Then with bottles in hand, they listened while Don Ferdinand explained how he had come to be in the predicament from which Frank and Captain Cornell had rescued him.
To begin with, Ramirez, as they already knew, had lured away a score of men from Don Ferdinand’s mine in the mountains, many miles to the west. The old Don feared Ramirez was preparing to gather a rebel army and launch a new rebellion. At one time, nothing would have pleased Don Ferdinand better. But he believed now that the Obregon government was stabilizing his country, and he wanted its peace to continue undisturbed.
In that isolated district, there was only a shadow of Federal authority, in the form of a commander and a score of troops in a small town garrison at the village of San Dimas. Don Ferdinand decided that it would be useless to appeal to such help, for in the meantime Ramirez would move eastward unhampered and continually gathering more troops. Accordingly, with his own followers at his back, he set out in pursuit.
Well mounted though they were, however, Don Ferdinand’s command failed to catch up with Ramirez. Through sparsely settled country, where the only human inhabitants were a few lonely sheepherders, led the chase. Now and then Don Ferdinand obtained word of Ramirez’s passing. Once, about fifty miles west of Nueva Laredo, they came upon a camp which Ramirez had made along the Rio Grande that was only a day old. The American town of Carana, a Texan village inhabited by Mexicans, was not far distant across the river. Then they pressed on toward Nueva Laredo, hopeful of meeting Ramirez before he could gain sufficient strength to attack the town.
But almost at once Don Ferdinand discovered that Ramirez no longer had with him the main body of his followers. Trail signs up to the last camp had indicated that more than a score of men rode with Ramirez. Now the signs showed that not more than four horsemen had proceeded from the last camp. They turned back at once in order to make a closer inspection of the camping place, and soon discovered that the score left behind had crossed the river in the direction of Carana, some three miles away.
This puzzled the old Don sadly. A dozen conjectures as to the reason for such a move whirled through his brain. The one most likely to be true, he believed, was that Ramirez had sent his main body along the deserted Texan shore toward Nueva Laredo while he and a few lieutenants approached it from the Mexican side. Many Mexicans live in Texas; and, therefore, the followers of Ramirez would be able to enter Laredo without detection and stay in the American town until they received word from their commander to enter Mexico. In the mean time, Ramirez could be preparing his plans in Nueva Laredo for a surprise attack that would put the town in his power. So Don Ferdinand pressed eagerly toward Nueva Laredo. He felt that this move would make the capture of Ramirez all the easier, and that with the brains of the revolution laid by the heels, there would be no revolution.
Five miles from Nueva Laredo, Don Ferdinand left his followers at the hacienda of a friend. Only one man did he take with him, whose duty it would be to act as messenger and summon the troop in case of need. He entered Nueva Laredo the next day and spent hours in making guarded inquiries.
No information. At least, none of value. Don Ferdinand had acquaintances in Nueva Laredo. His land-owning friend had others to whom he bore references. All knew of Ramirez and his former reputation as a smuggler and bad character. None, however, had heard of any revolutionary movement with him behind it, and only one had heard of his being in Nueva Laredo. He had been seen on the street, somebody had dropped mention of it to this informant.
Don Ferdinand pressed his inquiries further. Believing Ramirez’s command had crossed the Rio Grande fifty miles west in order to march into Laredo and there await word from their commander, he went to Laredo. A very good friend, a wealthy merchant, housed him. But inquiries made amid the lower strata of Laredo society by the merchant’s employees brought forth no information regarding an influx of strangers who might be Ramirez’s men. Then, driving across the International Bridge, Saturday night, Don Ferdinand in his friend’s car caught sight of Ramirez, only to lose the chase, as already narrated, through his accidental smashing into the taxi of his young friends.
The next day was the morning of the bull fight. Remembering his promise to call at the Hamilton Hotel Don Ferdinand was preparing for the visit when word was brought him that Ramirez had been located in a house on Calle Libertad. The informant was one of his merchant-friend’s employees—a laborer from the warehouse. He undertook to guide Don Ferdinand to a dive in Nueva Laredo, where they were to meet one of Ramirez’s men who had agreed to sell his information, if Don Ferdinand would buy. The merchant was asleep. Don Ferdinand did not wake him, but took the car which had been placed at his disposal and drove with his informant to the meeting place.