I
On the train that carried me southward from Hermosillo I met “The General.”
He was young—scarcely out of his teens—slender, mild-mannered, almost feminine in voice and appearance. His large, dark eyes were shaded with long, girlish lashes. One felt startled when, upon more intimate acquaintance, he confided that he was an ex-bandit.
His rank, in reality, was only that of teniente, than which one could not be much lower in a Mexican army, but it pleased him so much when I first addressed him as “General” that I continued the practice.
Our meeting was accidental. Eustace and I, still traveling together, found him in a double-seat, with his handbags spread over whatever space he did not fill himself. As we paused before him, he looked up in surprise, apparently feeling that the railway had not made proper provision for so many passengers.
“Pardon, General, but is this bench reserved?”
He smiled. He removed his baggage most graciously. Within half an hour he had announced himself our humble servant, and was planning gay parties for us at the several stopping-places ahead. He knew all the girls along the West Coast, he said, both respectable and otherwise. He would see that we enjoyed the trip. He would be our guide and mentor in things Mexican. And when we reached Mazatlán—the southern terminus of the road, some three or four days distant—his house would be our house. We should attend his wedding, which was to be celebrated immediately upon his arrival, and if we remained long enough, we should be the godfathers to his first child.
And although he impressed me as somewhat too lavish in his promises, he proved an entertaining companion on the long journey—a journey through a monotonous continuation of the Sonora desert, with stop-overs at cities which, with minor variations, were replicas of Hermosillo—at Guaymas, San Blas, and Culiacán—cities pleasant and interesting, yet never so interesting to me as my first Mexican friend, the little General.