"I will not budge till you have clothed that man," the widow declared. "I insist upon a pair of trousers."
There was a hurried questioning of the band, a general denegation, and Gomez returned, discouraged.
"Señora, no hay pantalones," he announced.
"Give him one of your own men's," she commanded briefly.
Again the troop, drawn up in line, was questioned, but still more vehement were the denegations. It was not that they needed them so much for covering, those precious pantaloons; they were full of holes and covered little; but they were all more or less be-striped, and the men very properly refused to part with their insignia of rank. The inspector, also, was interested. After a careful inspection, a horror at the thought of placing against his skin such garments as were displayed before him made his hair rise on end. Diplomatically he suggested to the widow that a transfer would only add to the shame of the situation, for it would leave one of the ladrones with nothing on at all, while he, at least—
But he had pronounced his own doom. "I'll fix you," said the widow briefly. Untying the bundle of clothes she carried, she drew out a skirt, a short khaki walking-skirt, and after an insufficient smoothing of creases with the palm of her hand, she threw it at Gomez. "Put that on him, my man," she said.
But the inspector protested. He, too, got down from his cart and squatted upon the road. And there they sat in the middle of the road, each behind his cart, the military man and the school-teacher, in a grim, silent battle of wills. And there was little hope of either ever yielding, for, really, they were not especially interested in the progress of the caravan. Gomez was, and at length he lost patience. There was a terrific struggle, twenty colonels bit the dust beneath the sledge-hammering of the desperate inspector's fist; but numbers prevailed at last, and again Mr. Rued was in his cart, trussed up like a pig for the market, and, flaccid about his legs, the unspeakable garment. But his cart had to be left far in the rear, for he evidently considered himself released from his former promise.
And the procession moved on. There were minor obstacles. Once, the widow lost her glove and the command had to scatter back upon the road for a full half-hour of microscopic search till she found that it had miraculously caught on the axle of her cart. At the barrio where they stopped for the midday rest, she sent back six distinct messes of eggs to the presidente's kitchen and finally invaded it herself, till the muchachos, beneath the severity of her eyes, had evolved some turnovers satisfactory to her esthetic soul. And little by little, her bitter will was imposing itself more heavily upon the column. Colonels became muchachos and generals valets. When they stopped that night at Talisay, the best house of the pueblo was placed at her disposal; the presidente hustled at her orders, the kitchen was in panic, the household terrorised. Somewhat softened by her undeniable success, she sent for the inspector, who was brought to her, betrussed and beskirted. The long ride in the sun with his elbows together upon his spine had weakened him somewhat, and his remonstrances had sunk to unintelligible mumblings. Graciously she cut off his cords, and as he stood swaying before her, "Well," she said; "aren't you ashamed of yourself, young man? Think of your mother; how would she have felt had she heard you a while ago——"
A last spark of defiance flared in the indomitable man. "My mother wasn't an old-maid she-cat," he muttered. But instinctively, in spite of his courage, his voice had sunk too low to be heard.
"I have a son," began the widow, again. "He——"