Together they hurried out of the station and across to the quarters of the army officers. The captain in command of the post was on the front porch of his cottage washing his face in a tin basin when Mr. Ryder interrupted him. The engineer spoke a few words in Spanish and the officer hastily reached for a towel, at the same time calling loudly for an orderly. That individual arrived from behind the cottage as if produced by magic, and after listening to the captain’s brief orders saluted and hurried to the barracks building, from the door of which the soldiers were just emerging in various stages of attire.
He returned presently, to be followed five minutes later by a young officer in charge of a squad of ten soldiers. Curt instructions were issued by the commander and the soldiers broke ranks immediately and went hurrying here and there about the plant, rounding up every peon in sight.
Some of the native laborers protested violently against being hustled into line along the south wall of the station, for they were afraid that they were about to be shot, this being the spot where all the executions in Necaxa were staged. But their protests were of no avail, for the soldiers took keen delight in hurrying them along with the sharp point of their bayonets or the flat stock of their guns.
In less than no time two score natives were facing the gray stone wall. They were a heterogeneous assortment of half-breeds and full-blooded Indians with ragged garments and hair long and unkempt. None wore shoes or even sandals.
When every native had been located and the line was complete the soldiers withdrew a short distance and the captain then turning to Mr. Ryder, spoke nervously and with great concern:
“Here are they, Señor, maybe now you find them sick mans, yes.”
“Why did he say ‘those sick men?’” asked Jack, somewhat puzzled.
“I told him there was a rumor abroad that one of the peons had leprosy and that we wanted to find him and put him in a pest house. Though I know very little about the disease I understand it shows first on the face, palms of the hands or soles of the feet,” answered the engineer.
“But why did you tell him that?” demanded the lad.