I remember that in the darkness two belligerent Anglo-Saxons stood at the door of the car, challenging the soldiers who passed and abusing them in the most discourteous language. We fell out among ourselves, too, and one man almost choked a driveling old fool who was with the moving-picture outfit. Late that night we were still trying earnestly to persuade two of the boys not to sally forth without the pass-word and reconnoiter the Federal lines at Torreon.
"Aw, what's there to be afraid of?" cried they. "A Mexican greaser hasn't any guts! One American can lick fifty Mexicans! Why, did you see how they ran this afternoon when the shells hit that grove? And how we—hic—we stayed by the car?"
PART FIVE
CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION
CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION
When the Treaty of Peace was signed in Juarez which ended the Revolution of 1910, Francisco Madero proceeded south toward Mexico City. Everywhere he spoke to enthusiastic and triumphant throngs of peons, who acclaimed him The Liberator.
In Chihuahua he addressed the people from the balcony of the Governor's palace. As he told of the hardships endured and the sacrifices made by the little band of men who had overthrown the dictatorship of Diaz forever, he was overcome with emotion. Reaching inside the room he pulled out a tall, bearded man of commanding presence, and, throwing his arm about his shoulder, he said, in a voice choked with tears:
"This is a good man! Love and honor him always."
It was Venustiano Carranza, a man of upright life and high ideals; an aristocrat, descended from the dominant Spanish race; a great land-owner, as his family had always been great land-owners; and one of those Mexican nobles who, like a few French nobles such as Lafayette in the French Revolution, threw themselves heart and soul into the struggle for liberty. When the Madero Revolution broke out Carranza took the field in truly medieval fashion. He armed the peons who worked upon his great estates, and led them to war like any feudal overlord; and, when the Revolution was done, Madero made him Governor of Coahuila.
There he was when Madero was murdered at the Capital, and Huerta, seizing the Presidency, sent a circular letter to the Governors of the different States, ordering them to acknowledge the new dictatorship. Carranza refused even to answer the letter, declaring that he would have no dealings with a murderer and a usurper. He issued a proclamation calling the Mexican people to arms, proclaiming himself First Chief of the Revolution, and inviting the friends of liberty to rally around him. Then he marched out from his capital and took the field, where he assisted in the early fighting around Torreon.