Sometimes a rich refugee, with a good deal of gold sewed in his saddle-blankets, would get across the river without the Federals discovering it. There were six big, high-power automobiles in Presidio waiting for just such a victim. They would soak him one hundred dollars gold to make a trip to the railroad; and on the way, somewhere in the desolate wastes south of Marfa, he was almost sure to be held up by masked men and everything taken away from him. Upon these occasions the High Sheriff of Presidio County would bluster into town on a small pinto horse,—a figure true to the best tradition of "The Girl of the Golden West." He had read all Owen Wister's novels, and knew what a Western sheriff ought to look like: two revolvers on the hip, one slung under his arm, a large knife in his left boot, and an enormous shotgun over his saddle. His conversation was larded with the most fearful oaths, and he never caught any criminal. He spent all of his time enforcing the Presidio County law against carrying firearms and playing poker; and at night, after the day's work was done, you could always find him sitting in at a quiet game in the back of Kleinmann's store.
War and rumors of war kept Presidio at a fever heat. We all knew that sooner or later the Constitutionalist army would come overland from Chihuahua and attack Ojinaga. In fact, the major in command of the Border Patrol had already been approached by the Federal generals in a body to make arrangements for the retreat of the Federal army from Ojinaga under such circumstances. They said that when the rebels attacked they would want to resist for a respectable length of time,—say two hours,—and that then they would like permission to come across the river.
We knew that some twenty-five miles southward, at La Mula Pass, five hundred rebel volunteers guarded the only road from Ojinaga through the mountains. One day a courier sneaked through the Federal lines and across the river with important news. He said that the military band of the Federal army had been marching around the country practicing their music, and had been captured by the Constitutionalists, who stood them up in the market-place with rifles pointed at their heads, and made them play twelve hours at a stretch. "Thus," continued the message, "the hardships of life in the desert have been somewhat alleviated." We could never discover just how it was that the band happened to be practicing all alone twenty-two miles from Ojinaga in the desert.
For a month longer the Federals remained at Ojinaga, and Presidio throve. Then Villa, at the head of his army, appeared over a rise of the desert. The Federals resisted a respectable length of time—just two hours, or, to be exact, until Villa himself at the head of a battery galloped right up to the muzzles of the guns,—and then poured across the river in wild rout, were herded in a vast corral by the American soldiers, and afterward imprisoned in a barbed-wire stockade at Fort Bliss, Texas.
But by that time I was already far down in Mexico, riding across the desert with a hundred ragged Constitutionalist troopers on my way to the front.
PART ONE
DESERT WAR
CHAPTER I
URBINA'S COUNTRY
A peddler from Parral came into town with a mule-load of macuche,—you smoke macuche when you can't get tobacco,—and we strolled down with the rest of the population to get the news. This was in Magistral, a Durango mountain village three days' ride from the railroad. Somebody bought a little macuche, the rest of us borrowed from him, and we sent a boy for some corn-shucks. Everybody lit up, squatting around the peddler three deep; for it was weeks since the town had heard of the Revolution. He was full of the most alarming rumors: that the Federals had broken out of Torreon and were headed this way, burning ranches and murdering pacificos; that the United States troops had crossed the Rio Grande; that Huerta had resigned; that Huerta was coming north to take charge of the Federal troops in person; that Pascual Orozco had been shot at Ojinaga; that Pascual Orozco was coming south with ten thousand colorados. He retailed these reports with a wealth of dramatic gesture, stamping around until his heavy brown-and-gold sombrero wabbled on his head, tossing his faded blue blanket over his shoulder, firing imaginary rifles and drawing imaginary swords, while his audience murmured: "Ma!" and "Adio!" But the most interesting rumor was that General Urbina would leave for the front in two days.