloud veiled
us from the houses and the tank. We could see our
friend running low along the ground, the sleepy man
following, standing erect, still rubbing his eyes. Be-
hind strung out the gamblers, squabbling yet. Some-
where in the rear a bugle blew. The sharpshooter run-
ning in front stopped suddenly, swaying, as if he had
run against a solid wall. His left leg doubled under
him and he sank crazily to one knee in the exposed flat,
whipping up his rifle with a yell.

" the dirty monkeys !" he screamed, firing

rapidly into the dust. "Pll show the ! The

cropped heads! The jail-birds!" He shook his head
impatiently, like a dog with a hurt ear. Blood drops
flew from it. Bellowing with rage, he shot the rest of
his clip, and then slumped to the ground and thrashed
to and fro for a minute. The others passed him with
scarcely a look. Now the trench was boiling with men
scrambling to their feet, like worms when you turn
over a log. The rifle fire rattled shrilly. From behind

8S5

INSURGENT MEXICO

U8 came running feet, and men in sandals, with blankets
over their shoulders, came falling and slipping down
the ditch, and scrambling up the other side — ^hundreds
of them, it seemed. • . •

They almost hid from us the front, but through the
dust and the spaces between rimning logs we could see
the soldiers in the trench leap their barricade like a
breaking wave. And then the impenetrable dust shut
down and the fierce stabbing needle of the machine
guns sewed the mighty jumble of sounds together. A
glimpse through a rift in the cloud torn by a sudden
hot gust of wind — ^we could see the first brown line of
men reeling altogether like drunkards, and the machine
guns over the wall spitting sharp, dull red in the sim-
shine. Then a man came running back out of it, the
sweat streaming down his face, without a gun. He
ran fast, half sliding, half falling, down into our ditch
and up the other side. Other dim forms loomed up in
the dust ahead.

"What is it? How is it going?" I cried.

He answered nothing, but ran on. Suddenly and
terribly the monstrous crash and scream of shrapnel
burst from the turmoil ahead. The enemy's artillery !
Mechanically I listened for our guns. Except for an
occasional boom they were silent. Our home-made
shells were failing again. Two more shrapnel shells.
Out of the dust-cloud men came running back — singly,
in pairs, in groups, a stampeding mob. They fell over
us, around us — drowned us in a human flood, shouting
"To the alamos! To the trains! The Federation is
coming!" We struggled up among them and ran, too,

286

BATTLE

straight up the railroad track. . • . Behind us roared
the shells searching In the dust, and the tearing mus-
ketry. And then we noticed that all the wide roadway
ahead was filled with galloping horsemen, yelling shrill
Indian cries and waving their riflea — the main column !
We stood to one side as they whirled past, about five
hundred of them — ^watched them stoop in their saddles
and begin to shoot. The drmnming of their horses'
hoofs was like thunder.

"Better not go in there! It's too hot!" cried one
of the infantry with a grin.

"Well, I'll bet I'm hotter," answered a horseman,
and we all laughed. We walked tranquilly back along
the railroad track, while the firing behind wound up to
a continuous roar. A group of peons — pacificos — ^in
tall sombreros, blankets and white cotton blouses, stood
along here with folded arms, looking down the track
toward town.

"Look out there, friends," joshed a soldier* "Don't
stand there. You'll get hit."

The peons looked at each other and grinned feebly.
"But, sefior," said one, *Hhis is where we always stand
when there is a battle."

A little farther along 1 came upon an officer — a Ger-
man — ^wandering along, leading his horse by the bridle.
"I cannot ride him any more," he said to me earnestly.
"He is quite too tired. I am afraid he will die if he does
not sleep." The horse, a big chestnut stallion, stumbled
and swayed as he walked. Enormous tears trickled
from his half-shut eyes and rolled down his nose. • . •

I was dead tired, reeling from lack of sleep and food

227

INSURGENT MEXICO

and the terrible heat of the sun. About half a mile out
I looked back and saw the enemy's shrapnel poking
into the line of trees more frequently than ever. They
seemed to have thoroughly got the range. And just
then I saw the gray line of guns, limbered to their
mules, begin to crawl out from the trees toward the rear
at four or five different points. Our artillery had been
shelled out of their positions. • • . I threw myself
down to rest in the shade of a big mesquite bush.

Almost immediately a change seemed to come in the
sound of the rifle fire, as if half of it had been suddenly
cut off. At the same time twenty bugles shrilled. Ris-
ing, I noticed a line of running horsemen fleeing up the
track, shouting something. More followed, galloping,
at the place where the railroad passed beyond the
trees on its way into town. The cavalry had been re-
pulsed. All at once the whole plain squirmed with men,
mounted and on foot, all running rearward. One man
threw away his blanket, another his rifle. They thick-
ened over the hot desert, stamping up the dust, until
the flat was crowded with them. Right in front of me
a horseman burst out of the brush, shouting, ^^The Fed-
erals are coming! To the trains! They are right be-
hind !" The entire Constitutionalist army was routed !
I caught up my blanket and took to my heels. A little
way farther on I came upon a cannon abandoned in
the desert, traces cut, mules gone. Underfoot were
guns, cartridge-belts and dozens of serapes. It was a
rout. Coming to an open space, I saw ahead a large
crowd of fleeing soldiers, without rifles. Suddenly
three men on horseback swept across in front of them,

288

BETWEEN ATTACKS

waving their arms and yeUing. "Go back !" they cried.
**They aren't coming out! Go back for the love of
God!" Two I didn't recognize. The other was Villa.

CHAPTER X

BETWEEN ATTACKS

ABOUT a mile back the flight was stopped. I met
the soldiers coming back, with the reUeved ex-
pression of men who have feared an unknown
danger and been suddenly set free from it. That was
always Villa's power — ^he could explain things to the
great mass of ordinary people in a way that they im-
mediately understood. The Federals, as usual, had
failed to take advantage of their opportunity to inflict
a lasting defeat upon the Constitutionalists. Perhaps
they feared an ambush like the one Villa had arranged
at Mapula, when the victorious Federals sallied out to
pursue Villa's fleeing army after the first attack on
ChihuflJiua, and were repulsed with heavy slaughter.
Anyway, they did not come out. The men came
straggling back, hunting in the mesquite for their guns
and blankets, and for other people's guns and blankets.
You could hear them shouting and joking all over the
plain. **Oijat Where are you going with that rifle?
That's my water-bag! I dropped my serape right here
by this bush, and now it's gone!"

^^O Juan," cried one man to another, ^^I always told
you I could beat you running!"

S29

•INSnitGENT MEXICO

^ut 700 didn't, cowtpadre, I was a hnndred meters
ahead, flying throng the air like a cannon ball! • . •"

The truth was that after riding twelve hours the day
before, fighting all ni^t, and all morning in the
Mazing sun, under the fri^tfol strain of charging an
intrenched force in the face of artillery and machine
guns, without food, water or sleep, the army's nerve
had suddenly given way. But from the time that they
returned after the fli^t the ultimate result was never
in doubt. The psychological crisis was past. . • •

Now the rifle fire had altogether ceased, and even
cannon shots from the enemy were few and far between.
At the ditch under the first line of trees our men en-
trenched themselves; the artillery had withdrawn to'
the second line of trees — a mile back; and under the
grateful shade the men threw themselves heavily
down and slept. The strain had snapped. As
the sun rose toward noon the desert, hill and town
throbbed sOently in the intense heat. Sometimes an
exchange of shots far to the right or left told where the
outposts were exchanging compliments. But even that
soon stopped. In the cotton and cornfields to the
north, among the sprouting green things, insects
chirped. The birds sang no more because of the heat.
It was breathless. The leaves stirred in no wind.

Here and there little fires smoked, where the soldiers
rolled tortillas from the scanty flour they had brou^t
in their saddle-bags — and those who didn't have any
swarmed around, begging a crumb. Everybody simply
and generously divided the food. I was hailed from a
dozen fires with *^Hey, compafierOf have you break-

280

BETWEEN ATTACKS

fasted? Here is a piece of my tortiUa. Come and eat !"
Rows of men lay flat on their stomachs along the irri-
gation ditch, scooping up the dirty water in their
palms. Three or four miles back we could see the can-
non-car and the first two trains, opposite the big ranch
of El Verjel, with the tireless repair gang hard at it
in the hot sun. The provision train had not come up
yex»« • • •

Little Colonel Servin came by, perched on an im«
mense bay horse, still dapper and fresh after the terri-
ble work of the night.

"I don't know what we shall do yet," he said. "Only
the General knows that, and he never tells. But we
shall not assault again until the Brigada Zaragosa re-
turns. Benavides has had a hard battle over there at
Sacramento — ^two hundred and fifty of ours kiUed, they
say. And the Greneral has sent for General Robles and
General Contreras, who have been attacking from the
south, to bring up all their men and join him here. . • •
They say, though, that we are going to deliver a night
attack next, so that their artillery won't be effective.
• • •" He galloped on.

About midday thin columns of sluggish, dirty smoke
began to rise from several points in the town, and to-
ward afternoon a slow, hot wind brought to us the
faintly sickening smell of crude oil mingled with
scorched human flesh. The Federals were burning piles
of the dead. • • •

We walked back to the trains and stormed General
Benavides' private car in the Brigada Zaragosa train.
The major in charge had them cook us something to

8S1

INSURGENT MEXICO

eat in the General's kitchen. We ate ravenously, and
afterward went over along the line of trees and slept
for hours. Late in the afternoon we started once more
for the front. Hundreds of soldiers and peons of the
neighborhood, ravenously hungry, prowled around the
trains, hoping to pick up discarded food, or slops, or
anything at all to eat. They were ashamed of them-
selves, however, and affected a sauntering indolence
when we passed. I remember that we sat for a while
talking with some soldiers on the top of a box-car,
when a boy, criss-crossed with cartridge-belts and lug-
ging a huge rifle, came past beneath, his eyes searching
the ground. A stale tortiUa^ half rotting, crunched
into the dirt by many pa^ssing feet, caught his atten-
tion. He pounced upon it and bit a piece out. Then
he looked up and saw us. ^^As if I were dying of hun-
ger!" he said scornfully and tossed it away with con-
tempt. • • •

Down in the shade of the alamos, across the ditch
from San Ramon, the Canadian Captain Treston was
bivouacked with his machine gun battery. The guns
and their heavy tripods were unloaded from the mules,
and all around lay the unlimbered field-pieces, their
animals grazing in the rich green fields, the men squat-^
ted around their fires or lying stretched out on
the bank of the ditch. Treston waved an ashy,
tortilla he was munching and bawled, ^^Say, Reed!
Please come here and interpret for me ! I can't find my
interpreters, and if we go into action I'll be in a hell
of a fix ! You see I don't know the damn language, and

2S2

BETWEEN ATTACKS

when I came down here Villa hired two interpreters to
go around with me all the time. And I can't ever
find the sons-of-guns ; they always go off and leave me
in a hole !'*

I took part of the proffered delicacy and asked him
if he thought there was any chance of going into action.

^^I think we'll go in to-night as soon as it's dark,"
he answered, ^^o you want to go along with the ma-
chine guns and interpret?" I said I did.

A ragged man near the fire, whom I had never seen
before, rose and came across smiling.

^^I thought when I looked at you that you seemed to
be an hombre who hadn't tasted tobacco for a while.
Will you take half my cigarette?" Before I could pro-
test he produced a lop-sided brown cigarette and tore
it across in two pieces. . . .

The sun went gloriously down behind the notched
purple mountains in front of us, and for a minute a
clear fan of quivering light poured up the high arc of
stainless sky. The birds awoke in the trees; leaves
rustled. The fertile land exhaled a pearly mist. A
dozen ragged soldiers, lying close together, began to
improvise the air and words of a song about the battle
of Torreon — a new ballad was being born. . . . Other
singing came to us through the still, cool dusk. I felt
my whole feeling going out to these gentle, simple peo-
ple — so lovable they were. . . .

It was just after I had been to the ditch for a drink
that Treston said casually: "By the way, one of our
men found this floating in the ditch a little while ago.
I can't read Spanish, so I didn't know what the word

233

INSURGENT MEXICO

meant. You see the water from these ditches all comes
from the river inside the town, so I thought it might be
a Federal paper." I took it from his hand. It was a
little folded white piece of wet paper, like the corner
and front of a package. In large black letters was
printed on the front, **ARSENICOy** and in smaller
type, **Cuidadol VenenoT* "Arsenic. Beware! Poison!"

"Look here," I demanded, sitting up suddenly, **Have
there been any sick people around here this evening?"

**That's funny you're asking," he said. **A good
many of the men have had bad cramps in the stomach,
and I don't feel altogether well. Just before you came
a mule suddenly keeled over and died in that next field,
and a horse across the ditch. Fatigue or sunstroke,
probably. . . ."

Fortunately the ditch carried a large body of swiftly
running water, so the danger was not great. I ex«
plained to him that the Federals had poisoned the
ditch.

"My Grod," said Treston. "Perhaps that is what
they were trying to tell me. About twenty people have
€ome up to me and said something about envenenado.
What does that mean?"

"That's what it means," I answered. "Where can
we get about a quart of strong coffee?" We found a
great can of it at the nearest fire and felt better.

"O yes, we knew," said the men. "That is why we
watered the animals at the other ditch. We heard long
ago. They say that ten horses are dead down in front,
and that many men are rolling very sick on the
ground."

234

BETWEEN ATTACKS

An ofiScer on horseback rode by, shouting that
we were all to go back to El Verjel and camp there
beside the trains for the night; that the general had
said that everyone but the advance guards were to get
a good night's sleep out of the zone of fire, and that
the commissary train had come up and was just behind
the hospital train. Bugles sounded, and the men strug-
gled up off the ground, catching mules, fastening their
harness on amid shouting and braying and jingling,
saddling horses and limbering guns. Treston got on his
pony and I walked along beside him. So there was to
be no night attack then. It was now almost dark.
Across the ditch we fell in with the shadowy forms of a
company of soldiers trotting northward, all muffling
blankets and big hats and ringing spurs. They hailed
me. **Hey, companero^ where's your horse?" I admit-
ted I had none. ^^Jump up behind me then," chimed
in five or six altogether. One pulled up right beside
me and I mounted with him. We jogged on through
the mesquite and across a dim, lovely field. Someone
began to sing and two more joined in. A round, full
moon bubbled up in the clear night.

*'Oiga, how do you say *mula' in English?" asked my
horseman.

"Gr d stubborn-fathead-mule," I told him.

And for days after entire strangers would stop me and
ask me, with roars of laughter, how the Americans said
**ifiuUi, . • •

Around the ranch of El Verjel the army was en-
camped. We rode into a field dotted with fires, where
aimless soldiers wandered around in the dark, shouting

SS5

INSURGENT MEXICO

to know where the Brigada Gronzales-Ortega was, or
Jose Rodriguez's gente, or the amitraiUadoras. Town-
ward the artillery was unlimbering in a wide, alert half-
circle, guns pointing south. To the east, the camp of
Benavides' Brigada Zaragosa, just arrived from Sacra-
mento, made an immense glow in the sky. From the
direction of the provision train a long ant-like file of
men bore sacks of flour, coffee, and packages of ciga-
rettes. • • • A hundred different singing choruses
swelled up into the night. • . •

It comes to my mind with particular vividness how I
saw a poor poisoned horse suddenly double up and fall,
thrashing; how we passed a man bent to the ground in
the darkness, vomiting violently; how, after I had
rolled up on the ground in my blankets, terrible cramps
suddenly wrenched me, and I crawled out a way into
the brush and didn't have the strength to crawl back.
In fact, until gray dawn, I ^^rolled very sick on the
ground."

CHAPTER XI

AN OUTPOST IN ACTION

TUESDAY, early in the morning, the army was in
motion again toward the front, straggling
down the track and across the field. Four hun-
dred raging demons sweated and hammered at the
ruined track ; the foremost train had made half a mile
in the night. Horses were plenty that morning, and I
bought one, saddle and all, for seventy-five pesos —

236

AN OUTPOST IN ACTION

about fifteen dollars in gold. Trotting down by San
Ramon, I fell in with two wild-looking horsemen, in
high sombreros, with little printed pictures of Our
Lady of Guadelupe sewed on the crowns. They said
they were going out to an outpost upon the extreme
right wing, near the mountains above Lerdo, where
their company was posted to hold a hill. Why should
I want to come with them? Who was I, anyway? I
showed them my pass, signed by Francisco Villa. They
were stiU hostile. "Francisco Villa is nothing to us,",
they said. "And how do we know whether this is his
name, written by him? We are of the Brigada Juarez,
Calixto Contreras' gente*^ But after a short consulta-
tion the taller grunted, "Come."

We left the protection of the trees, striking out
diagonally across the ramparted cotton-fields, due west,
straight for a steep, high hiU that already quivered in
the heat. Between us and the suburbs of Gomez Pala-
cio stretched a barren, flat plain, covered with low
mesquite and cut by dry irrigation ditches. The Cerro
de la Pila, with its murderous concealed artillery, lay
perfectly quiet, except that up one side of it, so clear
was the air, we could make out a little knot of figures
dragging what looked like a cannon. Just outside of
the nearest houses some horsemen were riding around;
we immediately struck north, making a wide detour,
carefully on the watch, for this intermediate ground
was overrun by pickets and scouting parties. About a
mile beyond, almost along the foot of the hill, ran the
high road from the north to Lerdo. We reconnoitered
this carefully from the brush. A peasant passed whist-

237

INSURGENT MEXICX)

ling, driying a flock of goats. On the very edge of this
road, under a bush, was an earthen jar full of milk.
Without the lejwt hesitation the first soldier drew his
revolver and shot. The jar split into a hundred pieces
—milk spurting everywhere.

"Poisoned,** he said briefly. The first company sta-
tioned over here drank some of that stuff. Four died."
We rode on.

Up on the hill crest a few black figures squatted,
their rifles tilted against their knees. My companions
waved to them, and we turned north along the bank of
a little river that unrolled a narrow strip of green grass
in the midst of desolation. The outpost was camped on
both sides of the water, in a sort of meadow. I asked
where the colonel was, and finally found him stretched
out in the shade of a tent that he had made by hanging
his serape over a bush.

"Get down from your horse, friend,'' he said. "I am
glad to welcome you here. My house" (pointing quiz-
zically to the roof of his tent) "is at your disposal.
Here are cigarettes. There is meat cooking on the
fire." Upon the meadow, fully saddled, grazed the
horses of the troop, about fifty of them. The men
sprawled on the grass in the shade of the mesquite,
chatting and playing cards. This was a different breed
of men from the well-armed, well-mounted, compara-
tively disciplined troops of Villa's army. They were
simply peons who had risen in arms, like my friends of
La Tropa — a tough, happy race of mountaineers and
cowboys, among whom were many who had been ban-
dits in the old days. Unpaid, ill-clad, undisciplined —

2S8

AN OUTPOST IN ACTION

their officers merely the bravest among them — armed
only with aged Springfields and a handful of cartridges
apiece, they had fought ahnost continuously for three
years. For four months they, and the irregular troops
of such guerrilla chiefs as Urbina and Robles, had held
the advance around Torreon, fighting almost daily with
Federal outposts and suffering aU the hardships of the
campaign, while the main army garrisoned Chihuahua,
and Juarez. These ragged men were the bravest sol-
diers in Villa's army.

I had lain there about fifteen minutes, watching the
beef sizzle in the flames and satisfying the eager curi-
osity of a crowd as to my curious profession, when
there was a sound of galloping, and a voice, "They're
coming out of Lerdo ! To horse !"

Half a hundred men reluctantly, and in a leisurely
manner, made for their horses. The colonel rose, yawn-
ing. He stretched.

" the animals of Federals!" he growled.

"They stay on our minds all the time. You never have
time to think of more pleasant things. It's a shame
they won't let us even eat our dinner !"

We were mounted soon, trotting down the bank of
the stream. Far in front sounded the pin-pricking
rifles. Instinctively, without order, we broke into a
gallop; through the streets of a little village, where
the pacificos stood on the roofs of their houses, look-
ing off to the south, little bundles of their belongings
beside them so they could flee if the battle went against
us, for the Federals crueUy punish villages which have

239

INSURGENT MEXICO

harbored the enemy. Beyond lay the stony little hill.
We got off our horses, and throwing the reins over their
heads, climbed on foot. About a dozen men already
lay there, shooting spasmodically in the direction of the
green bank of trees behind which lay Lerdo. Unseen
scattering shots ripped from the blank desert between.
About half a mile away small brown figures dodged
around in the brush. A thin dust-cloud showed where
another detachment was marching slowly north in their
rear.

**We already got one sure, and another one in the
leg," said a soldier, spitting.

**How many do you make them out?" asked the colo-
nel.

"About two hundred."

The Colonel stood bolt upright, carelessly looking
out over the sunny plain. Immediately a roll of shots
swept along their front. A bullet chirped overhead.
Already the men had gone to work, unordered. Each
soldier picked out a smooth place to lie and piled up
a little heap of stones in front to shield him. They
lay down grunting, loosening their belts and taking off
their coats to be perfectly comfortable; then they be-
gan slowly and methodically to shoot.

**There goes another," announced the Colonel.
"Yours, Pedro."

"Not Pedro's at all," interrupted another man fret-
fully. "I got him."

**0 the devil you did," snapped Pedro. They quar-
reled. • • •

240

AN OUTPOST IN ACTION

The firing from the desert was now pretty general,
and we could see the Federals slipping toward us under
the protection of every bush and arroyo. Our men
fired slowly and carefully, aiming a long time before
they pulled the trigger, for the months with scanty am-
munition around Torreon had made them economical.
But now every hill and bush along our line held a little
knot of sharpshooters, and looking back on the wide
flats and fields between the hill and the railroad, I saw
innumerable single horsemen and squads of them spur-
ring through the brush. In ten minutes we would have
five hundred men with us.

The rifle fire along the line swelled and deepened
until there was a solid mile of it. The Federals had
stopped; now the dust-clouds began slowly to move
backward in the direction of Lerdo. The fire from the
desert slackened. And then, from nowhere, we sud-
denly saw the broad-winged vultures sailing, serene and
motionless, in the blue. . • •

The Colonel, his men and I democratically ate lunch
in the shade of the village houses. Our meat was, of
course, scorched, so we had to do the best we could with
jerked beef and pinole, which seems to be cinnamon and
bran, ground fine. I never enjoyed a meal so. • • .
And when I left the men made up a double handful of
cigarettes as a present.

Said the Colonel: **Anugo, I am sorry that we had
not time for a talk together. There are many things I
want to ask you about your country — ^whether it is

241

INSURGENT MEXICO

true, for example, that in your cities men have entirely
lost the use of their legs and don't ride horseback in
the streets, but are borne about in automobiles. I
had a brother once who worked on the railroad track
near Kansas City, and he told me wonderful things.
But a man called him ^greaser' one day and shot him
without that my brother did anything to him. Why is
it your people don't like Mexicans ? I like many Amer-
icans. I like you. Here is a gift for you." He un-
buckled one of his huge iron spurs, inlaid with silver,
and gave it to me. "But we never had any time here

for talk. These always annoy us, and then we

have to get up and kill a few of them before we cam
have a moment's peace. • . •"

Under the alamo trees I found one of the photog-
raphers and a moving-picture man. They were lying
flat on their backs near a fire, around which squatted
twenty soldiers, gorging ravenously flour tortillas, meat
and coffee. One proudly displayed a silver wrist-watch.

"That used to be my watch," explained the pho-
tographer. "You see we hadn't had anything to eat
for two days, and when we came past here these boys
called us and gave us the most magnificent feed I have
ever tasted. After that I just couldn't help giving
them a present!"

The soldiers had accepted the gift communally and
were agreeing that each should wear it for two hours^
from then on until the end of life. • • •

CONTRERAS' MEN ASSAULT

CHAPTER XII

CONTRERAS' MEN ASSAULT

WEDNESDAY my friend the photographer
and I were wandering across a field when
Villa came by on his horse. He looked
tired, dirty, but happy. Reining up in front of us, the
motions of his body as easy and graceful as a wolf's, he
grinned and said, "Well, boys, how is it going now?"

We answered that we were perfectly contented.

"I haven't time to worry about you, so you must be
careful not to go into danger. It is bad — the wounded.
Hundreds. They are brave, those muchachos; the
bravest people in the world. But," he continued de-
lightedly, "you must go and see the hospital train.
There is something fine for you to write your papers
about. • . ."

And truly it was a magnificent thing to see. The
hospital train lay right behind the work train now.
Forty box-cars, enameled inside, stenciled on the side
with a big blue cross and the legend, "Servicio Sani-
tario," handled the wounded as they came from the
front. They were fitted inside with the latest surgical
appliances and manned by sixty competent American
and Mexican doctors. Every night shuttle trains car-
ried the seriously hurt back to the base hospitals at
Chihuahua and Parral.

We went down through San Ramon and beyond the
end of the line of trees out across the desert. It was

343

INSUKGENT MEXICO

already stinging hot. In front a snake of rifle fire
unfolded along the line, and then a machine gun,
**spat — spat — spatP' As we emerged into the open a
lone Mauser began cracking down to the right some-
where. We. paid no attention to it at first, but pretty
soon we noticed that there was a little plumping sound
on the ground around us — ^puffs of dust flew up every
few minutes.

**By God," said the photographer. "Some beggar's
sniping at us.''

Instinctively we both sprinted. The rifle shots came
faster. It was a long distance across the plain. After
a little we reduced it to a jog-trot. Finally we walked
along, with the dust spurting up as before, and a feel-
ing that, after all, it wouldn't do any good to run.
Then we forgot it. • • •

Half an hour later we crept through the brush a
quarter of a mile from the outskirts of Gomez and
came upon a tiny ranch of six or eight adobe huts, with
a street running between. In the lee of one of the houses
lounged and sprawled about sixty of Contreras' ragged
fighters. They were playing cards and talking lazily.
Down the street, just around the corner, which pointed
straight as a die toward the Federal positions, a storm
of bullets swept continually, whipping up the dust.
These men had been on duty at the front all night. The
countersign had been "no hats," and they were bare-
headed in the broiling sun. They had had no sleep and
no food, and there wasn't any water for half a mile.

"There is a Federal cuartel up ahead there that is

CONTRERAS' MEN ASSAULT

firing," explained a boy about twelve years old. "We've
got orders to attack when the artillery comes.'*

An old man squatting against the wall asked me
where I came from. I said New York.

"Well," he said, "I don't know anything about New
York, but I'll bet you don't see such fine cattle going
through the streets as you see in the streets of Jim-
mez.

"You don't see any cattle in the streets of New
York," I said.

He looked at me incredulously. "What, no cattle?
You mean to tell me that they don't drive cattle
through the streets up there? Or sheep?"

I said they didn't. He looked at me as if he thought
I was a great liar ; then he cast his eyes on the ground
and thought deeply.

"Well," he pronounced finally, "then I don't want
to go there ! • • ."

Two skylarking boys started a game of tag; in a
minute twenty full-grown men were chasing each other
around in great glee. The card players had one short
deck of torn cards, and at least eight people were try-
ing to play some game and arguing about the rules at
the top of their voices, or perhaps there weren't enough
cards to go around. Four or five had crawled into the
shade of the house, singing satirical love songs. All
this time the steady infernal din up ahead never re-
lented, and the bullets spattered in the dust like rain
drops. Occasionally one of the men would slouch over,
poke his rifle around the corner and fire. . . .

We stayed there about half an hour. Then two gray

245

INSURGENT BIEXICO

cannons came rocketing out of the brash bdiind and
wheeled into position in a dry ditdi serenty-fire yards
away on the left.

^ guess we're going in a minnte," said the boy.

At that moment three men gaJloped up from the rear,
evidently cheers. They were entirely exposed to rifle
fire over the roofs of the huts, bat jerked up their
horses with the shots yelling all aroand, contemptuous
of them. The first to speak was Fierro, the superb
great animal of a man who had murdered Benton.

He sneered down at the ragged soldiers from his
saddle. ^'Well, this is a fine-looking crowd to take a
city with,'' he said, ^ut we've got nobody else down
here. Go in when you hear the bugle." Pulling cruelly
on the bit, so that his big horse reared strai^t up and
whirled on his hind legs, Fierro galloped off rearward,
saying as he went, ^Useless, those simple fools of Con-
treras "

'^eath to the Butcher f said a man furiously.
'^That murderer killed my compadre in the streets of
Durango — for no crime or insult! My compadre was
very drunk, walking in front of the theater. He asked

Fierro what time it was, and Fierro said. You !

How dare you speak to me before I speak to you
first ^"

But the bugle was blowing, and up they got, grab-
bing their guns. The tag game tried to stop, but
couldn't. Furious card players were accusing each
other of stealing the deck.

**Oiga, Fidencio!" cried one soldier. "Fll bet you

246

A NIGHT ATTACK

my saddle I come back and you don't! This morning

I won a nice bridle from Juan ^"

"All right ! Mwy bien! My new pinto horse. • . /'
Laughing, joking, rollicking, they swept out of the
shelter of the houses into the rain of steel. They scut-
tled awkwardly up the street, like little brown animals
unused to running. Billowing dust veiled them and a
hell of noise. • • •

CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT ATTACK

TWO or three of us had a sort of camp beside the
ditch far up along the alamos. Our car, with
its food supply, clothes and blankets, was still
twenty miles back. Most of the time we went without
meals. When we could manage to beg a few cans of
sardines or some flour from the commissary train we
were lucky. Wednesday one of the crowd had man-
aged to get hold of tinned salmon, coffee, crackers and
a big package of cigarettes; and as we cooked dinner
Mexican after Mexican, passing on his way to the front,
dismounted and joined us. After the most elaborate
exchange of courtesies, in which we had to persuade
our guest to eat hugely of the dinner we had painfully
foraged for ourselves, and he had to comply out of
politeness, he would mount and ride away without grati-
tude, though full of friendliness.

We stretched out on the bank in the golden twflight,
smoking. The first train, headed by a flat-car uppn

247

INSURGENT MEXICO

which was mounted the cannon *^E1 Nino,** had now
reached a point opposite the end of the second line of
trees — scarcely a mile from town. As far as you could
see ahead of her, the repair gang toiled on the track.
All at-once there came a terrific boom, and a little puff
of smoke lifted from the front of the train. Far cheer-
ing scattered among the trees and fields. ^^1 Nino,"
the darling of the army, had got within range at last.
Now the Federals would sit up and take notice. She
was a three-inch gun — ^the largest we had. . • . Later
we found out that an exploratory engine had sallied
forth from the Gomez roundhouse, and that a shot from
^^1 Nifio" had hit her square in the middle of the boiler
and blown her up. • • •

We were to attack that night, they said, and long
after dark I got on my horse, Bucephalus, and rode
down front. The sign was **Herrera" and the counter-
sign "Chihuahua number four." So as to be sure of
recognition as one of "ours," the command was to pin
your hat up behind. Everywhere the strictest orders
had been sent out that no fires should be lit in the "zone
of fire," and that anyone striking a match until the bat-
tle began should be shot by the sentries.

Bucephalus and I jogged slowly along in the moon-
less and absolutely silent night. Nowhere was there a
light or a stir all over the vast plain before Gomez,
except the far hammering of the tireless repair gang
working on the track. In the town itself the electric
lights shone brightly, and even a street car bound for
Lerdo lost itself behind the Cerro de la Fila.

Then I heard a tiny murmuring of himian voices in

S48

A NIGHT ATTACK

the, darkness near the iditch ahead — evidently an out-
post.

**Quien viveV* came a shout. And before I had a
chance to answer, BANG ! He fired. The bullet went
past my head. Bioul

"No, no, you fool," drawled an exasperated voice.
"Don't shoot as soon as you challenge ! Wait imtil he
gives the wrong answer! Listen to me, now." This
time the formality was satisfactory to both sides and
the oflScer said, **Pase UstedF* But I could hear the
original sentry growling, "Well, I don't see what
difference it makes. I never hit anybody when I
shoot. . . ."

Feeling my way carefully through the darkness, I
stumbled into the rancho of San Ramon. I knew that
the pacificos had all fled, so it surprised me to see light
shining around the chinks of a door. I was thirsty and
didn't care to trust the ditch. I called. A woman ap-
peared, with a little brood of four babies clinging to her
skirts. She brought water, and all of a sudden burst
out with, "O senor, do you know where the guns of the
Brigada Zaragosa are? Mv man is there, and I haven't
seen him for seven days."

'TThen you are not a p^cificof**

"Truly I am not," she returned indignantly, point-
ing to her children. "We belong to the artillery."

Down front the army lay stretched along the ditch
at the foot of the first line of trees. In absolute dark-
ness they whispered to each other, waiting until the
word of Villa to the advance guard a quarter of a mile
ahead should precipitate the first rifle shots.

S49

INSURGENT MEXICO

•*Where are your rifles?'* I asked.

**This brigade is to use no rifles to-night," answered
a voice. **Over on the left, where they are to attack
the intrenchments, there are rifles. But we must cap-
ture the Brlttingham Corral to-night, and rifles are no
good. We are Contreras' men, the Brigada Juarez.
See, we have orders to walk up to the walls and throw
these bombs inside!" He held out the bomb. It was
made of a short stick of dynamite sewed in a strip of
cowhide, with a fuse stuck in one end. He went
on : "Greneral Robles' gente are over there on the right.
They, too, have granados, but rifles also. They are
going to assault the Cerro de la Pila. • • •"

And now down the warm, still night came suddenly
the soimd of heavy firing from the direction of Lerdo,
where Maclovio Herrera was going in with his brigade.
Almost simultaneously from dead ahead rifle fire awoke
sputtering. A man came down the line with a lighted
cigar glowing like a firefly in the hollow of his hands.

"Light your cigarettes from this," he said, **and
don't set fire to your fuses unti) you're right up under
the wall."

"Captain, carrambal It's going to be very, very
durol How shall we know the right time?"

Another voice, deep, rough, spoke up in the dark.

"I'll tell you. Just come along with me."

A whispered, smothered shout of "Viva Villa !" burst
from them. On foot, holding a lighted cigar in one
hand — for he never smoked — and a bomb in the other,
the Greneral climbed the bank of the ditch and plimged
into the brush, the others pouring after him. • • •

S60

A NIGHT ATTACK

All along the line noir the rifle fire roared, though
down behind the trees I could see nothing of the attack.
The artillery was silent, the troops being too close to-
gether in the dark to permit the use of shrapnel by
either side. I rode back and over to the right, where I
climbed my horse up the steep ditch bank. From there
I could see the dancing tiny fires of the guns at Lerdo,
and scattered spurts like a string of jewels all along
our front. Over to the extreme left a new and deeper
noise told where Benavides was making a demonstration
against Torreon proper with quick-firing guns. I stood
tensely awaiting the attack.

It came with the force of an explosion. In the direc-
tion of the Brittingham Corral, which I could not see,
the syncopated rhythm of four machine guns and a
continuous inhimian blast of volleying rifles made the
previous noise seem like the deepest silence. A quick
glare reddened the heaven above, and then the shock-
ing detonations of dynamite. I could imagine the yell-
ing savages sweeping up the street against that wither-
ing flame, wavering, pausing, struggling on again, with
Villa just in front, talking to them back over his shoul-
der, as he always did. Now more furious firing over to
the right indicated that the attack againat the Cerro
de la Pila had reached the foot of the hill. And all at
once on the far end of the ridge toward Lerdo, there
were flashes. Maclovio must have taken Lerdo! Lo!
All at once appeared a magical sight. Up the steep
slope of the Cerro, around three sides of it, slowly rose
a ring of fierce light. It was the steady flame of rifle
fire from the attackers. The summit, too, stream^d^

ft51

INSURGENT MEXICO

fire, which intensified as the ring converged toward it,
raggeder now. A bright glare burst from the top —
then another. A second later arrived the dreadful re-
ports of cannon. They were opening upon the little
line of climbing men with artillery ! But still they
rose upon the black hiU. The ring of flame was broken
now in many places, but it never faltered. So until it
seemed to merge with the venomous spitting blaze at
the summit. Then all at once it seemed to wither com-
pletely, and little single fireflies kept dropping down
the slope — all that were left. And when I thought that
all was lost, and marveled at the useless heroism of
these peons who walked up a hill in the face of artil-
lery, behold! The ring of flame was creeping slowly
upward again. • • • That night they attacked the
Cerro seven times on foot, and at every attack seven-
eighths of them were killed. • • • All this time the in-
fernal roaring and the play of red light over the
Corral did not stop. Occasionally there seemed to
come a lull, but it recommenced only more terribly.
They assaulted the Corral eight times. • . • The morn-
ing that I entered Gomez, although the Federals had
been steadily burning bodies for three days, they were
so thick in the wide space before the Brittingham Cor-
ral that I could hardly ride through on horseback, and
around the Cerro were seven distinct ridges of rebel
dead. • • •

The wounded began creeping through the plain ob-
scurely in the dense darkness. Their cries and groans
could be distinctly heard, though the battle noise

S52

THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO

drowned every other sound — ^you could even hear the
rustle of the bushes as they crept through, and their
dragging feet on the sand. A horseman passed along
the path below me, cursing furiously that he must leave
the battle because his arm was broken, and weeping be-
tween curses. Then came a footman, who sat at the
foot of my bank and nursed a hand, talking without
cessation about all sorts of things to keep from a nerv-
ous breakdown.

"How brave we Mexicans are,*' he said drolly, **Kill-
ing each other like this ! • . ."

I soon went back to camp, sick with boredom. A
battle is the most boring thing in the world if it lasts
any length of time. It is all the same. • • • And in
the morning I went to get the news at headquarters.
We had captured Lerdo, but the Cerro, the Corral and
the cuartel were still the enemy's. All that slaughter
for nothing !

CHAPTER XIV

THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO

EL NINO*' was now within half a mile of the
town, and the workmen of the repair gang la-
bored on the last stretch of track under heavy
shrapnel fire. The two cannon on the front of the
trains bore all the brunt of their artillery, and bravely
did they return the fire — so well, in fact, that after one
Federal shell had killed ten workmen, **E1 Nifio's" cap-
tain put two guns on the Cerro out of action. So the

S53

rXSUKGEXT 3IEXICO

Federals left the trmins alone and tamed their atl
tion to shelling Herrera out of Lerdo.

The Constitutionalist army was terriUy shattered,
the four days' fighting about a thousand men had I
IdDed and afanost two thousand more wounded. E
the excellent hospital train was inadeqoate to hai
the wounded. Oot on the wide plain where we were
faint smell of dead bodies perraded ererythi
In Gromez it must ha^e been horrible. Thursday
smoke from twenty funeral pyres stained the sky. ]
Villa was more determined than ever. Gromez must
taken, and quickly. He didn't have ammunition or s
plies enough for a siege, and, moreover, his name w«
legend already with the enemy — wherever Pancho 'V
appeared in battle, they had begun to believe it 1
And the effect on his own troops was most imports
too. So he scheduled another night attack.

**The track is all repaired," reported Calzado, Suj
intendent of the Railways.

^^Good," said Villa. ''Bring up all the trains fi
the rear to-night, because we're going into Gromez in
morning f

Night feU; breathless, silent night, with a sounc
frogs along the ditches. Across the front of the t<
the soldiers lay waiting for the word to atti
Wounded, worn out, nervously broken, they stragj
to the front, keyed up to the last notch of desperat
This night they would not be repulsed. They wc
take the town or die where they stood. And as i
o'clock approached, the hour at which the attack
been set, the tension became dangerous.

S54

THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO

Nine o'clock came and passed — not a sound or move-
ment. For some reason the order was withheld. Ten
o'clock. Suddenly off to the right a volley burst from
the town. All along our line awoke the answer, but
after a few more volleys the Federal fire altogether
ceased. From the town came other, more mysteri-
ous sounds. The electric lights went out and in the
darkness there was a subtle stir and movement, indefina-
ble. At length the order was given to advance, but as
our men crept forward in the dark the front rank sud-
denly gave a yell, and the truth spread through the
ranks and out into the country, in one triumphant
shout. Gomez Palacio had been evacuated! With a
great babble of voices the army poured into the town.
A few scattered shots sounded where our troops caught
some of the Federals looting — for the Federal army
had gutted the whole town before it left. And then
our army began to loot. Their shouts and drunken
singing and the sounds of smashing doors reached us
out on the plain. Little tongues of flame flickered up
where the soldiers were burning some house that had
been a fort of Federals. But the looting of the rebels
was confined, as it almost always is, to food, and drink,
and clothes to cover them. They disturbed no private
house.

The chiefs of the army winked at this. A specific
order was issued by Villa stating that whatever any
soldier picked up was his and could not be taken from
him by an officer. Now up to this time there was not
much of stealing in the army — at least so far as
we were concerned. But the morning of the entry into

255

INSURGENT MEXICO

Gomez a curious change had come over the psychology
of the soldiers. I woke at our camp beside the ditch
to find my horse gone. Bucephalus had been stolen in
the night and I never saw him again. During break-
fast several troopers dropped in to share our meal —
when they had gone we missed a knife and a revolver.
The truth was that everybody was looting from every-
body else. So I, too, stole what I needed. There was a
great gray mule grazing in the field near by, with a
rope around his neck. I put my saddle on him and
rode down toward the front. He was a noble animal —
worth at least four times as much as Bucephalus, as
I soon discovered. Everybo3y I met coveted that mule.
One trooper marching along with two rifles hailed me.
**Oijaj compaflerOf where did you get that mule?*'

"I found him in a field,'' said I unwisely.

"It is just as I thought," he exclaimed. "That is my
mule ! Get off and give him to me at once !"

"And is this your saddle?*' I asked.

"By the Mother of God, it is!"

"Then you lie about the mule, for the saddle is my
own." I rode on, leaving him yelling in the road. A
short distance farther on an old peon walking along
suddenly ran up and threw his arms around the ani-
mal's neck.

"Ah, at last ! My beautiful mule which I lost ! My
Juanito!" I shook him off in spite of his entreaties
that at least I should pay him fifty pesos as compen-
sation for his mule. In town a cavalryman rode across
in front of me, demanding his mule at once. He was
rather ugly and had a revolver. I got away by saying

S56

THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO

that I was a captain of artillery and that the mule be-
longed to my battery. Every few feet some owner
of that mule sprang up and asked me how dared I ride
his own dear Fanchito, or Pedrito, or Tomasito! At
last one came out of a cuartel with a written order
from his Colonel, who had seen the mule from his win-
dow. I showed them my pass signed by Francisco
Villa. That was enough. . • .

Across the wide desert, where the Constitutionalists
had fought so long, the army was winding in from
every direction, in long snake-like columns, dust hang-
ing over them. And along the track, as far as the eye
could reach, came the trains, one after another,
blowing triumphant whistles, crowded with thousands
of women and soldiers cheering. Within the city, dawn
had brought absolute quiet and order. With the en-
trance of Villa and his staff the looting had absolutely
ceased and the soldiers again respected other people's
property. A thousand were hard at work gathering up
the bodies and carrying them to the edge of the city,
where they were set on fire. Five hundred more policed
the town. The first order issued was that any soldier
caught drinking should be shot«

In the third train was our car — ^the private box-car
fitted up for the correspondents, photographers and
moving-picture men. At last we had our bunks, our
blankets, and Fong, our beloved Chinese cook. The
car was switched up near in the railway station — ^in the
very front rank of trains. And as we gathered in its
grateful interior, hot, dusty and worn out, the Federals

857

INSURGENT MEXICO

in Torreon (Iroppeii a few shrapnel shells right close
beside us. I was standing in the door of the car at the
time and heard the boom of cannon, but paid no par-
ticular attention to it. Suddenly I noticed a small ob*
ject in the air like an exaggerated beetle, trailing a
little spiral of black smoke behind it. It passed the
door of the car with a zzzzzing noise and about forty
feet beyond burst with a frightful Crash — ^Whee-e-e-
eeaa ! ! among the trees of a park where a company of
cavalry and their women were camping. A himdred
men leaped for their plunging horses in a panic and
galloped frantically toward the rear, the women stream-
ing after them. Two women had been killed, it seemed,
and a horse. Blankets, food, rifles — ^all were discarded
in the panic. Pow! Another burst on the other side
of the car. They were very close. Behind us on the
track twenty long trains, laden with shrilly screaming
women, were trying to back out of the yards all at
once, with a mighty hysterical tooting of whistles. Two
or three more shells followed, then we could hear ^^El
Nifio" replying.

But the effect on the correspondents and newspaper
men was peculiar. No sooner had the first shell ex-
ploded than someone produced the whisky jug, entirely
of his own impulse, and we passed it around. No one
said a word, but everybody drank a stiff swig as it came
his way. Every time a shell would explode nearby we
would all wince and jump, but after a while we did not
mind it. Then we began to congratulate each other
and ourselves for being so brave as to stay by the car
under artillery fire. Our courage increased as the firing

S58

THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO

grew far between and finally quit altogether, and as the
whisky grew low. Everybody forgot dinner.

I remember that in the darkness two belligerent
Anglo-Saxons stood at the door of the car, challenging
the soldiers who passed and abusing them in the most
discourteous language. We fell out among ourselves,
too, and one man almost choked a driveling old fool
who was with the moving-picture outfit. Late that
night we were still trying earnestly to persuade two
of the boys not to sally forth without the pass-word
and reconnoiter the Federal lines at Torreon.

"Aw, what's there to be afraid of?" cried they. "A
Mexican greaser hasn't any guts ! One American can
lick fifty Mexicans ! Why, did you see how they ran
this afternoon when the shells hit that grove? And how
we — ^hic— we staid by the car?'*

PART FIVE

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

CARRANZA~AN IMPRESSION

WHEN the Treaty of Peace was signed in
Juarez which ended the Revolution of 1910,
Francisco Madero proceeded south toward
Mexico City. Everywhere he spoke to enthusiastic and
triinnphant throngs of peons, who acclaimed him The
Liberator.

In Chihuahua he addressed the people from the bal-
cony of the Governor's palace. As he told of the hard-
ships endured and the sacrifices made by the little band
of men who had overthrown the dictatorship of Diaz
forever, he was overcome with emotion. Beaching in-
side the room he pulled out a tall, bearded man of com-
manding presence, and, throwing hii? arm about his
shoulder, he said, in a voice choked with tears :

^^This is a good man ! Love and honor him always."
It was Venustiano Carranza, a man of upright life
and high ideals ; an aristocrat, descended from the dom-
inant Spanish race'; a great land-owner, as his family
had always been great land-owners; and one of those
Mexican nobles who, like a few French nobles such as
Lafayette in the French Revolution, threw themselves
heart and soul into the struggle for liberty. When
the Madero Revolution broke out Carranza took the

26S

INSURGENT MEXICO

field in truly medieval fashion. He armed the peons
who worked upon his great estates, and led them to
war like any feudal overlord ; and, when the Revolution
was done, Madero made him Governor of Coahuila.

There he was when Madero was murdered at the
Capital, and Huerta, seizing the Presidency, sent a
circular letter to the Governors of the different States,
ordering them to acknowledge the new dictatorship.
Carranza refused even to answer the letter, declaring
that he would have no dealings with a murderer and
a usurper. He issued a proclamation calling the Mexi-
can people to arms, proclaiming himself First Chief of
the Revolution, and inviting the friends of liberty to
rally around him. Then he marched out from his
capital €uid took the field, where he assisted in the
early fighting around Torreon.

After a short time Carranza marched his force from
Coahuila, where things were happening, straight across
the Republic into the State of Sonora, where nothing
was happening. Villa had begun heavy fighting in
Chihuahua State, Urbina and Herrera in Durango,
Blanco and others in Coahuila, and Gonzales near Tam-
pico. In times of upheaval like these it is inevitable
that there shall be some preliminary squabbling over
the ultimate spoils of war. Among the military lead-
ers, however, there was no such dissension; Villa hav-
ing just been unanimously elected Greneral Chief of the
Constitutionalist Army by a remarkable gathering of
all the independent guerrilla leaders before Torreon,
— an unheard-of event in Mexican history. But over
in Sonora, Maytorena cuid Pesquiera were already

S64

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

squabbling over who should be Governor of the State,
and threatening revolutions against each other. Car-
ranza's reported purpose in crossing to the West with
his army was to settle this dispute. But that doesn't
seem possible.

Other explanations are that he desired to secure a
seaport for the Constitutionalists on the West; that
he wanted to settle the Yaqui land question; and that
in the quiet of a comparatively peaceful State he could
better organize the provisional government of the new
Republic. He remained there six months, apparently
doing nothing whatever, keeping a force of more than
6,000 good fighters practically inoperative, attending
banquets and bull-fights, establishing and celebrating
innumerable new national holidays, and issuing procla-
mations. His army, twice or three times as big as the
disheartened garrisons of Guaymas and Mazatlan,
kept up a lazy siege of those places. Mazatlan fell
only a short time ago, I think ; as did Guaymas. Only
a few weeks ago Provisional-Governor Maytorena was
threatening counter-revolutions against Greneral Al-
vardo. Chief of Arms of Sonora, because he would not
guarantee the Governor's safety, and evidently pro-
posing to upset the Revolution because Maytorena
was uncomfortable in the palace at Hermosillo. Dur-
ing all that time not a word was said about any aspect
of the land question, as far as I could learn. The
Yaqui Indians, the expropriation of whose lands is
the blackest spot in the whole black history of the
Diaz regime, got nothing but a vague promise. Upon
that the whole tribe joined the Revolution. But a few

265

DfSUKGEXT MEXICO

montlis later most of them went back to their homes
and began again their hopdess campaign against the
white man.

Carranza hibernated until early in the spring of
this year, when, the purpose of his Sonora sojourn
eridently having been accomplished, he turned his face
toward the territory where the real Rerohition was
being f ooj^t.

Within that six months the aspect of things had
entirely changed. Except for the northern part of
Noera Leon, and most of Coahnila, northern Mexico
was Constitutionalist territory ahnost from sea to
sea, and Villa, with a well-armed, well-disciplined force
of 10,000 men, was entering on the Torreon campaign.
All this was accomplished ahnost single-handed by
^yilla; Carranza seems to have contributed nothing but
congratulations. He had, indeed, formed a proyisional
govemment. An immense throng of opportunist poli*
ticians surrounded the First Chief, loud in their pro-
testations of devotion to the Cause, liberal with procla-
/ mations, and extremely jealous of each other and of
Villa. Little by little Carranza's personality seemed
to be engulfed in the personality of his Cabinet, al*
though his name remained as prominent as ever.

It was a curious situation. Correspondents who
were with him during these months have told me how
secluded the First Chief finally became. They almost
never saw him. Very rarely did they speak with him.
Various secretaries, officials. Cabinet members, stood
between them and him — ^polite, diplomatic, devious gen-

%66

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

tlemen, who transmitted their questions to Carranza on
paper and brought them back his answers written outj'
so that there would be no mistake.

But, whatever he did, Carranza left Villa strictly
alone, to undergo defeats if he must, or make mistakes ;
so much so that Villa himself was forced to deal with
foreign powers as if he were the head of the govern-
ment.

There is no doubt that the politicians at Hermosillo
sought in every way to make Carranza jealous of
Villa's growing power in the north. In February the
First Chief began a leisurely journey northward, ac-
companied by 3,000 troops, with the ostensible object
of sending reinforcements to ViUa and of making his
provisional capital in Juarez when Villa left for Tor-
reon. Two correspondents, however, who had been in
Sonora, told me that the officers of this immense body-
guard believed that they were to be sent against Villa
hunself.

In Hermosillo Carranza had been remote from the
world's new centers. No one knew but what he might
be accomplishing great things. But when the First
Chief of the Revolution began to move toward the
American border, the attention of the world was con-
centrated upon him; and the attention of the world
revealed so little to concentrate upon, that rumors
rapidly spread of the non-existence of Carranza; for
example, one paper said that he was insane, and an-
other alleged that he had disappeared altogether.

I was in Chihuahua at the time. My paper wired
me these rumors and ordered me to go and find Car-

26T

EfSUKGEXT 3IEXICO

nmza. It was at the immeiiselT excitiiig time of the
Benton murder. All the protestations and half-veiled
threats of the British and American goTemments con-
Terged opon Villa. But by the time I had receiTed the
message Carranza and his Cabinet had arrired at the
Border and broken the six months* silence in a startling
way. The First Chiers declaration to the State De-
partment was practically this:

^^ou have made a mistake in addressing represen-
tations in the Benton case to Gieneral Villa. They
should be addressed to me as First Chief of the Revo-
lution and head of the Provisional Constitutionalist
Government. Moreover, the United States has no
business to address, even to me, any representations
concerning Benton, who was a British subject. I have
received no envoy from the government of Great Brit-
ain. Until I do I will make no answer to the repre-
sentations of any other government. Meanwhile, a
thorou^ investigation will be made of the circum-
stances of Benton's death, and those responsible for
it will be judged strictly according to law."

At the same time Villa received a pretty plain in-
timation that he was to keep out of international af-
fairs, and Villa gratefully shut up.

That was the situation when I went to Nogales.
Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, really
form one big straggling town. The international
boundary runs along the middle of the street, and at
a small customs-house lounge a few ragged Mexican
sentries, smoking interminable cigarettes, and evidently

S68

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

interfering with nobody, except to collect export taxes
from everything that passes to the American side. The
inhabitants of the American town go across the line
to get good things to eat, to gamble, to dance, and
to feel free; the Mexicans cross to the American side
when somebody is after them.

I arrived at midnight and went at once to a hotel
in the Mexican town where the Cabinet and most of
the political hangers-on of Carranza were staying;
sleeping foiir in a room, on cots in the corridors, on
the floor, and even on the stairs. I was expected. A
temperamental Constitutionalist consul up the line, to
whom I had explained my errand, evidently considered
it of great importance ; for he had telegraphed to No-
gales that the entire fate of the Mexican Revolution
depended upon Mr. Reed's seeing the First Chief of
the Revolution immediately upon his arrival. How-
ever, everybody had gone to sleep, and the proprietor,
routed out of his back office, said that he hadn't the
slightest idea what the names of any of the gentlemen
were or where they slept. Yes^ he said, he had heard
that Carranza was in town. We went around kicking
doors and Mexicans until we stumbled upon an un-
shaven but courteous gentleman who said that he was
the Collector of Customs for the whole of Mexico under
the new government. He waked up in turn t£e Sec-
retary of the Navy, who routed out the Secretary of
the Treasury; the Secretary of the Treasury finally
flushed the Secretary of Hacienda, who finally
brought us to the room of the Secretary of Foreign
Relations, Sefior Isidro Fabda. Senor Fabela said

S69

INSUKGEXT MEXICO

that the Tint diief had retired and coaUn't see me;
hot that he himself would give me immediately a state-
ment of just what Carranza thought about the Ben-
ton incident.

Now none of the newspapers had erer heard of Sefior
Fabela before. They were all clamoring to their cor-
respondents, wanting to know who he was. He seemed
to be such an important member of the provisional
goremment, and yet his antecedents were not known
at alL At different times he apparently filled most of
the positions in the First Chiers Cabinet. Rather
medimn height and distingoished-lookingy suave,
courteous, and evidently very well educated, his face
was decidedly Jewish. We talked for a long time, sit-
ting on the edge of his bed. He told me what the
First Chiers aims and ideals were ; but in them I could
discern nothing of the First Chiers personality what-
ever.

•*0h, yes," he said, **of course I could see the First
Chief in the morning. Of course he would receive me."

But when we came right down to cases, Senor Fa-
bela told me that the First Chief would answer no
questions outright. They had all to be put in writing,
he said, and submitted to Fabela first. He would then
take them to Carranza and bring back his answer. Ac-
cordingly, the next morning I wrote out on paper
about twenty-five questions and gave them to Fabela.
He read them carefully.

**Ah!" he said; "there are many questions here that
I know the First Chief will not answer. I advise you
to strike them out."

270

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

*'Well, if he doesn't answer them," I said, "all right.
But I would like to give him a chance to see them. He
could only refuse to answer them."

"No," said Fabela, politely. "You had better strike
them out now. I know exactly what he will answer and
what he will not. You see, some of your questions
might prejudice him against answering all the rest,
and you would not want that to occur, would you?"

"Senor Fabela," I said, "are you sure that you know
just what Don Venustiano won't answer?"

"I know that he won't answer these," he replied, in-
dicating four or five which dealt rather specifically with
the platform of the Constitutionalist government : such
as land distribution, direct elections, and the right of
suffrage among the peons.

"I will bring back your answers in twenty-four
hours," he said. "Now I will take you to see the Chief;
but you must promise me this: that you will not ask
him any questions, — that you will simply go into the
room, shake hands with him, and say ^How do you do,'
and leave again inmiediately."

I promised, and, together with another reporter, fol-
lowed him across the square to the beautiful little yel-
low municipal palace. We stood a while in the patio.
The place was thronged with self-important Mexicans
button-holing other self-important Mexicans who
rushed from door to door with portfolios and bundles
of papers. Occasionally, when the door of the De-
partment of the Secretaryship opened, a roar of type-
writers smote our ears. Officers in uniform stood about
the portico waiting for orders. Greneral Obregon^

871

INSURGENT MEXICO

Commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining in
a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guada-
lajara. He started for Hermosillo three days after-
ward, and marched his army four hundred miles
through a friendly country in three months. Although
Obregon had shown no startling capacity for leader-
ship, Carranza had made him Greneral-in-Chief of the
Army of the North-West, with a rank equal to Villa's.
Talking to him was a stout, red-haired Mexican woman
in a black satin princess dress embroidered with jet,
with a sword at her side. She was Colonel Ramona
Flores, Chief-of-Staff to the Constitutionalist (Jeneral
Carrasco, who operates in Tepic. Her husband had
been killed while an officer in the first Revolution, leav-
ing her a gold-mine, with the proceeds of which she
had raised a regiment and taken the field. Against
the wall lay two sacks of gold ingots which she had
brought north to purchase arms and uniforms for her
troops. Polite American concession-seekers shifted
from one foot to the other, hat in hand. The ever-
present arms and ammunition drummers poured into
the ears of whoever would listen, praises of their guns
and bullets.

Four armed sentries stood at the palace doors, and
others lounged around the patio. There were no more
in sight, except two who flanked a little door half-way
down the corridor. JThese men seemed more intelli-
gent than the others. Anybody who passed was scru-
tinized carefully, and those who paused at the door
were questioned according to some thorough formula.
Every two hours this guard was changed; the relief

878

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

was in charge of a general, and a long colloquy took
place before the change was effected.

"What room is that?** I asked Senor Fabela.

"That is the office of the First Chief of the Revolu-
tion," he answered.

I waited for perhaps an hour, and during that time
I noticed that nobody entered the room except Senor
Fabela and those he took with him. Finally he came
over to me and said:

"All right. The First Chief will see you now."

We followed him. The soldiers on guard threw up
their rifles.

"Who are these seiiores?" asked one.

*'It's all right. They are friends," answered Fa-
bela, and opened the door.

It was so dark within that at first we could see
nothing. Over the two windows blinds were drawn.
On one side was a bed, still unmade, and on the other
a small table covered with papers, upon which stood
a tray containing the remains of breakfast. A tin
bucket full of ice with two or three bottles of wine
stood in a comer. As our eyes became accustomed to
the light, we saw the gigantic, khaki-clad figure of
Don Venustiano Carranza sitting in a big chair. There
was something strange in the way he sat there, with
his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been
placed in it and told not to move. He did not seem
to be thinking, nor to have been working, — ^you
couldn't imagine him at that table. You got the im-
pression of a vast, inert body — a statue.

278

INSUKGEXT MEXICO

He rose to meet as, a towering figure, seren feet tall
it seemed. I noticed with a kind of shock that in that
dark room he wore smoked glasses; and, althoo^
mddy and f nil-cheeked, I felt that he was not weD, —
the thing 70a feel about tnbercoloas patients. That
tiny, dark room, where the First Chief of the ReToln-
tion slept and ate and worked, and from which he
hardly erer emerged, seemed too small — like a ceBL

Fabela had entered with ns. He introduced us one
hj one to Carranza, who smiled a vacant, expression-
less smile, bowed sli^tly, and shook our hands. We
all sat down. Indicating the other reporter, who could
not speak Spanish, Fabela said:

'^These gentlemen have come to greet you on behalf
of the great newspapers which they represent. This
gentleman says that he desires to present his respect-
ful wishes for your success.**

Carranza bowed again slightly, and rose as Fabela
stood up, as if to indicate that the interview was
over.

'^Allow me to assure the gentlemen," he said, ^^of
my grateful acceptance of their good wishes.**

Again we all shook hands ; but as I took his hand I
said in Spanish:

"Sefior Don Venustiano, my paper is your friend
and the friend of the Constitutionalists."

He stood there as before, a huge mask of a man.
But as I spoke he stopped smiling. His expression
remained as vacant as before, but suddenly he began
to speak:

**To the United States I say the Benton case is none

274.

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

of your business. Benton was a British subject. I
will answer to the delegates of Great Britain when
they come to me with representations of their govern-
ment. Why should they not come to me? England
now has an Ambassador in Mexico City, who accepts
invitations to dinner from Huerta, takes off his hat
to him, and shakes hands with him!

"When Madero was murdered the foreign powers
flocked to the spot like vultures to the dead, and fawned
upon the murderer because they had a few subjects in
the Republic who were petty tradesmen doing a dirty
little business.'*

The First Chief ended as abruptly as he had be-
gun, with the same immobility of expression, but he
clenched and unclenched his hands and gnawed his
mustaches. Fabela hurriedly made a move toward
the door.

"The gentlemen are very grateful to you for hav-
ing received them,*' he said, nervously. But Don Ve-
nustiano paid no attention to him. Suddenly he be-
gan again, his voice pitched a little higher and louder:

"These cowardly nations thought they could se-
cure advantages by standing in with the government
of the usurper. But the rapid advancement of the
Constitutionalists showed them their error, and now
they find themselves in a predicament."

Fabela was plainly nervous.

"When does the Torreon campaign begin?" he asked,
attempting to change the subject.

*'The killing of Benton was due to a vicious attack
on Villa by an enemy of the Revolutionists," roared

875

INSURGENT MEXICO

the First Chief, speaking louder and louder and more
rapidly; "and England, the bully of the world, finds
herself unable to deal with us unless she humiliates
herself by sending a representative to the Constitu-
tionalists; so she tried to use the United States as a
cat's paw. More shame to the United States," he
cried, shaking his fists, ^Hhat she allowed herself to
join with these infamous Powers !'*

The unhappy Fabela made another attempt to dam
the dangerous torrent. But Carranza took a step for-
ward, and, raising his arm, shouted :

**I tell you that, if the United States intervenes in
Mexico upon this petty excuse, intervention will not
accomplish what it thinks, but will provoke a war
which, besides its own consequences, will deepen a pro-
found hatred between the United States and the whole
of Latin America, a hatred which will endanger the
entire political future of the United States !'*

He ceased talking on a rising note, as if something
inside had cut off his speech. I tried to think that
here was the voice of aroused Mexico thimdering at
her enemies; but it seemed like nothing so much as a
slightly senile old man, tired and irritated.

Then we were outside in the sunlight, with Senor
Fabela agitatedly telling me not to publish what I had
heard, — or, at least, to let him see the dispatch.

I stayed at Nogales a day or two longer. The next
day after my interview, the typewritten paper upon
which my questions had been printed was returned to
me ; the answers written in five different handwritings.

276

CARRANZA— AN IMPRESSION

Newspaper men were in high favor at Nogales; they
were treated always with the utmost courtesy by the
members of the Provisional Cabinet; but they never
seemed to reach the First Chief. I tried often to get
from these Cabinet members the least expression of
what their plans were for the settlement of the troubles
which caused the Revolution; but they seemed to have
none, except a Constitutional Government. During
all the times I talked with them I never detected one
gleam of sympathy for, or understanding of, the peons.
Now and again I surprised quarrels about who was go-
ing to fill the high posts of the new Mexican Govern-
ment. Villa's name was hardly ever mentioned; when
it was it was in this manner:

*'We have every confidence in Villa's loyalty and
obedience."

"As a fighting man Villa has done very well — ^very
well, indeed. But he should not attempt to mingle
in the affairs of Government; because, of course, you
know, Villa is only an ignorant peon."

^^He has said many foolish things and made many
mistakes which we will have to remedy."

And scarcely a day passed but what Carranza would
give out a statement from headquarters :

"There is no misunderstanding between General Villa
and myself. He obeys my orders without question, as
any common soldier. It is unthinkable that he would
do anything else."

I spent a good deal of time loafing around the Mu-
nicipal Palace; but I never saw Carranza again but

277

INSURGENT MEXICO

once. It was toward sunset, and most of the Generals,
drummers, and politicians had gone to dinner. I
lounged on the edge of the fountain in the middle of
the patio, talking with some soldiers. Suddenly the
door of that little office opened, and Carranza him-
self stood framed in it, arms hanging loosely by his
sides, his fine old head thrown back, as he stared blind-
ly over our heads across the wall to the flaming clouds
in the west. We stood up and bowed, but he didn't
notice us. Walking with slow steps, he came out and
went along the portico toward the door of the palace.
The two guards presented arms. As he passed they
shouldered their rifles and fell in behind him. At the
doorway he stopped and stood there a long time, look-
ing out on the street. The four sentries jumped to
attention. The two men behind him grounded their
arms and stopped. The First Chief of the Revolu-
tion clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers
working violently. Then he turned, and pacing be-
tween the two guards, went back to the little dark
room.

PART SIX

MEXICAN NIGHTS

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■; i

CHAPTER I

EL COSMOPOLITA

Et COSMOPOLITA is Chihuahua's fashionable
gambling hell. It used to be owned by Jacob
La Touche— "The Turk''— a fat shambling
man, who came to Chihuahua barefooted with a dancing
bear twenty-five years ago, and became many times a
millionaire. He owned an extravagant residence on
the Paseo Bolivar, which was never called anything
but "The Palace of Tears," because it was built with
the proceeds of the Turk's gambling concessions, which
ruined many families. But the wicked old man slunk
away with Mercado's retreating Federal army; and
when Villa came to Chihuahua he gave ^^The Palace of
Tears" to General Ortega as a Christmas present, and
confiscated £1 Cosmopolita.

Having a few idle pesos from my expense account,
we used to frequent El Cosmopolita. Johnny Roberts
and I stopped on our way from the hotel to take a
few hot Tom-and-Jerries at a Chinese bar, run by a
hoary Mongolian named Chee Lee. From there we
proceeded to the gaming tables with the leisurely air
of Russian Grand Dukes at Monte Carlo.

One entered first a long, low room, lighted with
three smoky lanterns, where the roulette game was.

S8I

INSURGENT MEXICO

Above the table was a sign which read:

**Please do not get on the rotdette table with your
feet:*

It was a vertical wheel, not a horizontal one,
bristling with spikes which caught a flexible steel strip
and finally stopped the wheel opposite a number. Each
way the table extended twelve feet, always crowded
with at least five rows of small boys, peons, and sol-
diers — excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of
small bills on the numbers and colors, and arguing vio-
lently over the winnings. Those who lost would set
up terrible screams of rage as the croupier raked their
money into the drawer, and often the wheel was quiet
for three-quarters of an hour while some player, who
had lost ten cents, exhausted his vocabulary upon the
treasurer, the owner of the place and his ancestors and
descendants ten generations each way, and upon God
and his family, for allowing such injustice to go un-
punished. Finally he would take himself off, mutter-
ing ominously : **A verl We shall see !** while the others
would sympathetically make way for him, murmuring:
**AM Que mala suerteF*

Near where the croupier sat was a worn place in
the cloth with a small ivory button in the center. And
when anyone was winning largely at the wheel the
croupier would press this little button, which stopped
the wheel where he wished, until the winner was dis-
couraged from playing further. This was looked upon
as perfectly legitimate by all present, since, carrambal,
there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a
loss!

282

EL COSMOPOLITA

The most amazing diversity of money was used.
Silver and copper had long since been forced out of
circulation in Chihuahua because of revolutionary
hard times. But there were still some Mexican bank«
bills; besides those there was fiat money, printed on
ordinary writing-paper by the Constitutionalist army,
and worth nothing; scrip issued by the mining com-
panies; I. O. U/s; notes of hand; mortgages; and a
hundred different vaiUs of various railroads, planta-
tions, and public service corporations.

But the roulette table did not long interest us.
There was not enough action for your money. So
we shouldered our way into a small room, blue with
smoke, where a perpetual poker game was going at a
fan-shaped, baize-covered table. At a little recess at
the straight side of the table sat the dealer; chairs
were distributed aroimd the circmnference where the
players sat. One played against the bank, the dealer
scraping into the drawer a tenth of every pot —
the house's commission. Whenever anyone began to
plunge, and displayed a large wad, the dealer would
give a shrill, penetrating whistle and two suave gen-
tlemen, who were employed by the house, would come
running and take a hand. There was no limit as long
as you had chips, or if your stack was underlaid with
bank-bills. The gentleman in possession of the "buck"
had the say whether it was to be draw poker {cerrado)
or stud (abierto). Stud was the most fun, because
a Mexican could never realize that the next card
would not give him a magnificent hand, and he bet

ass

INSURGENT MEXICO

increasing amounts on every card with wildly growing
excitement.

The strict rules of the American game, idiich so re-
strict freedom of action, were absent here. Johnny
and I would lift a comer of oar cards as soon as they
were dealt, to show each other. And when I seemed
to be drawing ahead Johnny would impulsively push
his whole stack over to me ; with the next card Johnny's,
hand would seem to have more promise than mine,
and I would push both stacks back to him. By the
time the last card was dealt all the chips would be
laying neutrally between us, and whoever had the best
hand bet our entire joint capitaL

Of course nobody objected to tins way of playing,
but to offset it the dealer would whistle shrilly to the
two house players and slyly deal them each a hand off
the bottom of the pack.

Meanwhile a Chinaman would be dashing madly be-
tween the table and a lunch-counter across the street,
bearing sandwiches, chUe con came, and cups of cof-
fee to the players, who ate and drank loudly during
the game, and spilled coffee and food into the jack-pot.

Occasionally some player who had traveled exten-
sively in foreign lands got up and walked around his
chair to dispel a run of bad luck; or asked for a new
deck with an off-hand, expensive air. The dealer would
bow politely, sweep the deck into his drawer and pro-
duce another one. He had only two decks of cards
in the house. Both were about a year old, and largely
decorated with the meals of former players.

Of course, the American game was played. But

284

EL COSMOPOLITA

there would sometimes enter a Mexican who was not
intimately acquainted with the subtleties of the Ameri-
can deck. In the Mexican deck, for example, the seven,
eight and nine spots are omitted. One such person,
a pompous, pretentious Mexican, sat in one night
just as I had called for a hand of stud. Before the
dealer could whistle, the stranger had produced a great
wad of money — ^all sorts, sizes and denominations, and
bought one hundred pesos' worth of chips. The game
was on. I drew three hearts in rapid succession, se-
cured Roberts' pile, and began to play for a flush.
The stranger gazed at his cards for a long time as if
they were new to him. Then he flushed the deep red
of intense excitement, and pushed in fifteen dollars.
With the succeeding card he turned quite pale and
pushed in twenty-five dollars, and when he looked at
his last card he turned red again, and bet fifty dollars.

By some miracle I had filled a flush. But the man's
wild betting scared me. I knew that a flush was good
for almost anything in stud poker, but I couldn't keep
up with that pace, so I passed the bet to him. He rose
at that and protested violently.

*'How do you mean Tass the bet?' " he cried, shak-
ing both fists.

It was explained to him, and he subsided.

"Very well, then," he said. "Since this fifteen dol-
lars is all I have, and you will not let me buy any
more chips, I will bet everything," and he pushed it
into the center.

I called him.

"What have you got?" he almost screamed, leaning

285

INSURGENT MEXICO

trembling over the table. I spread out my flush. With
an excited laugh he banged the table a great blow.

**Straight!" he cried — and turned up four, five, six,
ten. Jack.

He had already reached out an arm to gather in the
money when the entire table burst into a clamor.

**It is wrong!'*

"It is not a straight!'*

"The money belongs to the Gringo !"

He lay sprawled out on the table with both arms
round the pot.

"How?" he cried sharply, looking up. "It is not a
straight? Look here — ^four, five, six, ten, knave!"

The dealer interposed:

**But it should have been four, five, six, seven, eight,"
he said. ^^In the American pack there are seven, eight
and nine."

**How ridiculous !" sneered the man. "I have played
cards all my life, and never, never have I seen a seven,
eight or nine!"

By this time most of the roulette table throng had
swarmed in at the door. They added their clamor to
ours.

"Of course it is not a straight!"

"Of course it must be! Is there not four, five, six,
ten, knave?"

"But the American pack is different!"

"But this is not the United States. This is Mex-
ico !"

"Hey! Pancho!" shouted the dealer. "Go at once
and notify the police!"

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EL COSMOPOLITA

The situation remained the same. My opponent
still lay upon the table with the jack-pot in his arms.
A perfect pandemonium of argument filled the place;
in some cases it had developed a personal note, and
hands were stealing to hips. I unobtrusively pushed
my chair against the wall. Presently the Chief of Po-
lice arrived with four or five gendarmes. He was a
large, unshaven man whose mustaches twisted up to
his eyes; dressed in a loose, dirty uniform with red
plush epaulettes. As he came in everybody began ex-
plaining to him at once. The dealer made a megaphone
out of his hands and shouted through the din ; the man
on the table turned up a livid face, insisting shrilly
that it was an outrage for Gringo rules to spoil a per-
fectly good Mexican game like stud poker.

The chief listened, curling his mustaches, his chest
swelling with the importance of being the deciding fac-
tor in an argument involving such large sums of money.
He looked at me. I said nothing, but bowed politely.
He returned the bow. Then, turning to his policeman
he pointed a dramatic finger at the man at the table.

"Arrest this goat!" he said.

It was a fitting climax. Shrieking and protesting,
the unfortunate Mexican was led into a comer, where
he stood facing the table.

"The money belongs to this gentleman," continued
the Chief of Police. "As for you, you evidently do
not understand the rudiments of this game. I have a
mind. • • •"

"Perhaps," said Roberts, politely, nudging me,

287

INSURGENT MEXICO

^^the Sefior Captain would like to show the gentle-
man* . • • r"

^ should be only too ^ad to loan him a few chips,"
I added, raking in the pile.

^Oigar said the Chief. "^ will be ^lad to do so.
Superlative thanks, sirf

He drew up a chair, and, out of politeness, the buck
was given to him.

^Abierio!** he said, with the air of an old hand.

We played. Tlie Chief of Police won. He rattled
his chips like a professional gambler, slapping the buck
to his neighbor, and we played again.

**You see," said the Chief of Police, 'Ht is easy if
you observe the rules." He twisted his mustache, ruf-
fled the cards, and pushed in twenty-five dollars. He
won again.

After some time one of the policemen approached
him respectfully and said:

^I beg you pardon, mi capitan, but what shall we
do with the prisoner?"

**0h!" said the Chief, staring. He waved his hand
casually. ^Just release him and return to your sta-
tions."

Long after the last wheel had been spun on the
roulette table, the lamps blown out, and the most
feverish gambler ejected into the street, we sat play-
ing in the poker room. Roberts and I were down to
about three pesos apiece. We yawned and nodded
with sleepiness. But the Chief of Police had his coat
off and was crouched like a tiger over his cards. Now
he was losing steadily. • • •

S88

HAPPY VALLEY

CHAPTER II

HAPPY VALLEY

IT happened to be the day of a fiesta, and,
of course, nobody worked in Valle Allegre. The
cock-fight was to take place at high noon in the
open space back of Catarino Cabrera's drinking shop
— ahnost directly in front of Dionysio Aguirre's, where
the long burro pack-trains rest on their mountain
journeys, and the muleteers swap tales over their te-
qvUa. At one, the sunny side of the dry arroyo that
is called a street was lined with double rows of squat*
ting peons — silent, dreamily sucking their corn-husk
cigarettes as they waited. The bibulously inclined
drifted in and out of Catarino's, whence came a cloud
of tobacco smoke and a strong reek of aguardiente.
Small boys played leap-frog with a large yellow sow,
and on opposite sides of the arroyo the competing
roosters, tethered by the leg, crew defiantly. One of
the owners, an ingratiating, business-like professional,
wearing sandals and one cerise sock, stalked around
with a handful of dirty bank-bills, shouting:
"Diez pesos, seiSores! Only ten dollars!'*
It was strange; nobody seemed too poor to bet ten
dollars. It came on toward two o'clock, and still no
one moved, except to follow the sun a few feet as it
swung the black edge of the shadow eastward. The
shadow was very cold, and the sun white hot.

On the edge of the shadow lay Ignacio, the violinist,

289

INSURGENT MEXICO

wrapped in a tattered serape, sleeping off a drunk.
He can play one tune when intoxicated — ^Tosti's
"Good-Bye." When very drunk he also remembers
fragments of Mendelssohn's "Spring Song." In fact,
he is the only high-brow musician in the whole State
of Durango, and possesses a just celebrity. Ignacio
used to be brilliant and industrious — ^his sons and
daughters are innumerable — ^but the artistic temperfi^
ment was too much for him.

The color of the street was red — deep, rich, red
clay — and the open space where the burros stood, olive
drab; there were brown crumbling adobe walls and
squat houses, their roofs heaped high with yellow corn-
stalks or hung with strings of red peppers. A gi-
gantic green mesquite tree, with roots like a chicken's
foot, thatched on every branch with dried hay and
corn. Below, the town feU steeply down the arroyo,
roofs tumbled together like blocks, with flowers and
grass growing on them, blue feathers of smoke waving
from the chimneys, and occasional palms sticking up
between. They fell away to the yellow plain where
the horse-races are run, and beyond that the barren
mountains crouched, tawny as lions, then faintly blue,
then purple and wrinkled, notched and jagged across
the fierce, bright sky. Straight down and away
through the arroyo one saw a great valley, like an
elephant's hide, where the heat-waves buck- jumped.

A lazy smoke of human noises floated up: roosters
crowing, pigs grunting, burros giving great racking
sobs, the rustling crackle of dried corn-stalks being
shaken out of the mesquite tree, a woman singing as

290

HAPPY VALLEY

she mashed her com on the stones, the wailing of a
myriad of babies.

The sun fairly blistered. My friend Atanacio sat
upon the sidewalk thinking of nothing. His dirty feet
were bare except for sandals, his mighty sombrero was
of a faded dull brick color embroidered with tarnished
gold braid, and his serape was of the pottery blue one
sees in Chinese rugs, and decorated with yellow suns.
He rose when he saw me. We removed our hats and
embraced after the Mexican fashion, patting each other
on the back with one hand while we shook the other.

**Bu>enos tardea y amigOy** he murmured. "How do
you seat yourself?"

"Very well, much thanks. And you? How have
they treated you?*'

"Delicious. Superlative thanks. I have longed to
see you again."

"And your family? How are they?" (It is consid*
ered more delicate in Mexico not to ask about one's
wife, because so few people are married.)

"Their health is of the best. Great, great thanks.
And your family?"

"JSfen, hienl I saw your son with the army at Jime-
nez. He gave me many, many remembrances of you.
Would you desire a cigarette?"

"Thanks. Permit me, a Ught. You are in Valle Al-
legre many days?"

"For the fiesta only, sefior."

"I hope your visit is fortunate, sefior. My house is
at your orders."

^^hanks. How is it that I did not see you at the

291

INSURGENT A£EXICO

hmU last in^il, scfior? Yon, wiio wa^ ahrays Moxh
a sympathetic daacerP*

TTnhappily Juanita is goat to Tisit her mother in
El Oro, and naWy therefore, I am a pimfowico. I grow
too old for the senoritas."

^Ah, noy scnor. A embalUro of jour age is in the
prime of life. But tdl me. Is it true what I hear,
that the Maderistas are now at Ifaplmi?^

*^Si, scncyr. Soon Villa will take Torremiy they say,
and then it is aotj a matter of a few months before
the Rerohition is accompHshed."

^ think that, yes. But tdl me; I haire great re-
spect for your opinion. Whidi cock would yon advise
me to bet on?^

We approached the combatants and looked them
over, nhile their o w ners clamored in our ears. They
sat upon the curbing negligently herding their birds
apart* It was getting toward three of the afternoon.

<9at win there be a cock-^g^t?^ I asked them.

**QuitB sabet** draided <me.

The other nmrmnred that possibly it would be
moMafuu It devdoped that the sted spars had been
forgotten in El Oro, and that a small boy had gone
after them on a burro. It was six miles over the
mountains to El Oro.

However, no one was in any hurry, so we sat down
also. Appeared then Catarino Cabrera, the saloon
keeper, and also the Constitationalist jefe politico of
Yalle Allegre, very drank, walking arm in arm with
Don Priciliano Saacedes, the former jefe ander the
Diaz government. Don Priciliano is a fine-looking,

%92

HAPPY VALLEY

white-haired old Castilian who used to lend money to
the peons at twenty per cent. Don Catarino is a for-
mer schoolmaster, an ardent Revolutionist — ^he lends
money at a slightly less rate of usury to the same
parties. Don Catarino wears no collar, but he sports
a revolver and two cartridge-belts. Don Priciliano
during the first Revolution was deprived of most of his
property by the Maderistas of the town, and then
strapped naked upon his horse and beaten upon his
bare back with the flat of a sword. ^

"Aie!" he says to my question. "The Revolution!
I have most of the Revolution upon my backi"

And the two pass on to Don Friciliano's house,
where Catarino is courting a beautiful daughter.

Then, with the thunder of hoofs, dashes up the gay
and gallant young Jesus Triano, who was a Captain
under Orozco. But Valle Allegre is a three days' ride
from the railroad, and politics are not a burning issue
there; so Jesus rides his stolen horse with impunity
around the streets. He is a large young man with
shining teeth, a rifle and bandoUer, and leather trou-
sers fastened up the side with buttons as big as dol-
lars — ^his spurs are twice as big. They say that his
dashing ways and the fact that he shot Emetario
Flores in the back have won him the hand of Dolores,
youngest daughter of Manuel Faredes, the charcoal
contractor. He plunges down the arroyo at a gal-
lop, his horse tossing bloody froth from the cruel curb.

Captain Adolfo Melendez, of the Constitutionalist
army, slouches around the corner in a new, bottle-
green corduroy uniform. He wears a handsome gilded

298

INSURGENT MEXICO

sworid which once belongeid to the Knights of Pythias.
Adolfo came to Valle Allegre on a two weeks' leave,
which he prolonged indefinitely in order to take to
himself a wife — ^the fourteen-year-old daughter of a vil-
lage aristocrat. They say that his wedding was mag-
nificent beyond belief, two priests officiating and the
service lasting an hour more than necessary. But this
may have been good economy on Adolf o's part, since he
already had one wife in Chihuahua, another in Farral,
and a third in Monterey, and, of course, had to pla-
cate the parents of the bride. He had now been away
from his regiment three months, and told me simply
that he thought they had forgotten all about him by
this time.

At half-past four a thunder of cheers announced the
arrival of the small boy with the steel spurs. It seems
that he had got into a card game at El Oro, and had
temporarily forgotten his errand.

But, of course, nothing was said about it. He had
arrived, which was the important thing. We formed a
wide ring in the open space where the burros stood, and
the two owners began to "throw" their birds. But at
the first onslaught the fowl upon which we had all bet
our money spread its wings, and, to the astonishment
of the assembled company, soared screaming over the
mesquite tree and disappeared toward the mountains.
Ten minutes later the two owners unconcernedly di-
vided the proceeds before our eyes, and we strolled
home well content.

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HAPPY VALLEY

Fidencio and I dined at Charlie Chee's hotel.
Throughout Mexico, in every little town, you will find
Chinamen monopolizing the hotel and restaurant busi-
ness. Charlie, and his cousin Foo, were both married
to the daughters of respectable Mexican villagers. No
one seemed to think that strange. Mexicans appear
to have no race prejudices whatever. Captain Adolf o,
in a bright yellow khaki uniform and another sword,
brought his bride, a faintly pretty brown girl with
her hair in a bang, wearing chandelier lusters as ear-
rings. Charlie banged down in front of each of us a
quart bottle of aguardiente^ and, sitting down at the
table, flirted politely with Senora Melendez, while Foo
served dinner, enlivened with gay social chatter in pid-
gin Mexican.

It seemed that there was to be a haile at Don Pri-
ciliano's that evening, and CharUe politely offered to
teach Adolfo's wife a new step which he had learned in
El Paso, called the Turkey Trot. This he did until
Adolfo began to look sullen and announced that he
didn't think he would go to Don Priciliano's, since he
considered it a bad thing for young wives to be seen
much in public. Charlie and Foo also tendered their
regrets, because several of their countrymen were due
in the village that evening from Parral, and said that
they would, of course, want to raise a little Chinese
hell together.

So Fidencio and I finally departed, after solemnly
promising that we would return in time for the Chinese
festivities after the dance.

Outside, strong moonlight flooded all the village.

295

INSUKGENT MEXICO

The jnmUed roofs were so many tipped-op sflyery
planes, and the tree-tops listened. like a frozen
cataract the arrojo fell away, and the great valley be-
yond lay drowned in rich, soft mist. The life-sounds
quickened in the dark — excited laughter of young girls,
a woman catching her breath at a window to the swift,
hot torrent of a man's speech as he leaned against the
bars, a dozen guitars syncopating each other, a young
buck hurrying to meet his novia^ spurs ringing dear.
It was cold. As we passed Cabrera's door a hot,
smoky, alcoholic breath smote us. Beyond that you
crossed on stepping-stones the stream where the women
wash their clothes. Climbing the other bank we saw
the brilliant windows of Don Pridliano's house, and
heard the far strains of Valle Allegre's orchestra.

Open doors and windows were choked with men — ^tall,
dark, silent peons, wrapped to the eyes in their blank-
ets, staring at the dance with eager and solemn eyes,
a forest of sombreros.

Now Fidencio had just returned to Valle Allegre
after a long absence, and as we stood on the outside
of the group a tall young fellow caught sight of him,
and, whirling his serape like a wing, he embraced my
friend, crying:

**Happy return, Fidencio ! We looked for you many
months !"

The crowd swayed and rocked like a windy wheat
field, blankets flapped dark against the night. They
took up the cry:

"Fidencio! Fidencio is here! Your Carmencita is
inside, Fidencio. You had better look out for your

S96

HAPPY VALLEY

sweetheart ! You can't stay away as long as that and
expect her to remain faithful to you!"

Those inside caught the cry and echoed it, and the
dance, which had just begun, stopped suddenly. The
peons formed a lane through which we passed, patting
us on the back with little words of welcome and af-
fection; and at the door a dozen friends crowded for*
ward to hug us, faces alight with pleasure.

Carmencita, a dumpy, small Indian girl, dressed in
a screaming blue ready-made dress that didn't fit,
stood over near the comer by the side of a certain
PabUto, her partner, a half-breed youth about sixteen
years old with a bad complexion. She affected to pay
no attention to Fidencio's arrival, but stood dimibly,
with her eyes on the ground, as is proper for unmar-
ried Mexican women.

Fidencio swaggered among his compadres in true
manly fashion for a few minutes, interspersing his
conversation with loud virile oaths. Then, in a lordly
manner, he went straight across the room to Carmen-
cita, placed her left hand within the hollow of his
right arm, and cried : "Well, now ; let's dance !" and the
grinning, perspiring musicians nodded and fell to.

There were five of them — two violins, a cornet, a
flute and a harp. They swung into "Tres Piedras,"
and the couples fell in line, marching solemnly round
the room. After parading round twice they fell to
dancing, hopping awkwardly over the rough, hard,
packed-dirt floor with jingUng spurs ; when they had
danced around the room two or three times they walked

897

INSUKGENT MEXICO

again, then danced, then walked, then danced, so that
each number took about an hour.

It was a long, low room, with whitewashed walls
and a beamed ceiling wattled with mud above, and at
one end was the inevitable sewing-machine, closed now,
and converted into a sort of an altar by a tiny em-
broidered cloth upon which burned a perpetual rush
flame before a tawdry color print of the Virgin which
hung on the wall. Don Friciliano and his wife, who
was nursing a baby at her breast, beamed from chairs
at the other end. Innumerable candles had been
heated on one side and stuck against the wall all
around, whence they trailed sooty snakes above them
on the white. The men made a prodigious stamping
and clinking as they danced, shouting boisterously to
one another. The women kept their eyes on the floor
and did not speak.

I caught sight of the pimply youth glowering with
folded arms upon Fidencio from his corner; and as I
stood by the door, fragments of the peons' conversa-
tion floated in to me :

**Fidencio should not have stayed away so long.'*

**Carramba! See the way Pablito scowls there. He
thought surely Fidencio was dead and that Carmencita
was his own!''

And then a hopeful voice:

"Perhaps there will be trouble!'*

The dance finally ended and Fidencio led his be-
trothed correctly back to her seat against the wall.
The music stopped. The men poured out into the
night where, in the flare of a torch, the owner of the

S98

HAPPY VALLEY

losing rooster sold bottles of strong drink. We
toasted each other boisterously in the sharp dark. The
mountains around stood dazzling in the moon. And
then, for the intervals between dances were very short,
we heard the music erupt again, volcanically and exu*
berantly, into a waltz. The center of twenty curi-
ous and enthusiastic youths — for he had traveled — ^Fi-
dencio strutted back into the room. He went straight
to Carmencita, but as he led her out upon the floor
Pablito gUded up behind, pulling out a large obsolete
revolver. A dozen shouts rang:

**CtUdado9 Fidencio! Look out!"

He whirled, to see the revolver pointed at his stom-
ach. For a moment no one moved. Fidencio and his
rival looked at each other with wrathful eyes. There
was a subdued clicking of automatics everywhere as
the gentlemen drew and cocked their weapons, for some
of them were friends of Fablito's. I heard low voices
muttering:

"Porfirio ! Go home and get my shotgun !**

"Victoriano! My new rifle! It Ues on the bureau in
mother's room.''

A shoal of small boys like flying-fish scattered
through the moonlight to get firearms. Meanwhile, the
status quo was preserved. The peons had squatted out
of the range of fire, so that just their eyes showed
above the window-sills, where they watched proceed-
ings with joyous interest. Most of the musicians
were edging toward the nearest window; the harpist,
however, had dropped down behind his instrument.'
Don Priciliano and his wife, still nursing the infant,

S99

INSURGENT MEXICO

rose and majestically made their way to some interior
part of the house. It was none of their business; be-
sides, they did not wish to interfere with the young
folks' pleasure.

With one arm Fidencio carefully pushed Carmencita
away, holding his other hand poised like a claw. In the
dead silence he said:

^TTou little goat! Don't stand there pointing that
thing at me if you're afraid to shoot it ! Pull the trig-
ger while I am unarmed ! I am not afraid to die, even
at the hand of « weak little fool who doesn't know
when to use a gun!"

The boy's face twisted hatefully, and I thought he
was going to shoot,

"Ah!" murmured the peons. "Now! Now is the
time!"

But he didn't. After a few minutes his hand wav-
ered, and with a curse he jammed the pistol back into
his pocket. The peons straightened up again and
crowded disappointedly around the doors and win-
dows. The harpist got up and began to tune his harp.
There was much thrusting back of revolvers into
holsters, and the sprightly social conversation grew up
again. By the time the small boys arrived with a per-
fect arsenal of rifles and shotguns, the dance had been
resumed. So the guns were stacked in a comer.

As long as Carmencita claimed his amorous atten-
tion and there was a prospect of friction, Fidencio
stayed. He swaggered among the men and basked in

800

HAPPY VALLEY

the admiration of the ladies, outdancing them all in
speed, abandon and noise.

But he soon tired of that, and the excitement of
meeting Carmencita palled upon him. So he went out
into the moonlight again and up the arroyo, to take
part in CharHe Chee's celebration.

As we approached the hotel we were conscious of a
curious low moaning sound which seemed akin to mu-
sic. The dinner-table had been removed from the din-
ing-room into the street, and around the room turkey-
trotted Foo and another Celestial. A barrel of
aguardiente had been set up on a trestle in one cor-
ner, and beneath it sprawled Charlie himself, in his
mouth a glass tube which syphoned up into the barrel.
A tremendous wooden box of Mexican cigarettes had
been smashed open on one side, the packages tumbling
out upon the floor. In other parts of the room two
more Chinamen slept the profound sleep of the very
drunk, wrapped in blankets. The two who danced sang
meanwhile their own version of a once popular ragtime
song called "Dreamy Eyes.'' Against this marched
magnificently "The Pilgrim's Chorus" from Tann-
hauser, rendered by a phonograph set up in the
kitchen. Charlie removed the glass tube from his
mouth, put a thumb over it, and welcomed us with
a hymn which he sang as follows:

**Pooll for the shore, sail&Ty
PooU for the shore!
Heed not the lowling lave
But pooll for the shore!**

301

INSUKGENT MEXICO

He surveyed us with a bleary eye, and remarked:
**Bledlau! Je' Calist is wid us here toni'P'

After which he returned the syphon to his mouth.

We blended into these festivities. Fidencio oflFered
to exhibit the steps of a new Spanish fandango, the
way it was danced by the damned ^^grasshoppers"
(as Mexicans call the Spaniards). He stamped bel-
lowing around the room, colliding with the Chinamen,
and roaring *T.a Paloma." Finally, out of breath, he
collapsed upon a nearby chair, and began to descant
upon the many charms of Adolfo's bride, whom he had
seen for the first time that day. He declared that it
was a shame for so young and blithe a spirit to be tied
to a middle-aged man; he said that he himself repre-
sented youth, strength and gallantry, and was a much
more fitting mate for her. He added that as the even-
ing advanced he found that he desired her more and
more. Charlie Chee, with the glass tube in his mouth,
nodded intelligently at each of these statements. I had
a happy thought. Why not send for Adolfo and his
wife and invite them to join our festivities? The
Chinamen asleep on the floor were kicked awake and
their opinion asked. Since they could understand
neither Spanish nor English, they answered fluently in
Chinese. Fidencio translated.

"They say," he said, *Hhat Charlie ought to be sent
with the invitation." ^

We agreed to that. Charlie rose, while Foo took
his place at the glass tube. He declared that he would
invite them in the most irresistible terms, and, strap-
ping on his revolver, disappeared.

HAPPY VALLEY

Ten minutes later we heard five shots. We dis-
cussed the matter at length, not understanding why
there should be any artillery at that time of night, ex-
cept that probably two guests returning from
the baile were murdering each other before going
to bed. Charlie took a long time, in the meanwhile,
and we were just considering the advisability of send-
ing out an expedition to find him when he returned.

"Well, how about it, Charlie?*' I asked. "Will they
come ?"

"I don't think so,'' he replied doubtfully, swaying
in the doorway.

"Did you hear the shooting?" asked Fidencio.

"Yes, very close," said CharKe. "Foo, if you will
kindly get out from under that tube. . . ."

"What was it?" we asked.

"Well," said Charlie, "I knocked at Adolfo's door
and said we were having a party down here and wanted
him to come. He shot at me three times and I shot
at him twice."

So saying, Charlie seized Foo by the leg and com-
posedly lay down under the glass tube again.

We must have stayed there some hours after that.
I remember that toward morning Ignacio came in and
played us Tosti's "Good-bye," to which all the China-
men danced solemnly around.

At about four o'clock Atanacio appeared. He burst
open the door and stood there very white, with a gun
in one hand.

"Friends," he said, "a most disagreeable thing hag

SOS

INSURGENT MEXICO

happened. My wife, Juanita, returned from her
mother's about midnight on an ass. She was stopped
on the road by a man muffled up in a poncho^ who
gave her an anonymous letter in which were detailed
all my little amusements when I last went for recreation
to Juarez. I have seen the letter. It is astonishingly
accurate! It tells how I went to supper with Maria
and then home with her. It tells how I took Ana to
the bull-fight. It describes the hair, complexion and
disposition of all those other ladies and how much
money I spent upon them. Carraniba! It is exact to
a cent!

"When she got home I happened to be down at Ca-
tarino's taking a cup with an old friend. This mys-
terious stranger appeared at the kitchen door with
another letter in which he said I had three more wives
in Chihuahua, which, God knows, is not true, since I
only have one!

^^It is not that I care, amigos^ but these things have
upset Juanita horribly. Of course, I denied these
charges, but, valgame Dios! women are so unreason-
able!

**I hired Dionysio to watch my house, but he has
gone to the baile^ and so, arousing and dressing my
small son, that he may carry me word of any further
outrages, I have come down to seek your help in pre-
serving my home from this disgrace."

We declared ourselves willing to do anything for
Atanacio — anything, that is, that promised excitement.
We said that it was horrible, that the evil stranger
ought to be exterminated.

304i

HAPPY VALLEY

"Who could it be?''

Atanacio replied that it was probably Flores, who
had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but
who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affec-
tions. We forced agtuardiente upon him and he drank
moodily. Charlie Chee was pried loose from the glass
tube, where Foo took his place, and sent for weapons.
And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revol-
vers of different makes.

Almost immediately came a furious poimding on the
door, and Atanacio's young son flung himself in.

"Papa!" he cried, holding out a paper. "Here is
another one ! The man knocked at the back door, and
when Mamma went to find out who it was she could only
see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the
hair. He gave her a note and ran away, taking a loaf
of bread off the window."

With trembling hands Atanacio unfolded the paper
and read aloud:

Your husband is the father of forty-five small children
in the State of Coahuila.

(Signed) Some One Who Knows Him.

"Mother of God!" cried Atanacio, springing to his
feet, in a transport of grief and rage. **It is a lie!
I have always discriminated! Forward, my friends!
Let us protect our homes!"

Seizing our revolvers we rushed out into the night.
We staggered panting up the steep hill to Atanacio's
house — sticking close together so no one would be mis-
taken by the others for the Mysterious Stranger. Ata-

305

INSURGENT MEXICO

nacio's wife was lying on the bed weeping hysterically.
We scattered into the brush and poked into the alleys
around the house, but nothing stirred. In a corner
of the corral lay Dionysio, the watchman, fast asleep,
his rifle by his side. We passed on up the hill until we
came to the edge of the town. Already dawn was com-
ing. A never-ending chorus of roosters made the only
sound, except the incredibly soft music from the baile
at Don Priciliano's, which would probably last all that
day and the next night. Afar, the big valley was like
a great map, quiet, distinct, immense. Every wall
corner, tree branch and grass-blade on the roofs of
the houses were pricked out in the wonderful clear
light of before-dawn.

In tfie distance, over the shoulder of the red moun-
tain, went a man covered up in a red serape.
"Aha !" cried Atanacio. "There he goes !"
And with one accord we opened up on the red
blanket. There were five of us, and we had six shots
apiece. They echoed fearfully among the houses and
clapped from mountain to mountain, reproduced each
one a hundred times. Of a sudden the village belched
half-dressed men and women and children. They evi-
dently thought that a new revolution was beginning.
A very ancient crone came out of a small brown house
on the edge of the village rubbing her eyes.

**Oigar she shouted. "What are you shooting at?"

"We are trying to kill that accursed man in the

red blanket, who is poisoning our homes and making

Valle Allegre a place unfit for a decent woman to live

in!" shouted Atanacio, taking another shot.

306

LOS PASTORES

The old woman bent her bleary eyes upon our target.

"But," she said gently, "that is not a bad man.
That's only my son going after the goats."

Meanwhile, the red-blanketed figure, never even look-
ing back, continued his placid way over the top of
the mountain and disappeared.

CHAPTER III

LOS PASTORES

THE romance of gold hangs over the mountains
of Northern Durango like an old perfume.
There, it is rumored, was that mythical Ophir
whence the Aztecs and their mysterious predecessors
drew the red gold that Cortez found in the treasury
of Moctezuma. Before the dawn of Mexican history
the Indians scratched these barren hillsides with dull
copper knives. You can still see the traces of their
workings. And after them the Spaniards, with flash-
ing, bright helmets and steel breast-plates, filled from
these mountains the lofty treasure-ships of the In-
dies. Almost a thousand miles from the Capital, over
trackless deserts and fierce stony mountains, a tiny
colorful fringe of the most brilliant civilization in
Europe flung itself among the canyons and high peaks
of this desolate land; and so far was it from the seat
of change that long after Spanish rule had disappeared
from Mexico forever, it persisted here. The Spaniards
enslaved the Indians of the region, of course, and the

307

INSURGENT MEXICO

torrent-worn, narrow valleys are still sinister witH
legend. Almost anybody around Santa Maria del Oro
can tell you stories of the old days when men were
flogged to death in the mines, and the Spanish over-
seers lived like princes.

But they were a hardy race, these mountaineers.
They were always rebelling. There is a legend of how
the Spaniards, finally discovering themselves alone, two
hundred leagues from the seacoast, in the midst of an
overwhelmingly hostile native race, attempted one night
to leave the mountains. Fires sprang up on the high
peaks, and the mountain villages throbbed to the sound
of drums. Somewhere in the narrow defiles the Span-
iards disappeared forever. And from that time, until
certain foreigners secured mining concessions there,
the place had an evil name. The authority of the
Mexican government barely reached it.

There are two villages which were the capitals of
the gold-seeking Spaniards in this region, and where
the Spanish tradition is still strong: Inde, and Santa
Maria del Oro, — ^usually called El Oro. Inde, the
Spaniards romantically named from their persistent
dream that this new world was India ; Santa Maria del
Oro was called so on the same principle that one sung
a Te DetLm in honor of bloody victory — a grateful-
ness to heaven for the finding of red gold. Our Lady of
the Gold.

In El Oro one can still see the ruins of a monastery
— ^they call it now, vaguely, the Collegio — ^the path-
etic little arched roofs of a row of monkish cells built
of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and

308

LOS PASTORES

torrential rains. It partly surrounds what was once the
patio of the cloister, and a great mesquite tree towers
there over the forgotten headstone of an ancient grave,
inscribed with the lordly name of Doiia Isabella Guz-
man. Of course, everybody has entirely forgotten who
Dona Isabella was, or when she died. There still
stands in the public square a fine old Spanish church
with a beamed ceiling. And over the door of the tiny
Palacio Municipal is the almost erased carving of the
arms of some ancient Spanish house.

Here is romance for you. But the inhabitants have
no respect for tradition, and hardly any memory of the
ancients who left these monuments. The exuberant
Indian civilization has entirely obliterated all traces of
the conquistadores.

El Oro is noted as the gayest town of all the moun*
tain region. There are bailes almost every night, and
far and near it is a matter of common knowledge that
El Oro is the home of the prettiest girls in Durango.
In El Oro, too, they celebrate feast days with more
ebullience than in other localities. All the charcoal-
burners and goat-herds and pack-train drivers and
ranchers for miles around come there on holidays, — so
that one feast-day generally means two or three with-
out work, since there must be one day for celebrating,
and at least another for coming and returning home.

And what Pastorellas they have in El Oro ! Once a
year, on the Feast of the Santos Reyes, they per^
form Los Pastores all over this part of the country.
It is an ancient miracle play of the kind that used to
take place all over Europe in the Renaissance, — ^the

309

INSURGENT MEXICO

kind that gave birth to Elizabethan drama, and is now
extinct everywhere in the world. It is handed down by
word of mouth from mother to daughter, from the re-
motest antiquity. It is called ^^Luzbel," the Spanish
for Lucifer, and depicts Perverse Man in the Midst
of His Deadly Sin, Lucifer, the Great Antagonist of
Souls, and the Everlasting Mercy of God Made Flesh
in the Child Jesus.

In most places there is only one performance of Los
Fastores. But in El Oro there are three or four on
the night of the Santos Reyes, and others &t different
times of the year, as the spirit moves. The cura, or
village priest, still trains the actors. The play takes
place no longer in the church, however. It is added
to from generation to generation, sometimes being
twisted to satirize persons in the village. It has be-
come too profane, too realistic, for the Church; but
still it points the great moral of medieval religion.

Fidencio and I dined early on the night of the San
tos Reyes. Afterward, he took me along the street
to a narrow alley-way between adobe walls, which led
through a broken place into a tiny corral behind a
house hung with red peppers. Under the legs of two
meditative burros scurried dogs and chickens, a pig
or so, and a swarm of little naked brown children. A
wrinkled old Indian hag, smoking a cigarette made of
an entire corn-husk, squatted upon a wooden box.
Upon our appearance she arose, muttering toothless
words of greeting, lifted the lid of the box, and pro-
duced an oUa full of new-made aguardiente. The dis-

310

LOS PASTORES

tillery was in the kitchen. We paid her a silver peso,
and circulated the jug among the three of us, with
many polite wishes for health and prosperity. Over
our heads the sunset sky yellowed and turned £^reen,
and a few large mountain stars blazed out. We heard
laughter and guitars from the lower end of the town,
and the uproarious shouts of the charcoal-burners fin-
ishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed
much more than her share. . . .

**0h, mother !" said Fidencio. **Where are they go-
ing to give the Fastores to-night?'*

"There are many Fastores," she answered with a
leer. **Carramhal what a year it is for Fastores!
There is one in the schoolhouse, and another back of
Don Fedro's, and another in the casa of Don Mario,
and still another in the house of Ferdita, who was mar-
ried to Thomas Redondo, who was killed last year in
the mines ; may God have mercy on his soul !"

**Which will be the best?" demanded Fidencio, kick-
ing a goat which was trying to enter the kitchen.

**Qtden sabef** she shrugged vaguely. **Were my old
bones not so twisted I would go to Don Fedro's. But
I would be disappointed. There are no Fastores now-
adays such as the ones we used to give when I was a
girl."

We went, then, to Don Fedro's, down a steep, un-
even street, stopped every few feet by boisterous bank-
rupts who wanted to know where a man could estab-
lish credit for liquor. Don Fedro's was a considerable
house, for he was the village rich man. The open
square which his buildings enclosed would have been a

311

INSURGENT MEXICO

corral ordinarily ; but Don Pedro could afford a patio,
and it was full of fragrant shrubs and barrel cacti, —
a rude fountain pouring from an old iron pipe in the
center. The entrance to this was a narrow, black arch-
way, in which sat the town orchestra playing. A pine
torch was stuck by its pitch against the outside wall,
and under this a man took up fifty-cent pieces for the
entrance fee. We watched for some time, but nobody
seemed to be paying anything. A clamorous mob stood
around him, pleading special privilege — ^that they
ought to get in free. One was Don Pedro's cousin;
another his gardener ; a third had married the daughter
of his mother-in-law by his first marriage ; one woman
insisted that she was the mother of a performer. There
were other entrances at which no guardian stood ; and
through these, when they found themselves unable to
cajole the gentleman at the main door, the crowd plac-
idly sifted. We paid our money amid an awed silence
and entered.

White, burning moonlight flooded the place. The
patio sloped upward along the side of the mountain,
where there was no wall to stop the view of great planes
of shining upland, tilted to meet the shallow jade sky.
To the low roof of the house a canopy of canvas
drooped out over a flat place, supported by slanting
poles, like the pavilion of a Bedouin king. Its shad-
ow cut the moonlight blacker than night. Six torches
stuck in the ground around the outside of the place
sent up thin lines of pitchy smoke. There was no
other light under the canopy, except the restless
gleams of inniunerable cigarettes. Along the wall of

SIS

LOS PASTORES

the house stood black-robed women with black man-
tillas over their heads, the men-folks squatting at their
feet. Wherever there was space between their knees
were children. Men and women alike smoked their
cigarros, handing them placidly down so that the little
ones might take a puff. It was a quiet audience, speak-
ing little and softly, perfectly content to wait, watch-
ing the moonlight in the patio, and listening to the
music, which sounded far away in the arch. A night-
ingale burst into song somewhere among the shrubs,
and all of us fell ecstatically silent, listening to it.
Small boys were dispatched to tell the band to stop
while the song went on. That was very exciting.

During all this time there was no sign whatever of
the performers. I don't know how long we sat there,
but nobody made any comment on the fact. The audi-
ence was not there primarily to see the Fastores; it
was there to see and hear whatever took place, and
everything interested it. But being a restless, practi-
cal Westerner, alas! I broke the charmed silence to
ask a woman next to me when the play would begin.

"Who knows?" she answered tranquilly.

A newcomer, after turning my question and the an-
swer over in his mind, leaned across.

"Perhaps to-morrow," he said. I noticed that the
band was playing no longer. "It appears," he contin-
ued, "that there are other Pastores at Dona Perdita's
house. They tell me that those who were to have per-
formed here have gone up there to see them. And the
musicians have also gone up there. For the past half-

313

INSURGENT MEXICO

hour I have been considering seriously going up there
myself."

We left him, still considering seriously; the rest of
the audience had settled down for an evening of pleas-
ant gossip, having apparently forgotten the Pastores
altogether. Outside, the ticket-taker with our peso
had long since gathered his companions to him and
sought the pleasing hilarity of a cantina.

And so we strolled slowly up the street toward the
edge of town where the whitewashed plaster walls of
rich men's houses give way to the imdecorated adobes
of the poor. There all pretense of streets ended, and
we went along burro paths between huts scattered ac-
cording to their owners' whims, through dilapidated
corrals to the house of the widow of Don Tomas. It
was built of sun-dried mud bricks, jutting part way
into the mountain itself, and looked as the stable of
Bethlehem must have looked. As if to carry out the
analogy, a great cow lay in the moonlight just beneath
the window, breathing and chewing her cud. Through
the window and the door, over a throng of heads, we
could see candle light playing on the ceiling and hear
a whining chant sung by girlish voices, and the beat of
crooks keeping time on the floor with jingling bells.

It was a low, dirt-floored, whitewashed room, raf-
tered and wattled with mud above, like any peasant
dwelling in Italy or Palestine. At the end farthest
from the door was a little table heaped with paper
flowers where two tall church candles burned. Above
it, on the wall, hung a chromo of the Virgin and Child.
And in the middle of the flowers was set a tiny wooden

814

LOS PASTORES

model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to repre-
sent the Infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, ex*
cept for a small space in the middle of the floor, was
packed with humanity: a fringe of children sitting
cross-legged aroimd the stage, half-grown-ups and
girls kneeling, and behind them, until they choked the
doorway, blanketed peons with their hats off, eager and
curious. By some exquisite chance, a woman sat next
to the altar, her breast exposed as she nursed her
baby. Other women with their babies stood along the
wall on both sides of her, except for a narrow, cur-
tained entrance into another room where we could hear
the giggling of the perfovisders.

^^Has it begun P'^ 'I: asked a boy next to me.

*^No,'* he answered; "they just came out to sing a
song to see if the stage was big enough."

It was a merry, noisy crowd, bandying jokes and
gossip across each others' heads. Many of the men
were exhilarated with aguardiente^ singing snatches of
ribald songs with their arms around each other's shoul-
ders, and breaking out every now and then into fierce
little quarrels that might have led to anything — for
they were all armed. And right in the middle of
everything a voice said:

**S-s-sh! They are going to begin now!"

The curtain was lifted, and Ltbcifer^ hurled from
Heaven because of his invincible pride, stood before
us. It was a young girl — ^all the performers are girls,
in distinction to the pre-Elizabethan miracle plays,
where the actors were boys. She wore a costiune
whose every part had been handed down from immeas-

816

INSURGENT MEXICO

urable antiquity. It was red, of course — red leather —
the conventional medieval color for devils. But the
exciting thing about it was that it was evidently the
traditional rendering of the uniform of a Roman
legionary (^and the Roman soldiers who crucilSed
Christ were considered a little. less than devils in the
Middle Ages). She wore a wide, skirted doublet of
red leather, under which were scalloped trousers, fall-
ing almost to the shoe tops. There doesn't seem to be
much connection here until you remember that the
Roman legionaries in Britain and in Spain wore leather
trousers. Her helmet was greatly distorted, because
feathers and flowers had been fastened to it; but un-
derneath you could trace the resemblance to the Roman
helmet. A cuirass covered her breast and back; in-
stead of steel it was made of small mirrors. And a
sword hung at her side. Drawing the sword, she strut-
ted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man's :

'*Yo soy luz; ay en mi nombre te vet
Pites con la liua
Que baje

Todo el abismo encendir

A splendid soliloquy of Lucifer hurled from heaven:

^^Light am I, as my name proclaims — and the light
of my fall kindled all the great abyss. Because I
would not humble myself, I, who was the Captain Gen-
eral, be it known to all men, am to-day the accursed
of God. . . . To thee, O mountains, and to thee, O
sea, I will make my complaint, and thus — ^alas! — ^re-

816

LOS PASTORES

Keve my overburdened breast. ... Cruel fortune, why
art thou so inflexibly severe? ... I who yesterday
dwelt serene in yonder starry vault am to-day disin-
herited, abandoned. Because of my mad envy and am-
bition, because of my rash presumption, gone is my
palace of yesterday, and to-day finds me sad among
these mountains, mute witnesses of my grievous and
pitiful state. . . . O mountains! happy art thou! —
happy art thou in all, whether bleak and bare, or gay
with leafy verdure! O ye swift brooks flowing free,
behold me! . . ."

"Good! good!" said the audience.

"That's the way Huerta is going to feel when the
Maderistas enter Mexico City!" shouted one irrepres-
sible revolutionist, amid laughter.

"Behold me in my affliction and guilt ^" contin-
ued Luzbel.

Just then a large dog came through the curtain,
cheerfully wagging his tail. Immensely pleased with
himself, he nosed among the children, licking a face
here and there. One baby slapped him violently, and
the dog, hurt and astonished, made a rush between
Lucifer^s legs in the midst of that sublime peroration.
A second time Lucifer fell, and, rising amid the wild
hilarity of the house, laid about her with her sword.
At least fifty of the audience descended upon the dog
and ejected him howling, and the play went on.

LaurUy married to Arcadio, a shepherd, appeared
singing at the door of her cottage — ^that is to say,
through the curtain. . . .

817

INSURGENT MEXICO

"How peacefully falls the light of the moon and the
stars this supremely beautiful night ! Nature appears
to be on the point of revealing some wonderful secret.
The whole world is at peace, and all hearts, methinks,
are overflowing with joy and contentment. . . . But
— ^who is this — of such pleasing presence and fascinat-
ing figure?*'

Lucifer prinked and strutted, avowing with Latin
boldness his love for her. She replied that her heart
was Arcadio^sr; but the Arch-devil dwelt upon her hus-
band's poverty, and himself promised her riches, tow-
ering palaces, jewels and slaves.

"I feel that I am beginning to love thee," said
Laura. "Against my will — ^I cannot deceive myself

At this point there was smothered laughter in the
audience: "Antonia! Antonia!" said everybody, grin-
ning and nudging. "That's just the way Antonia left
Enrique! I always thought the Devil was in it!" re-
marked one of the women.

But Laura had pangs of conscience about poor
Arcadia. Lucifer insinuated that Arcadia was se-
cretly in love with another, and that settled it.

"So that thou mayst not be troubled," Laura said
calmly, "and, so that I may be free from him, I shall
even watch for an opportunity to kill him."

This was a shock, even to Lucifer. He suggested
that it would be better to make Arcadio feel the pangs
of jealousy, and in an exultant aside remarked with

LOS PASTORES

satisfaction that "her feet are already in the direct
pathway to Hell."

The women, apparently, felt a good deal of satis-
faction at this. They nodded virtuously to one an-
other. But one young girl leaned over to another, and,
sighing, said:

"Ah ! But it must be wonderful to love like that !"

Arcadio returned, to be reproached by Laura with
his poverty. He was accompanied by BatOy a com-
bination of lago and Autolycus, who attended the dia-
logue between the shepherd and his wife with ironical
asides. By means of the jeweled ring that Lucifer had
given Laura^ Arcadio*8 suspicions were aroused, and,
when Laura had left him in haughty insolence, he gave,
vent to his feelings:

"Just when I was happy in her fidelity, she with
cruel reproaches embitters my heart! What shall I
do with myself?"

"Look for a new mate," said Bato.

That being rejected, Bato gave the following modest
prescription for settling the difficulty :

"Kill her without delay. This done, take her skin
and carefully fold it away. Shquldst thou marry
again, let the bride's sheet be that skin, and thus pre-
vent another jilting. To still further strengthen her
virtue, tell her gently but firmly: 'Sweetheart, this
thy sheet was once my wife; see that thou dost carry
thyself circumspectly lest thou, too, come to the same
end. Remember that I am a hard and peevish man
who does not stick at trifles.' "

At the beginning of this speech the men began to

S19

INSURGENT MEXICO

snicker, and when it ended they were guffawing loudly.
An old peon, however, turned furiously on them:

"There is a proper prescription !" he said. "If that
were done more often there would not be so many do-
mestic troubles."

But Arcadia didn't seem to see it, and Bato recom-
mended the philosophic attitude.

"Stop thy complaining and leave Laura to Her lover.
Free thus from obligations, thou wilt become rich, and
be able to eat well, dress well, and truly enjoy life.
The rest matters but little. . . . Seize, therefore, this
opportunity toward thine own good fortune. And do
not forget, I beg thee, once thy fortime is made, to re-
gale this meager paunch of mine with good cheer."

"Shame!" cried the women, clucking. "How false!"
"The desgraciador A man's voice piped up : "There
is some truth in that, senoras! If it weren't for the
women and children we all might be able to dress in fine
clothes and ride upon a horse."

A fierce argument grew up around this point.

Arcadia lost patiepce with Bata^ and the latter
plaintively said:

"If thou hast any regard for poor Bata^ let us go
to supper."

Arcadia answered firmly, not until he had unbur-
dened his heart.

"Unburden and welcome," said Bata, "until thou
art tired. As for me, I shall put such a knot in my
tongue that even shouldst thou chatter like a parrot I
shall be mute." He seated himself on a large rock and

320

LOS PASTORES

pretended to sleep; and then for fifteen npnutes Ar-
cadio unburdened himself to the mountains and the
stars.

^^Oh, Laura, inconstant, ungrateful and inhuman,
why hast thou caused me such woe? Thou hast
wounded my faith and my honor and hast put my soul
in torment. Why dost thou mock my ardent love? Oh,
thou steep stills and towering moimtains, help me to
express my woe! And thou, stern, immovable cliffs,
and thou, silent woods, help me to ease my heart of its
pain. . . •"

Amid heartfelt and sympathetic silence the audi-
ence mourned with Arcadio, A few women sobbed
openly.

Finally Bato could stand it no longer.

"Let us go to supper," he said. "Better it is to
suffer a little at a time !"

A perfect gale of laughter cut off the end of the
sentence.

Arcadia: "To thee only, Bato, have I confided my
secret."

Bato (aside) : "I do not believe I can keep it! Al-
ready my mouth itches to tell it. This fool will learn
that ^a secret and a pledge to none should be en-
trusted.' "

Enter a group of shepherds with their shepherdesses,
singing. They were dressed in their feminine Sunday
best with flowery summer hats, and carried enormous
wooden apostolic crooks, hung with paper flowers and
strings of bells.

8«1

INSURGENT MEXICO

**iBeautifvl %$ thi$ night beyond compare, — >
Beautiful and peaceftd as never before.
And happy the mortal who beholds it.
Everything proclaims that the Son of God,
The Word Divine made human flesh,
WHl soon be bom in Bethlehem
And fnankind^s ransom be complete.**

Then followed a dialogue between ninety-year-old,
miserly Fabio and his spri^tly young wife, to which
all present contributed, upon the subject of the great
virtues of women and the great failings of men.

The audience joined violently in the discussion,
hurling the words of the play back and forward — ^men
and women drawing together in two solid hostile bod-
ies. The women were supported by the words of the
play, but the men had the conspicuous example of
Laura to draw from. It passed soon into an argu-
tnent about the virtues and failings of certain married
couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time.

Bras, one of the shepherds, stole Patio's

wallet from between his knees as he slept. Then came
gossip and backbiting. Bato forced Bras to share
with him the contents of the stolen wallet, which they
opened, to find none of the food they expected. In
their disappointment, both declared their willingness to
sell their souls to the Devil for a good meal. Lucifer
overheard the declaration and attempted to bind them
to it. But after a battle of wits between the rustics
and the Devil — the audience solid to a man against the
mderhanded tactics of Lucifer — ^it was decided by a

LOS PASTORES

throw of the dice, at which the Devil lost. But he had
told them where food eould be obtained, and they
went for it. Lucifer cursed God for interfering in be-
half of two worthless shepherds. He marveled that "a
hand mightier than Lucifer* 8 has been stretched out. to
save." He wondered at the Everlasting Mercy toward
worthless Man, who has been a persistent sinner down
the ages, while he, Lucifer^ hi^d felt God's wrath so
heavily. Sweet music was suddenly heard — the shep-
herds singing behind the curtain — and Lucifer mused
upon Daniel's prophecy that "the Divine Word shall
be made Flesh." The music continued, announcing
the birth of Christ among the shepherds. Lucifer^ en-
raged, swore that he would use all his power to the end
that all mortals shall at some time "taste Hell," and
commanded Hell to open and receive him ^^in its cen-
ter."

At the birth of Christ the spectators crossed them-
selves, the women muttering prayers. Lucifer** impo-
tent raging against God was greeted with shouts of
"Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Death to the Devil for in-
sulting God !"

Bras and Bato returned, ill from overeating, and,
believing they were about to die, called wildly for help.
Then the shepherds and shepherdesses came in, sing-
ing and pounding the floor with their crooks, as they
promised they would cure them.

At the beginning of Act H, Bato and Bras^ fully
restored to health, were discovered again plotting to
steal and eat the provisions laid by for a village festi-

323

INSURGENT MEXICO

val, and as they went out to do so Laura appeared,
singing of her love for Lucifer. Heavenly music was
heard, rebuking her for her "adulterous thoughts,"
whereupon she renounced all desire for guilty love and
declared that she would be content with Arcadio.

The women of the audience rustled and nodded and
smiled at these exemplary sentiments. Sighs of relief
were heard all over the house that the play was coming
out right.

But just afterward the sound of a falling roof was
heard, and Comic Relief, in the persons of Broi and
BatOy entered, carrying a basket of food and a bottle
of wine. Everybody brightened up at the appearance
of these beloved crooks; anticipatory mirth went
around the room. Bato suggested that he eat his half
while Brag stood guard, whereupon Bato ate Bra^^a
share, too. In the midst of the quarrel that followed,
before they could hide the traces of their guilt, the
shepherds and shepherdesses came back in search of
the thief. Many and absurd were the reasons invented
by Bato and Bras to explain the presence of the food
and drink, which they finally managed to convince the
company was of diabolical origin. In order to further
cover their traces they invited the others to eat what
is left.

This scene, the most comic of the whole play, could
hardly be heard for the roars of laughter that inter-
rupted every speech. A young fellow reached over
and punched a compadre.

**Do you remember how we got out of it when they
caught us milking Don Pedro's cows?"

HAPPY VALLEY

the admiration of the ladies, outdancing them all in
speed, abandon and noise.

But he soon tired of that, and the excitement of
meeting Carmencita palled upon him. So he went out
into the moonlight again and up the arroyo, to take
part in Charlie Chee's celebration.

As we approached the hotel we were conscious of a
curious low moaning sound which seemed akin to mu-
sic. The dinner-table had been removed from the din-
ing-room into the street, and around the room turkey-
trotted Foo and another Celestial. A barrel of
agtuirdiente had been set up on a trestle in one cor-
ner, and beneath it sprawled Charlie himself, in his
mouth a glass tube which sjrphoned up into the barrel.
A tremendous wooden box of Mexican cigarettes had
been smashed open on one side, the packages tumbling
out upon the floor. In other parts of the room two
more Chinamen slept the profound sleep of the very
drunk, wrapped in blankets. The two who danced sang
meanwhile their own version of a once popular ragtime
song called "Dreamy Eyes." Against this marched
magnificently "The Pilgrim's Chorus" from Tann-
hauser, rendered by a phonograph set up in the
kitchen. Charlie removed the glass tube from his
mouth, put a thumb over it, and welcomed us with
a hymn which he sang as follows:

"Pooll for the shore, sail&r,
PooU for the shore!
Heed not the lowling lave
But pooll for the shore!"

801

INSURGENT MEXICO

He surveyed us with a bleary eye, and remarked:
**Bledlau ! Je' Calist is wid us here toni' !"

After which he returned the syphon to his mouth.

We blended into these festivities. Fidencio offered
to exhibit the steps of a new Spanish fandango^ the
way it was danced by the damned "grasshoppers"
(as Mexicans call the Spaniards). He stamped bel-
lowing around the room, colliding with the Chinamen,
and roaring ^Tia Paloma." Finally, out of breath, he
collapsed upon a nearby chair, and began to descant
upon the many charms of Adolf o's bride, whom he had
seen for the first time that day. He declared that it
was a shame for so young and blithe a spirit to be tied
to a middle-aged man; he said that he himself repre-
sented youth, strength and gallantry, and was a much
more fitting mate for her. He added that as the even-
ing advanced he found that he desired her more and
more. Charlie Chee, with the glass tube in his mouth,
nodded intelligently at each of these statements. I had
a happy thought. Why not send for Adolfo and his
wife and invite them to join our festivities? The
Chinamen asleep on the floor were kicked awake and
their opinion asked. Since they could understand
neither Spanish nor English, they answered fluently in
Chinese. Fidencio translated.

"They say," he said, "that Charlie ought to be sent
with the invitation." ^

We agreed to that. Charlie rose, while Foo took
his place at the glass tube. He declared that he would
invite them in the most irresistible terms, and, strap-
ping on his revolver, disappeared.

302

HAPPY VALLEY

"Well, how about it, Charlie?" I asked. "Will they
come ?"

"I don't think so," he replied doubtfully, swaying
in the doorway.

"Did you hear the shooting?" asked Fidencio.

"Yes, very close," said Charlie. "Foo, if you will
kindly get out from under that tube. • . ."

"What was it?" we asked.

'*Well," said Charlie, "I knocked at Adolfo's door
and said we were having a party down here and wanted
him to come. He shot at me three times and I shot
at him twice."

So saying, Charlie seized Foo by the leg and com-
posedly lay down under the glass tube again.

We must have stayed there some hours after that.
I remember that toward morning Ignacio came in and
played us Tosti's "Good-bye," to which all the China-
men danced solemnly around.

At about four o'clock Atanacio appeared. He burst
open the door and stood there very white, with a gun
in one hand.

"Friends," he said, "a most disagreeable thing has

303

INSURGENT MEXICO

happened. My wife, Juanita, returned from her
mother's about midnight on an ass. She was stopped
on the road by a man muffled up in a poncho, who
gave her an anonymous letter in which were detailed
all my little amusements when I last went for recreation
to Juarez. I have seen the letter. It is astonishingly
accurate! It tells how I went to supper with Maria
and then home with her. It tells how I took Ana to
the bull-fight. It describes the hair, complexion and
disposition of all those other ladies and how much
money I spent upon them. Carramba! It is exact to
a cent!

"It is not that I care, amigos, but these things have
upset Juanita horribly. Of course, I denied these
charges, but, valgame Diosl women are so unreason-
able!

"I hired Dionysio to watch my house, but he has
gone to the baile, and so, arousing and dressing my
small son, that he may carry me word of any further
outrages, I have come down to seek your help in pre-
serving my home from this disgrace."

We declared ourselves willing to do anything for
Atanacio — anything, that is, that promised excitement.
We said that it was horrible, that the evil stranger
ought to be exterminated.

S04

HAPPY VALLEY

^'Who could it be?"

Atanacio replied that it was probably Flores, who
had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but
who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affec-
tions. We forced agtuirdiente upon him and he drank
moodily. Charlie Chee was pried loose from the glass
tube, where Foo took his place, and sent for weapons.
And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revol-
vers of different makes.

Almost immediately came a furious pounding on the
door, and Atanacio's young son flung himself in.

*Tapa!" he cried, holding out a paper. "Here is
another one ! The man knocked at the back door, and
when Mamma went to find out who it was she could only
see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the
hair. He gave her a note and ran away, taking a loaf
of bread off the window.'*

With trembling hands Atanacio unfolded the paper
and read aloud:

Your husband is the father of forty-five small children
in the State of Coahuila.

(Signed) Some One Who Knows Him.

"Mother of God!" cried Atanacio, springing to his
feet, in a transport of grief and rage. "It is a lie!
I have always discriminated! Forward, my friends!
Let us protect our homes!''

S05

INSURGENT MEXICO

**Oiga!" she shouted. "What are you shooting at?"

"We are trying to kill that accursed man in the

red blanket, who is poisoning our homes and making

Valle Allegre a place unfit for a decent woman to live

in!" shouted Atanacio, taking another shot.

306

LOS PASTORES

The old woman bent her bleary eyes upon our target.

"But," she said gently, "that is not a bad man.
That's only my son gomg after the goats.*'

Meanwhile, the red-blanketed figure, never even look-
ing back, continued his placid way over the top of
the mountain and disappeared.

CHAPTER ni

LOS PASTORES

307

INSURGENT MEXICO

torrent-worn, narrow valleys are still sinister with
legend. Almost anybody around Santa Maria del Oro
can tell you stories of the old days when men were
flogged to death in the mines, and the Spanish over-
seers lived like princes.

There are two villages which were the capitals of
the gold-seeking Spaniards in this region, and where
the Spanish tradition is still strong: Inde, and Santa
Maria del Oro, — usually called El Oro. Inde, the
Spaniards romantically named from their persistent
dream that this new world was India ; Santa Maria del
Oro was called so on the same principle that one sung
a Te Deiim in honor of bloody victory — a grateful-
ness to heaven for the finding of red gold. Our Lady of
the Gold.

In El Oro one can still see the ruins of a monastery
— they call it now, vaguely, the Collegio — the path-
etic little arched roofs of a row of monkish cells built
of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and

308

LOS PASTORES

torrential rains. It partly surrounds what was once the
patio of the cloister, and a great mesquite tree towers
there over the forgotten headstone of an ancient grave,
inscribed with the lordly name of Dona Isabella Guz-
man. Of course, everybody has entirely forgotten who
Dona Isabella was, or when she died. There still
stands in the public square a fine old Spanish church
with a beamed ceiling. And over the door of the tiny
Palacio Municipal is the almost erased carving of the
arms of some ancient Spanish house.

El Oro is noted as the gayest town of all the moun-
tain region. There are hailes almost every night, and
far and near it is a matter of common knowledge that
El Oro is the home of the prettiest girls in Durango.
In El Oro, too, they celebrate feast days with more
ebullience than in other localities. All the charcoal-
burners and goat-herds and pack-train drivers and
ranchers for miles around come there on holidays, — so
that one feast-day generally means two or three with-
out work, since there must be one day for celebrating,
and at least another for coming and returning home.

And what PastoreUas they have in El Oro ! Once a
year, on the Feast of the Santos Reyes, they per-
form Los Pastores all over this part of the country.
It is an ancient miracle play of the kind that used to
take place all over Europe in the Renaissance, — ^the

S09

INSURGENT MEXICO

kind that gave birth to Elizabethan drama, and is now
extinct everywhere in the world. It is handed down by
word of mouth from mother to daughter, from the re-
motest antiquity. It is called ^^Luzbel," the Spanish
for Lucifer, and depicts Perverse Man in the Midst
of His Deadly Sin, Lucifer, the Great Anta^nist of
Souls, and the Everlasting Mercy of God Made Flesh
in the Child Jesus.

In most places there is only one performance of Los
Pastores. But in El Oro there are three or four on
the night of the Santos Reyes, and others at different
times of the year, as the spirit moves. The ^ira^ or
village priest, still trains the actors. The play takes
place no longer in the church, however. It is added
to from generation to generation, sometimes being
twisted to satirize persons in the village. It has be-
come too profane, too realistic, for the Church; but
still it points the great moral of medieval religion.

810

LOS PASTORES

tillery was in the kitchen. We paid her a silver peso,
and circulated the jug among the three of us, with
many polite wishes for health and prosperity. Over
our heads the sunset sky yellowed and turned green,
and a few large mountain stars blazed out. We heard
laughter and guitars from the lower end of the town,
and the uproarious shouts of the charcoal-burners fin*
ishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed
much more than her share. . • .

**0h, mother!" said Fidencio. **Where are they go-
ing to give the Pastores to-night?"

**There are many Pastores," she answered with a
leer. **Carrambal what a year it is for Pastores!
There is one in the schoolhouse, and another back of
Don Pedro's, and another in the casa of Don Mario,
and still another in the house of Perdita, who was mar-
ried to Thomas Redondo, who was killed last year in
the mines ; may God have mercy on his soul !"

**Which will be the best?" demanded Fidencio, kick-
^g A goat which was trying to enter the kitchen.

**Qvien sabet** she shrugged vaguely. **Were my old
bones not so twisted I would go to Don Pedro's. But
I would be disappointed. There are no Pastores now-
adays such as the ones we used to give when I was a
girl."

We went, then, to Don Pedro's, down a steep, un-
even street, stopped every few feet by boisterous bank-
rupts who wanted to know where a man could estab-
lish credit for liquor. Don Pedro's was a considerable
house, for he was the village rich man. The open
squaref which his buildings enclosed would have been a

811

INSURGENT MEXICO

corral ordinarily ; but Don Pedro could afford a patio,
and it was full of fragrant shrubs and barrel cacti, —
a rude fountain pouring from an old iron pipe in the
center. The entrance to this was a narrow, black arch-
way, in which sat the town orchestra playing. A pine
torch was stuck by its pitch against the outside wall,
and under this a man took up fifty-cent pieces for the
entrance fee. We watched for some time, but nobody
seemed to be paying anything. A clamorous mob stood
around him, pleading special privilege — ^that they
ought to get in free. One was Don Pedro's cousin;
another his gardener ; a third had married the daughter
of his mother-in-law by his first marriage ; one woman
insisted that she was the mother of a performer. There
were other entrances at which no guardian stood; and
through these, when they found themselves unable to
cajole the gentleman at the main door, the crowd plac-
idly sifted. We paid our money amid an awed silence
and entered.

SIS

LOS PASTORES

the house stood black-robed women with black man-
tillas over their heads, the men-folks squatting at their
feet. Wherever there was space between their knees
were children. Men and women alike smoked their
cigarros, handing them placidly down so that the little
ones might take a puff. It was a quiet audience, speak-
ing little and softly, perfectly content to wait, watch-
ing the moonlight in the patio, and listening to the
music, which sounded far away in the arch. A night-
ingale burst into song somewhere among the shrubs,
and all of us fell ecstatically silent, listening to it«
Small boys were dispatched to tell the band to stop
while the song went on. That was very exciting.

During all this time there was no sign whatever of
the performers. I don't know how long we sat there,
but nobody made any comment on the fact. The audi-
ence was not there primarily to see the Pastores; it
was there to see and hear whatever took place, and
everything interested it. But being a restless, practi-
cal Westerner, alas! I broke the charmed silence to
ask a woman next to me when the play would begin.

"Who knows?" she answered tranquilly.

A newcomer, after turning my question and the an-
swer over in his mind, leaned across.

S13

INSURGENT MEXICO

hour I have been considering seriously goin^ up there
myself."

We left him, still considering seriously ; the rest of
the audience had settled down for an eyemng of pleas-
ant gossip, having apparently forgotten the Pastores
altogether. Outside, the ticket-taker with our peso
had long since gathered his companions to him and
sought the pleasing hilarity of a cantina.

And so we strolled slowly up the street toward the
edge of town where the whitewashed plaster walls of
rich men's houses give way to the undccorated adobes
of the poor. There all pretense of streets ended, and
we went along burro paths between huts scattered ac-
cording to their owners' whims, through dilapidated
corrals to the house of the widow of Don Tomas. It
was built of sun-dried mud bricks, jutting part way
into the mountain itself, and looked as the stable of
Bethlehem must have looked. As if to carry out the
analogy, a great cow lay in the moonlight just beneath
the window, breathing and chewing her cud. Through
the window and the door, over a throng of heads, we
could see candle light playing on the ceiling and hear
a whining chant sung by girlish voices, and the beat of
crooks keeping time on the floor with jingling bells.

LOS PASTORES

model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to repre-
sent the Infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, ex*
cept for a small space in the middle of the floor, was
packed with humanity: a fringe of children sitting
cross-legged around the stage, half-grown-ups and
girls kneeling, and behind them, until they choked the
doorway, blanketed peons with their hats off, eager and
curious. By some exquisite chance, a woman sat next
to the altar, her breast exposed as she nursed her
baby. Other women with their babies stood along the
wall on both sides of her, except for a narrow, cur-
tained entrance into another room where we could hear
the giggling of the perfofu^rs.

"Has it begun ?'^' 'I: asked a boy next to me.

**No," he answered; "they just came out to sing a
song to see if the stage was big enough."

It was a merry, noisy crowd, bandying jokes and
gossip across each others' heads. Many of the men
were exhilarated with aguardientey singing snatches of
ribald songs with their arms around each other's shoul-
ders, and breaking out every now and then into fierce
little quarrels that might have led to anything — for
they were all armed. And right in the middle of
everything a voice said:

"S-s-sh! They are going to begin now!"

The curtain was lifted, and Lucifer^ hurled from
Heaven because of his invincible pride, stood before
us. It was a young girl — all the performers are girls,
in distinction to the pre-Elizabethan miracle plays,
where the actors were boys. She wore a costume
whose every part had been handed down from immeas-

S16

INSURGENT MEXICO

urable antiquity. It was red, of course — red leather —
the conventional medieval color for devils. But the
exciting thing about it was that it was evidently the
traditional rendering of the uniform of a Roman
legionary (*and the Roman soldiers who crucified
Christ were considered a little. less than devils in the
Middle Ages). She wore a ^de, skirted doublet of
red leather, under which were scalloped trousers, fall-
ing almost to the shoe tops. There doesn't seem to be
much connection here until you remember that the
Roman legionaries in Britain and in Spain wore leather
trousers. Her helmet was greatly distorted, because
feathers and flowers had been fastened to it; but un-
derneath you could trace the resemblance to the Roman
helmet. A cuirass covered her breast and back; inr
stead of steel it was made of small mirrors. And a
sword hung at her side. Drawing the sword, she strut-
ted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man's :

Yo soy luz; ay en mi nombre se vel

Ptiea con la Itiz

Que haje

Todo el abismo encendi '*

A splendid soliloquy of Lucifer hurled from heaven :

*Tiight am I, as my name proclaims — and the light
of my fall kindled all the great abyss. Because I
would not humble myself, I, who was the Captain Gen-
eral, be it known to all men, am to-day the accursed
of God. . . . To thee, O mountains, and to thee, O
sea, I will make my complaint, and thus — alas! — re-

816

LOS PASTORES

Keve my overburdened breast. . . • Cruel fortune, why
art thou so inflexibly severe? ... I who yesterday
dwelt serene in yonder starry vault am to-day disin-
herited, abandoned. Because of my mad envy and am-
bition, because of my rash presumption, gone is my
palace of yesterday, and to-day finds me sad among
these mountains, mute witnesses of my grievous and
pitiful state. . . . O mountains! happy art thou! —
happy art thou in all, whether bleak and bare, or gay
with leafy verdure! O ye swift brooks flowing free,
behold me! • . .*'

"Good! good!*' said the audience.

"That's the way Huerta is going to feel when the
Maderistas enter Mexico City!" shouted one irrepres-
sible revolutionist, amid laughter.

**Behold me in my affliction and guilt " contin-
ued Luzbel.

Laura, married to Arcadio, a shepherd, appeared
singing at the door of her cottage — that is to say,
through the curtain. • • •

317

INSURGENT MEXICO

^*How peacefully falls the light of the moon and the
stars this supremely beautiful night! Nature appears
to be on the point of revealing some wonderful secret.
The whole world is at peace, and all hearts, methinks,
are overflowing with joy and contentment. • • • But
— ^who is this — of such pleasing presence and fcuscinat-
ing figure?"

Lucifer prinked and strutted, avowing with Latin
boldness his love for her. She replied that her heart
was Arcadi6*g; but the Arch-devil dwelt upon her hus-
band's poverty, and himself promised her riches, tow-
ering palaces, jewels and slaves.

*^I feel that I am beginning to love thee," said
Laura. ** Against my will — ^I cannot deceive myself

But Laura had pangs of conscience about poor
Arcadio. Lucifer insinuated that Arcadia was se-
cretly in love with another, and that settled it.

"So that thou mayst not be troubled," Laura said
calmly, "and, so that I may be free from him, I shall
even watch for an opportunity to kill him."

This was a shock, even to Lucifer. He suggested
that it would be better to make Arcadia feel the pangs
of jealousy, and in an exultant aside remarked with

S18

LOS PASTORES

satisfaction that ^^her feet are already in the direct
pathway to Hell."

The women, apparently, felt a good deal of satis-
faction at this. They nodded virtuously to one an-
other. But one young girl leaned over to another, and,
sighing, said:

"Ah ! But it must be wonderful to love like that !"

Arcadio returned, to be reproached by Laura with
his poverty. He was accompanied by BatOy a com-
bination of lago and AutolycuSy who attended the dia-
logue between the shepherd and his wife with ironical
asides. By means of the jeweled ring that Lticifer had
given La/ura, Arcadio^s suspicions were aroused, and,
when Laura had left him in haughty insolence, he gave,
vent to his feelings:

**Just when I was happy in her fidelity, she with
cruel reproaches embitters my heart! What shall I
do with myself?"

*Xook for a new mate," said Bato.

That being rejected, Bato gave the following modest
prescription for settling the difficulty:

"Kill her without delay. This done, take her skin
and carefully fold it away. Shpuldst thou marry
again, let the bride's sheet be that skin, and thus pre-
vent another jilting. To still further strengthen her
virtue, tell her gently but firmly: ^Sweetheart, this
thy sheet was once my wife; see that thou dost carry
thyself circumspectly lest thou, too, come to the same
end. Remember that I am a hard and peevish man
who does not stick at trifles.' "

At the beginning of this speech the men began to

S19

INSURGENT MEXICO

snicker, and when it ended they were guffawin^^ loudly.
An old peon, however, turned furiously on them :

"There is a proper prescription!" he said. **If that
were done more often there would not be so many do-
mestic troubles."

But Arcadia didn't seem to see it, and Bato recom-
mended the philosophic attitude.

"Stop thy complaining and leave Laura to bier lover.
Free thus from obligations, thou wilt become rich, and
be able to eat well, dress well, and truly enjoy life.
The rest matters but little. . • • Seize, therefore, this
opportunity toward thine own good fortune. And do
not forget, I beg thee, once thy fortune is made, to re-
gale this meager paunch of mine with good cheer."

"Shame!" cried the women, clucking. "How false!"
**The desgraciado!'* A man's voice piped up : **There
is some truth in that, senoras! If it weren't for the
women and children we all might be able to dress in fine
clothes and ride upon a horse."

A fierce argument grew up around this point.

Arcadio lost patience with Bato, and the latter
plaintively said:

"If thou hast any regard for poor Bato, let us go
to supper."

Arcadio answered firmly, not until he had unbur-
dened his heart.

"Unburden and welcome," said Bato, "until thou
art tired. As for me, I shall put such a knot in my
tongue that even shouldst thou chatter like a parrot I
shall be mute." He seated himself on a large rock and

320

LOS PASTORES

pretended to sleep; and then for fifteen n^inutes Ar-
cadio unburdened himself to the mountains and the
stars.

^^Ohy Laura, inconstant, ungrateful and inhuman,
why hast thou caused me such woe? Thou hast
wounded my faith and my honor and hast put my soul
in torment. Why dost thou mock my ardent love? Oh,
thou steep stills and towering mountains, help me to
express my woe! And thou, stern, immovable cliffs,
and thou, silent woods, help me to ease my heart of its
pain. • • .''

Amid heartfelt and sympathetic silence the audi-
ence mourned with Arcadio. A few women sobbed
openly.

Finally Bato could stand it no longer.

**Let us go to supper," he said. "Better it is to
suffer a little at a time!"

A perfect gale of laughter cut off the end of the
sentence.

Arcadio: *'To thee only, Bato, have I confided my
secret."

Bato (aside) : "I do not believe I can keep it! Al-
ready my mouth itches to tell it. This fool will learn
that ^a secret and a pledge to none should be en-
trusted.' "

S21

INSURGENT MEXICO

''Beautiful i$ this night bej/and compare, — >
Beautiful and peaceful a$ never before.
And happy the mortal who beholds it.
Everything proclaims that the Son of Cfod,
The Word Divine made human flesh,
Wm soon be bom in Bethlehem
And Tnankind's ransom be complete.**

Then followed a dialogue between ninety-year-old,
miserly Fabio and his sprightly young wife, to which
all present contributed, upon the subject of the great
virtues of women and the great failings of men.

The audience joined violently in the discussion,
hurling the words of the play back and forward — ^men
and women drawing together in two solid hostile bod-
ies. The women were supported by the words of the
play, but the men had the conspicuous example of
Laura to draw from. It passed soon into an ar^-
toent about the virtues and failings of certain married
couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time.

nraSy one of the shepherds, stole Fabians

wallet from between his knees as he slept. Then came
gossip and backbiting. Bato forced Bras to share
with him the contents of the stolen wallet, which they
opened, to find none of the food they expected. In
their disappointment, both declared their willingness to
sell their souls to the Devil for a good meal. Lucifer
overheard the declaration and attempted to bind them
to it. But after a battle of wits between the rustics
and the Devil — the audience solid to a man against the
imderhanded tactics of Lucifer — ^it was decided by a

LOS PASTORES

throw of the dice, at which the Devil lost. But he had
told them where food eould be obtained, and they
went for it. Lucifer cursed God for interfering in be-
half of two worthless shepherds. He marveled that "a
hand mightier than Lucifer* s has been stretched out. to
save." He wondered at the Everlasting Mercy toward
worthless Man, who has been a persistent sinner down
the ages, while he, LvfCifer, h«^d felt God's wrath so
heavily. Sweet music was suddenly heard — the shep-
herds singing behind the curtain — and Lucifer mused
upon Daniel's prophecy that "the Divine Word shall
be made Flesh." The music continued, announcing
the birth of Christ among the shepherds. Lucifer, en-
raged, swore that he would use all his power to the end
that all mortals shall at some time ^^taste Hell," and
commanded Hell to open and receive him "in its cen-
ter."

At the birth of Christ the spectators crossed them-
selves, the women muttering prayers. Lucifer's impo-
tent raging against God was greeted with shouts of
"Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Death to the Devil for in-
sulting God !"

At the beginning of Act II, Bato and Bras, fully
restored to health, were discovered again plotting to
steal and eat the provisions laid by for a village festi-

333

INSURGENT MEXICO

val, and as they went out to do so Laura appeared,
singing of her love for Lucifer. Heavenly music was
heard, rebuking her for her "adulterous thoughts/'
whereupon she renounced all desire for guilty love and
declared that she would be content with Arcadio,

The women of the audience rustled and nodded and
smiled at these exemplary sentiments. Sighs of relief
were heard all over the house that the play was coming
out right.

But just afterward the sound of a falling roof was
heard, and Comic Relief, in the persons of Bras and
BatOy entered, carrying a basket of food and a bottle
of wine. Everybody brightened up at the appearance
of these beloved crooks; anticipatory mirth went
around the room. Bato suggested that he eat his half
while Bras stood guard, whereupon Bato ate Bras*s
share, too. In the midst of the quarrel that followed,
before they could hide the traces of their guilt, the
shepherds and shepherdesses came back in search of
the thief. Many and absurd were the reasons invented
by Bato and Bras to explain the presence of the food
and drink, which they finally managed to convince the
company was of diabolical origin. In order to further
cover their traces they invited the others to eat what
is left.

This scene, the most comic of the whole play, could
hardly be heard for the roars of laughter that inter-
rupted every speech. A young fellow reached over
and punched a compadre,

**Do you remember how we got out of it when they
caught us milking Don Pedro's cows?"

LOS PASTORES

Lticifer returned, and was Invited to join the feast.
He Incited them maliciously to continue discussion of
the robbery, and little by little to place the blame upon
a stranger whom they all agreed having seen. Of
course they meant Lticifer, but, upon being Invited to
describe him, they depicted a monster a thousand times
more repulsive than the reality. None suspected that
the apparently amiable stranger seated In their midst
was Lucifer^

How Bato and Bras were at last discovered and pun-
ished, how Laura and Arcadio were reconciled, how
Fabio was rebuked for his avarlclousness and saw the
error of his ways, how the Infant Jesus was shown
lying in his manger, with the three strongly individu-
alized Kings out of the East, how Lticifer was finally
discovered and cast back Into hell — ^I have not space
here to describe.

The play lasted for three hours, absorbing all the
attention of the audience. Bato and Bras — especially
Bato — received their enthusiastic approbation. They
sympathized with Laura, suffered with Arcadio, and
hated Lticifer with the hatred of gallery gods for the
villain In the melodrama. Only once was the play in-
terrupted, when a hatless youth rushed In and shouted :

"A man has come from the army, who says that
Urblna has taken Maplmi !"

Even the performers stopped singing — they were
pounding the flooy with jingling crooks at the time —
and a whirlwind of questions beat upon the newcomer.

825

INSURGENT MEXICO

But in a minute the interest passed, and the shepherds
took up their song where they had dropped it.

When we left Dona Perdita's house, about midnight,
the moon had already gone behind the western moun-
tains, and a barking dog was all the noise in the dark
sharp night. It flashed upon me, as Fidencio and I
went home with our arms about each others' shoulders,
that this was the kind of thing which had preceded the
Grolden Age of the Theater in Europe — ^the flowering
of the Renaissance. It was amusing to speculate what
the Mexican Renaissance would have been if it had not
come so late.

But already around the narrow shores of the Mex-
ican Middle Ages beat the great seas of modem life —
machinery, scientific thought, and political theory.
Mexico will have to skip for a time her Grolden Age of
Drama.

(1);

j »

HAPPY VALLEY

"Who could it be?"

Atanacio replied that it was probably Flores, who
had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but
who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affec-
tions. We forced agtiardiente upon him and he drank
moodily. Charlie Chee was priec} loose from the glass
tube, where Foo took his place, and sent for weapons.
And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revol-
vers of different makes.

Almost immediately came a furious pounding on the
door, and Atanacio's young son flung himself in.

*Tapa!" he cried, holding out a paper. "Here is
another one! The man knocked at the back door, and
when Mamma went to find out who it was she could only
see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the
hair. He gave her a note and ran away, taking a loaf
of bread off the window."

With trembling hands Atanacio unfolded the paper
and read aloud:

Your husband is the father of forty-five small children
in the State of Coahuila.

(Signed) Some One Who Knows Him.

"Mother of God!" cried Atanacio, springing to his
feet, in a transport of grief and rage. "It is a lie!
I have always discriminated! Forward, my friends!
Let us protect our homes!"

S05

'^c- [liiilliii

3 bios DID 311. \,^i

STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

CECIL H. GREEN LIBRARY

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-6004

(4151 723-1493

All books may be recalled alter 7 days

DATE DUE

NOVc^81997

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