"Not Pedro's at all," interrupted another man fretfully. "I got him."
"O the devil you did," snapped Pedro. They quarreled....
The firing from the desert was now pretty general, and we could see the Federals slipping toward us under the protection of every bush and arroyo. Our men fired slowly and carefully, aiming a long time before they pulled the trigger, for the months with scanty ammunition around Torreon had made them economical. But now every hill and bush along our line held a little knot of sharpshooters, and looking back on the wide flats and fields between the hill and the railroad, I saw innumerable single horsemen and squads of them spurring through the brush. In ten minutes we would have five hundred men with us.
The rifle fire along the line swelled and deepened until there was a solid mile of it. The Federals had stopped; now the dust-clouds began slowly to move backward in the direction of Lerdo. The fire from the desert slackened. And then, from nowhere, we suddenly saw the broad-winged vultures sailing, serene and motionless, in the blue....
The Colonel, his men and I democratically ate lunch in the shade of the village houses. Our meat was, of course, scorched, so we had to do the best we could with jerked beef and piñole, which seems to be cinnamon and bran, ground fine. I never enjoyed a meal so.... And when I left the men made up a double handful of cigarettes as a present.
Said the Colonel: "Amigo, I am sorry that we had not time for a talk together. There are many things I want to ask you about your country—whether it is true, for example, that in your cities men have entirely lost the use of their legs and don't ride horseback in the streets, but are borne about in automobiles. I had a brother once who worked on the railroad track near Kansas City, and he told me wonderful things. But a man called him 'greaser' one day and shot him without that my brother did anything to him. Why is it your people don't like Mexicans? I like many Americans. I like you. Here is a gift for you." He unbuckled one of his huge iron spurs, inlaid with silver, and gave it to me. "But we never had any time here for talk. These —— always annoy us, and then we have to get up and kill a few of them before we can have a moment's peace...."
Under the alamo trees I found one of the photographers and a moving-picture man. They were lying flat on their backs near a fire, around which squatted twenty soldiers, gorging ravenously flour tortillas, meat and coffee. One proudly displayed a silver wrist-watch.
"That used to be my watch," explained the photographer. "You see we hadn't had anything to eat for two days, and when we came past here these boys called us and gave us the most magnificent feed I have ever tasted. After that I just couldn't help giving them a present!"
The soldiers had accepted the gift communally and were agreeing that each should wear it for two hours; from then on until the end of life....
CHAPTER XII