“Kill them, the damned Carranzistas! He who kills the most this day shall be my lover!”
“And here comes he that will do it!” The man on Bull’s left touched his shoulder.
Up the hill behind them a battery was coming, stretched on a scrambling gallop. Alongside the guns, urging the drivers on, a man rode a great black stallion at the head of a cavalry detachment. Even at a distance the harsh, monotonous voice rose above the rattle of the limbers, rifle-fire, booming guns.
“It’s Valles!”
As the correspondent pointed, looking back at Bull, the great black horse launched out and shot up the hill.
“Make way, hombres, for the guns!”
Amber eyes aflame, brute mouth working, face quivering like shaken vitriol, he was herding the men aside when his glance fell on the correspondent. Then, though his face drew into a grin, comprehension flashed in his hot eyes.
“Ole, compañero!” His wave of the hand took in all. “Hot work! but nothing to that which is to come. Mira!”
Following his pointing finger, they saw to the westward a great cloud of dust, long, thick, and low, rolling in upon their right flank. “Carranzista cavalry! But—look again!”
Looking always to their front, they had seen nothing of the cavalry, brigade after brigade, which was forming under cover of the hill to the west and behind them. Ten thousand wild horsemen were in the mass. Thousands of others were streaming out of the town. Big hands clutching as though he had them already in his grasp, eyes again aflame, Valles shook his fist at the distant dust.