I drank several quarts of water and ate four fried eggs and some cheese. The old man had returned and was fidgeting around.
"I sent all my children to Jarral Grande," he said. "We heard this morning. The whole valley is fleeing to the mountains. Are you ready?"
"Stay here," invited the Señora. "We will hide you from the colorados until Longinos comes home!"
Her husband screamed at her. "Are you mad? He mustn't be found here! Are you ready now? Come on then!"
I limped along down through a burnt, yellow cornfield. "Follow this path," said the old man, "through those two fields and the chaparral. It will take you to the highroad to the Pelayo. May you go well!" We shook hands, and a moment later I saw him shuffling back up the hill with flapping sandals.
I crossed an immense valley covered with mesquite as high as my head. Twice horsemen passed, probably only pacificos, but I took no chances. Beyond that valley lay another, about seven miles long. Now there were bare mountains all around, and ahead loomed a range of fantastic white, pink, and yellow hills. After about four hours, with stiff legs and bloody feet, a backache and a spinning head, I rounded these and came in sight of the alamo trees and low adobe walls of the Hacienda del Pelayo.
The peons gathered around, listening to my story.
"Que carrai-i-i-i!" they murmured. "But it is impossible to walk from La Cadena in one day! Pobrecito! You must be tired! Come now and eat. And to-night there will be a bed."
"My house is yours," said Don Felipe, the blacksmith. "But are you quite sure the colorados are not coming this way? The last time they paid us a visit" (he pointed to the blackened walls of the Casa Grande) "they killed four pacificos who refused to join them." He put his arm through mine. "Come now, amigo, and eat."
"If there were only some place to bathe first!"