"Look here, Beatrice," I asked her; "we may not have such an easy time of it down there. What will you do if we get licked?"
"Who, me?" she cried. "Why, I guess it won't take me long to get friends in the Federal army. I'm a good mixer!"
"What is she saying? What do you say?" asked the others in Spanish.
With the most perfect insolence Beatrice translated for them. And in the midst of the uproar that followed I left....
CHAPTER III
FIRST BLOOD
The water train pulled out first. I rode on the cow-catcher of the engine, which was already occupied by the permanent home of two women and five children. They had built a little fire of mesquite twigs on the narrow iron platform, and were baking tortillas there; over their heads, against the windy roar of the boiler, fluttered a little line of wash....
It was a brilliant day, hot sunshine alternating with big white clouds. In two thick columns, one on each side of the train, the army was already moving south. As far as the eye could reach, a mighty double cloud of dust floated over them; and little straggling groups of mounted men jogged along, with every now and then a big Mexican flag. Between slowly moved the trains; the pillars of black smoke from their engines, at regular intervals, growing smaller, until over the northern horizon only a dirty mist appeared.
I went down into the caboose to get a drink of water, and there I found the conductor of the train lying in his bunk reading the Bible. He was so interested and amused that he didn't notice me for a minute. When he did he cried delightedly: "Oiga, I have found a great story about a chap called Samson who was muy hombre—a good deal of a man—-and his woman. She was a Spaniard, I guess, from the mean trick she played on him. He started out being a good Revolutionist, a Maderista, and she made him a pelon!"
Pelon means literally "cropped head," and is the slang term for a Federal soldier, because the Federal army is largely recruited from the prisons.