"There is a Federal cuartel up ahead there that is 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 Jiminez."

"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 trying 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 relented, 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 cannons came

rocketing out of the brush behind and wheeled into position in a dry

ditch seventy-five yards away on the left.

"I guess we're going in a minute," said the boy.

At that moment three men galloped up from the rear, evidently officers.

They were entirely exposed to rifle fire over the roofs of the huts, but

jerked up their horses with the shots yelling all around, 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. "But 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 straight up and whirled on his

hind legs, Fierro galloped off rearward, saying as he went, "Useless,

those simple fools of Contreras----"

"Death to the Butcher!" 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, grabbing 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. "I'll bet you my saddle I come

back and you don't! This morning I won a nice bridle from Juan----"

"All right! _Muy bien_! My new pinto horse...."

Laughing, joking, rollicking, they swept out of the shelter of the

houses into the rain of steel. They scuttled 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 managed

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

gratitude, though full of friendliness.

We stretched out on the bank in the golden twilight, smoking. The first

train, headed by a flat-car upon which was mounted the cannon "El 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 cheering scattered among the trees and fields. "El 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 "El Nino" 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

countersign "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 battle

began should be shot by the sentries.

Bucephalus and I jogged slowly along in the moonless 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 human voices in the darkness near the

ditch ahead--evidently an outpost.

"_Quien vive?_" came a shout. And before I had a chance to answer,

BANG! He fired. The bullet went past my head. _Biou!_

"No, no, you fool," drawled an exasperated voice. "Don't shoot as soon

as you challenge! Wait until he gives the wrong answer! Listen to me,

now." This time the formality was satisfactory to both sides and the

officer said, "_Pase Usted!_" 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

appeared, 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? My man is there, and I

haven't seen him for seven days."

"Then you are not a _pacifico_?"

"Truly I am not," she returned indignantly, pointing 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 darkness 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.

"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 capture the Brittingham 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: "General 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 sound 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 until you're right up under the wall."

"Captain, _carramba_! It's going to be very, very _duro_! 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 General climbed the bank of the ditch and plunged into

the brush, the others pouring after him....

All along the line now 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 together 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 direction of the

Brittingham Corral, which I could not see, the syncopated rhythm of four

machine guns and a continuous inhuman blast of volleying rifles made the

previous noise seem like the deepest silence. A quick glare reddened

the heaven above, and then the shocking detonations of dynamite. I

could imagine the yelling savages sweeping up the street against that

withering flame, wavering, pausing, struggling on again, with Villa just

in front, talking to them back over his shoulder, as he always did. Now

more furious firing over to the right indicated that the attack against

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, streamed 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 reports of

cannon. They were opening upon the little line of climbing men with

artillery! But still they rose upon the black hill. 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 completely, 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 artillery, 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 infernal 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 morning 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 Corral 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 obscurely in the dense

darkness. Their cries and groans could be distinctly heard, though the

battle noise 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 between

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 nervous breakdown.

"How brave we Mexicans are," he said drolly. "Killing 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 labored 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, "El Nino's" captain

put two guns on the Cerro out of action. So the Federals left the

trains alone and turned their attention to shelling Herrera out of

Lerdo.

The Constitutionalist army was terribly shattered. In the four days'

fighting about a thousand men had been killed and almost two thousand

more wounded. Even the excellent hospital train was inadequate to

handle the wounded. Out on the wide plain where we were the faint smell

of dead bodies pervaded everything. In Gomez it must have been horrible.

Thursday the smoke from twenty funeral pyres stained the sky. But Villa

was more determined than ever. Gomez must be taken, and quickly. He

didn't have ammunition or supplies enough for a siege, and, moreover,

his name was a legend already with the enemy--wherever Pancho Villa

appeared in battle, they had begun to believe it lost. And the effect on

his own troops was most important, too. So he scheduled another night

attack.

"The track is all repaired," reported Calzado, Superintendent of the

Railways.

"Good," said Villa. "Bring up all the trains from the rear to-night,

because we're going into Gomez in the morning!"

Night fell; breathless, silent night, with a sound of frogs along the

ditches. Across the front of the town the soldiers lay waiting for the

word to attack. Wounded, worn out, nervously broken, they straggled to

the front, keyed up to the last notch of desperation. This night they

would not be repulsed. They would take the town or die where they

stood. And as nine o'clock approached, the hour at which the attack had

been set, the tension became dangerous.

Nine o'clock came and passed--not a sound or movement. 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 mysterious sounds. The electric lights went out

and in the darkness there was a subtle stir and movement, indefinable.

At length the order was given to advance, but as our men crept forward

in the dark the front rank suddenly 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 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 breakfast 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 everybody 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. Everybody I met coveted that mule.

One trooper marching along with two rifles hailed me. "_Oija,

companero_, 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

animal'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 compensation 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 that I was a captain of artillery and

that the mule belonged to my battery. Every few feet some owner of that

mule sprang up and asked me how dared I ride his own dear Panchito, 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 window. 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 hanging 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 entrance

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 in Torreon dropped 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 particular attention to it.

Suddenly I noticed a small object 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 hundred men leaped

for their plunging horses in a panic and galloped frantically toward the

rear, the women streaming 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 Nino" replying.

But the effect on the correspondents and newspaper men was peculiar. No

sooner had the first shell exploded 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 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 stayed 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 triumphant throngs of peons, who

acclaimed him The Liberator.

In Chihuahua he addressed the people from the balcony of the Governor's

palace. As he told of the hardships endured and the sacrifices made by

the little band of men who had overthrown the dictatorship of Diaz

forever, he was overcome with emotion. Reaching inside the room he

pulled out a tall, bearded man of commanding presence, and, throwing his

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 dominant 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

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 Mexican 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 and 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 Tampico. 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 leaders, however, there was

no such dissension; Villa having just been unanimously elected General

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 and Pesquiera were

already squabbling over who should be Governor of the State, and

threatening revolutions against each other. Carranza'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 proclamations. 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 General Alvardo, Chief of Arms of Sonora, because he would not

guarantee the Governor's safety, and evidently proposing to upset the

Revolution because Maytorena was uncomfortable in the palace at

Hermosillo. During 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 months later most of

them went back to their homes and began again their hopeless campaign

against the white man.

Carranza hibernated until early in the spring of this year, when, the

purpose of his Sonora sojourn evidently having been accomplished, he

turned his face toward the territory where the real Revolution was being

fought.

Within that six months the aspect of things had entirely changed.

Except for the northern part of Nueva Leon, and most of Coahuila,

northern Mexico was Constitutionalist territory almost 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 almost

single-handed by Villa; Carranza seems to have contributed nothing but

congratulations. He had, indeed, formed a provisional government. An

immense throng of opportunist politicians surrounded the First Chief,

loud in their protestations of devotion to the Cause, liberal with

proclamations, 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, although 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 gentlemen, who transmitted their

questions to Carranza on paper and brought them back his answers written

out; 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

government.

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,

accompanied by 3,000 troops, with the ostensible object of sending

reinforcements to Villa and of making his provisional capital in Juarez

when Villa left for Torreon. Two correspondents, however, who had been

in Sonora, told me that the officers of this immense bodyguard believed

that they were to be sent against Villa himself.

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 concentrated 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 another 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 Carranza. It was at the immensely exciting

time of the Benton murder. All the protestations and half-veiled

threats of the British and American governments converged upon Villa.

But by the time I had received the message Carranza and his Cabinet had

arrived at the Border and broken the six months' silence in a startling

way. The First Chief's declaration to the State Department was

practically this:

"You have made a mistake in addressing representations in the Benton

case to General Villa. They should be addressed to me as First Chief of

the Revolution 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 Britain. Until I do I

will make no answer to the representations of any other government.

Meanwhile, a thorough investigation will be made of the circumstances 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 intimation that he was to

keep out of international affairs, 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 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 four 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

Nogales that the entire fate of the Mexican Revolution depended upon Mr.

Reed's seeing the First Chief of the Revolution immediately upon his

arrival. However, 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 unshaven 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 the Secretary 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, Senor

Isidro Fabela. Senor Fabela said that the First Chief had retired and

couldn't see me; but that he himself would give me immediately a

statement of just what Carranza thought about the Benton incident.

Now none of the newspapers had ever heard of Senor Fabela before. They

were all clamoring to their correspondents, wanting to know who he was.

He seemed to be such an important member of the provisional government,

and yet his antecedents were not known at all. At different times he

apparently filled most of the positions in the First Chief's Cabinet.

Rather medium height and distinguished-looking, suave, courteous, and

evidently very well educated, his face was decidedly Jewish. We talked

for a long time, sitting on the edge of his bed. He told me what the

First Chief's aims and ideals were; but in them I could discern nothing

of the First Chief's personality whatever.

"Oh, 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 Fabela 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. Accordingly, 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."

"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, indicating 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

immediately."

I promised, and, together with another reporter, followed him across the

square to the beautiful little yellow 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 Department of the Secretaryship opened, a roar of typewriters smote

our ears. Officers in uniform stood about the portico waiting for

orders. General Obregon, Commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining

in a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guadalajara. He

started for Hermosillo three days afterward, and marched his army four

hundred miles through a friendly country in three months. Although

Obregon had shown no startling capacity for leadership, Carranza had

made him General-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 General Carrasco, who operates in Tepic. Her husband

had been killed while an officer in the first Revolution, leaving 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. These men seemed more intelligent than

the others. Anybody who passed was scrutinized carefully, and those who

paused at the door were questioned according to some thorough formula.

Every two hours this guard was changed; the relief 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 Revolution," 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 senores?" asked one.

"It's all right. They are friends," answered Fabela, 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 corner. 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 impression of a vast, inert body--a statue.

He rose to meet us, a towering figure, seven feet tall it seemed. I

noticed with a kind of shock that in that dark room he wore smoked

glasses; and, although ruddy and full-cheeked, I felt that he was not

well,--the thing you feel about tuberculous patients. That tiny, dark

room, where the First Chief of the Revolution slept and ate and worked,

and from which he hardly ever emerged, seemed too small--like a cell.

Fabela had entered with us. He introduced us one by one to Carranza,

who smiled a vacant, expressionless smile, bowed slightly, 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 respectful 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:

"Senor 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 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 government.

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 begun, 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 having received them," he

said, nervously. But Don Venustiano paid no attention to him. Suddenly

he began again, his voice pitched a little higher and louder:

"These cowardly nations thought they could secure 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 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 Constitutionalists; so she tried to use the

United States as a cat's paw. More shame to the United States," he

cried, shaking his fists, "that 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 forward, 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

profound 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

thundering 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. 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 going to fill the high posts of the

new Mexican Government. 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 Municipal Palace; but I

never saw Carranza again but 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 himself stood framed in it, arms hanging loosely by his sides,

his fine old head thrown back, as he stared blindly 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,

looking 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 Revolution clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers working

violently. Then he turned, and pacing between the two guards, went back

to the little dark room.

*PART SIX*

*MEXICAN NIGHTS*

*CHAPTER I*

*EL COSMOPOLITA*

El 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 El 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.

Above the table was a sign which read:

"_Please do not get on the roulette 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

soldiers--excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of small bills on

the numbers and colors, and arguing violently 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 unpunished. Finally he

would take himself off, muttering ominously: "_A ver_! We shall see!"

while the others would sympathetically make way for him, murmuring:

"_Ah! Que mala suerte!_"

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 discouraged from playing

further. This was looked upon as perfectly legitimate by all present,

since, _carramba!_, there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a

loss!

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 companies; I.O.U.'s; notes of hand; mortgages; and a hundred

different _vales_ of various railroads, plantations, 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 around the circumference

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 gentlemen, 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 increasing amounts on every card with

wildly growing excitement.

The strict rules of the American game, which so restrict freedom of

action, were absent here. Johnny and I would lift a corner of our 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 this 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 between the table and a

lunch-counter across the street, bearing sandwiches, _chile con carne_,

and cups of coffee 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 extensively 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 produce 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 there would sometimes

enter a Mexican who was not intimately acquainted with the subtleties of

the American 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, secured 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 'Pass the bet?'" he cried, shaking both fists.

It was explained to him, and he subsided.

"Very well, then," he said. "Since this fifteen dollars 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 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 Mexico!"

"Hey! Pancho!" shouted the dealer. "Go at once and notify the police!"

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 Police 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 explaining 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 perfectly good Mexican game like

stud poker.

The chief listened, curling his mustaches, his chest swelling with the

importance of being the deciding factor 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 corner, 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, "the Senor Captain would

like to show the gentleman....?"

"I should be only too glad to loan him a few chips," I added, raking in

the pile.

"_Oiga!_" said the Chief. "I will be glad to do so. Superlative thanks,

sir!"

He drew up a chair, and, out of politeness, the buck was given to him.

"_Abierto!_" he said, with the air of an old hand.

We played. The 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, "it is easy if you observe the

rules." He twisted his mustache, ruffled 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?"

"Oh!" said the Chief, staring. He waved his hand casually. "Just

release him and return to your stations."

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

playing 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....

*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--almost 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

_tequila_. At one, the sunny side of the dry arroyo that is called a

street was lined with double rows of squatting 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_, senores! 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, 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 temperament 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

cornstalks or hung with strings of red peppers. A gigantic green

mesquite tree, with roots like a chicken's foot, thatched on every

branch with dried hay and corn. Below, the town fell 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 she mashed her corn 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.

"_Buenos tardes, amigo,_" 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 considered 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?"

"_Bien, bien_! I saw your son with the army at Jimenez. He gave me

many, many remembrances of you. Would you desire a cigarette?"

"Thanks. Permit me, a light. You are in Valle Allegre many days?"

"For the fiesta only, senor."

"I hope your visit is fortunate, senor. My house is at your orders."

"Thanks. How is it that I did not see you at the _baile_ last night,

senor? You, who were always such a sympathetic dancer!"

"Unhappily Juanita is gone to visit her mother in El Oro, and now,

therefore, I am a _platonico_. I grow too old for the senoritas."

"Ah, no, senor. A _caballero_ of your age is in the prime of life. But

tell me. Is it true what I hear, that the Maderistas are now at

Mapimi?"

"_Si_, senor. Soon Villa will take Torreon, they say, and then it is

only a matter of a few months before the Revolution is accomplished."

"I think that, yes. But tell me; I have great respect for your opinion.

Which cock would you advise me to bet on?"

We approached the combatants and looked them over, while their owners

clamored in our ears. They sat upon the curbing negligently herding

their birds apart. It was getting toward three of the afternoon.

"But will there be a cock-fight?" I asked them.

"_Quien sabe?_" drawled one.

The other murmured that possibly it would be _manana_. It developed

that the steel spurs 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 Constitutionalist

_jefe_ politico of Valle Allegre, very drunk, walking arm in arm with

Don Priciliano Saucedes, the former _jefe_ under the Diaz government.

Don Priciliano is a fine-looking, white-haired old Castilian who used to

lend money to the peons at twenty per cent. Don Catarino is a former

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 back!"

And the two pass on to Don Priciliano'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 bandolier, and

leather trousers fastened up the side with buttons as big as

dollars--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 Paredes, the charcoal

contractor. He plunges down the arroyo at a gallop, 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 sword which once belonged 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

village aristocrat. They say that his wedding was magnificent beyond

belief, two priests officiating and the service lasting an hour more

than necessary. But this may have been good economy on Adolfo's part,

since he already had one wife in Chihuahua, another in Farral, and a

third in Monterey, and, of course, had to placate 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 divided the proceeds

before our eyes, and we strolled home well content.

Fidencio and I dined at Charlie Chee's hotel. Throughout Mexico, in

every little town, you will find Chinamen monopolizing the hotel and

restaurant business. 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 Adolfo, 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 earrings. 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 pidgin Mexican.

It seemed that there was to be a _baile_ at Don Priciliano's that

evening, and Charlie 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. The jumbled roofs

were so many tipped-up silvery planes, and the tree-tops glistened.

Like a frozen cataract the arroyo fell away, and the great valley beyond

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 clear. 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

Priciliano'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 blankets, 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 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

affection; and at the door a dozen friends crowded forward 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 corner by the side

of a certain Pablito, 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 dumbly, with her eyes on the ground, as is

proper for unmarried 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 Carmencita,

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

jingling spurs; when they had danced around the room two or three times

they walked 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 embroidered cloth upon which burned a perpetual rush flame before a

tawdry color print of the Virgin which hung on the wall. Don Priciliano

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' conversation 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 betrothed 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 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 exuberantly, into a

waltz. The center of twenty curious and enthusiastic youths--for he had

traveled--Fidencio strutted back into the room. He went straight to

Carmencita, but as he led her out upon the floor Pablito glided up

behind, pulling out a large obsolete revolver. A dozen shouts rang:

"_Cuidado_, Fidencio! Look out!"

He whirled, to see the revolver pointed at his stomach. 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 Pablito's. I heard low voices muttering:

"Porfirio! Go home and get my shotgun!"

"Victoriano! My new rifle! It lies 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 proceedings 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, rose and majestically

made their way to some interior part of the house. It was none of their

business; besides, 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:

"You little goat! Don't stand there pointing that thing at me if you're

afraid to shoot it! Pull the trigger while I am unarmed! I am not

afraid to die, even at the hand of a 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 wavered, and with a curse

he jammed the pistol back into his pocket. The peons straightened up

again and crowded disappointedly around the doors and windows. 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 perfect arsenal of

rifles and shotguns, the dance had been resumed. So the guns were

stacked in a corner.

As long as Carmencita claimed his amorous attention and there was a

prospect of friction, Fidencio stayed. He swaggered among the men and

basked in 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 music. The dinner-table had been removed

from the dining-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 corner, 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 Tannhaeuser, 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, sailor,_

_Pooll for the shore!_

_Heed not the lowling lave_

_But pooll for the shore!"_

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 bellowing

around the room, colliding with the Chinamen, and roaring "La 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

represented youth, strength and gallantry, and was a much more fitting

mate for her. He added that as the evening 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, strapping on his revolver, disappeared.

Ten minutes later we heard five shots. We discussed the matter at

length, not understanding why there should be any artillery at that time

of night, except 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

sending 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 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 composedly 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 Chinamen 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 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!

"When she got home I happened to be down at Catarino's taking a cup with

an old friend. This mysterious 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 unreasonable!

"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 preserving 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.

"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 affections. We forced _aguardiente_ 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 revolvers of different makes.

Almost immediately came a furious pounding 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 mistaken by the others for the Mysterious Stranger. Atanacio'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 coming. 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 the distance, over the shoulder of the red mountain, 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 evidently 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.

"_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.

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 looking 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 flashing, bright helmets and steel breast-plates, filled

from these mountains the lofty treasure-ships of the Indies. 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

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 overseers

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

Spaniards 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 Deum_ in honor of bloody victory--a

gratefulness 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 pathetic little arched roofs of a row of

monkish cells built of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and

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 Guzman. 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 mountain 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 without

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 perform 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 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 remotest

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 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 _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

become 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 Santos 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

produced an _olla_ full of new-made _aguardiente_. The distillery 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

finishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed much more than

her share....

"Oh, mother!" said Fidencio. "Where are they going to give the Pastores

to-night?"

"There are many Pastores," she answered with a leer. "_Carramba!_ 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 married 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, kicking a goat which was

trying to enter the kitchen.

"_Quien sabe?_" 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 nowadays such as the ones we used to give when I was a girl."

We went, then, to Don Pedro's, down a steep, uneven street, stopped

every few feet by boisterous bankrupts who wanted to know where a man

could establish credit for liquor. Don Pedro's was a considerable

house, for he was the village rich man. The open square which his

buildings enclosed would have been a 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 archway, 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 placidly 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 shadow 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 innumerable cigarettes. Along the wall of the house stood

black-robed women with black mantillas 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, speaking little and softly, perfectly content to wait,

watching the moonlight in the patio, and listening to the music, which

sounded far away in the arch. A nightingale 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 audience 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, practical 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 answer over in his mind,

leaned across.

"Perhaps to-morrow," he said. I noticed that the band was playing no

longer. "It appears," he continued, "that there are other Pastores at

Dona Perdita's house. They tell me that those who were to have

performed here have gone up there to see them. And the musicians have

also gone up there. For the past half-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 pleasant 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

undecorated adobes of the poor. There all pretense of streets ended,

and we went along burro paths between huts scattered according 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, raftered 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 model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to represent

the Infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, except 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, curtained entrance into another room where

we could hear the giggling of the performers.

"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 _aguardiente_,

singing snatches of ribald songs with their arms around each other's

shoulders, 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 immeasurable 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 wide, skirted doublet of red leather, under

which were scalloped trousers, falling 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 underneath you could trace the resemblance to the

Roman helmet. A cuirass covered her breast and back; instead of steel

it was made of small mirrors. And a sword hung at her side. Drawing

the sword, she strutted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man's:

_"Yo soy luz; ay en mi nombre se vet_

_Pues con la luz_

_Que baje_

_Todo el abismo encendi----"_

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 General, 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!--relieve my overburdened breast.... Cruel

fortune, why art thou so inflexibly severe? ... I who yesterday dwelt

serene in yonder starry vault am to-day disinherited, abandoned.

Because of my mad envy and ambition, 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 irrepressible revolutionist, amid laughter.

"Behold me in my affliction and guilt----" continued 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.

_Laura_, married to _Arcadio_, a shepherd, appeared singing at the door

of her cottage--that is to say, through the curtain....

"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 fascinating figure?"

_Lucifer_ prinked and strutted, avowing with Latin boldness his love for

her. She replied that her heart was _Arcadio's_; but the Arch-devil

dwelt upon her husband's poverty, and himself promised her riches,

towering 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, grinning and nudging. "That's just the way

Antonia left Enrique! I always thought the Devil was in it!" remarked

one of the women.

But _Laura_ had pangs of conscience about poor _Arcadio_. _Lucifer_

insinuated that _Arcadio_ was secretly 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 satisfaction that "her feet are already in the

direct pathway to Hell."

The women, apparently, felt a good deal of satisfaction at this. They

nodded virtuously to one another. 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 _Bato_, a combination of _Iago_ and _Autolycus_, who

attended the dialogue between the shepherd and his wife with ironical

asides. By means of the jeweled ring that _Lucifer_ had given _Laura_,

_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?"

"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. Shouldst thou marry again, let the bride's sheet be that skin,

and thus prevent 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 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 domestic troubles."

But _Arcadio_ didn't seem to see it, and _Bato_ recommended 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 fortune is made, to regale 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 unburdened 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

pretended to sleep; and then for fifteen minutes _Arcadio_ 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 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 audience 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! Already my mouth itches

to tell it. This fool will learn that 'a secret and a pledge to none

should be entrusted.'"

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.

_"Beautiful is this night beyond compare,--_

_Beautiful and peaceful as never before,_

_And happy the mortal who beholds it._

_Everything proclaims that the Son of God,_

_The Word Divine made human flesh,_

_Will soon be born in Bethlehem_

_And mankind'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 bodies. 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 argument about the virtues and failings of certain married

couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time.

---- _Bras_, one of the shepherds, stole _Fabio'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

underhanded tactics of _Lucifer_--it was decided by a throw of the dice,

at which the Devil lost. But he had told them where food could be

obtained, and they went for it. _Lucifer_ cursed God for interfering in

behalf 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, _Lucifer_, had felt God's wrath so heavily.

Sweet music was suddenly heard--the shepherds 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_, enraged, 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 center."

At the birth of Christ the spectators crossed themselves, the women

muttering prayers. _Lucifer's_ impotent raging against God was greeted

with shouts of "Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Death to the Devil for insulting

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, singing and pounding the floor with their crooks,

as they promised they would cure them.

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 festival, 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 _Bato_, 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 interrupted 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?"

_Lucifer_ 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 _Lucifer_, 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 punished, how _Laura_

and _Arcadio_ were reconciled, how _Fabio_ was rebuked for his

avariciousness and saw the error of his ways, how the Infant Jesus was

shown lying in his manger, with the three strongly individualized Kings

out of the East, how _Lucifer_ 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 _Lucifer_ with the hatred of gallery gods for the

villain in the melodrama. Only once was the play interrupted, when a

hatless youth rushed in and shouted:

"A man has come from the army, who says that Urbina has taken Mapimi!"

Even the performers stopped singing--they were pounding the floor with

jingling crooks at the time--and a whirlwind of questions beat upon the

newcomer. 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 mountains, 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 Golden 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 Mexican Middle Ages beat the

great seas of modern life--machinery, scientific thought, and political

theory. Mexico will have to skip for a time her Golden Age of Drama.