He sent two orderlies hurrying in different directions, while he poured on Hike a flood of questions in half English, half Spanish, about aeroplanes. While Hike was trying to answer, a squad of soldiers hurried up with a machine-gun and ammunition, which they loaded on the freight-platform. Directing them was a handsome, serious young lieutenant of infantry, introduced to Hike as Lieutenant Duros, who grasped Hike’s hand with such awe and admiration that Hike had to warn himself not to get conceited. Suddenly he thought of two lines of the song of the Great Hazing:
“And I have promised not to let my head get big again,
When I go aviating on my airy aeroplane!”
and grinned a real Hike grin, which he hastened to turn into a smile of greeting to Lieutenant Duros.
“Can you ussss twelf soldiers?” asked the commander.
“Yes”—and twelve men were closely packed about the machine-gun, on the freight-platform, while Lieutenant Duros climbed into the front passenger-seat. Hike started the Hustle off easily. Except for a minute, at the yacht-wreck, he had never driven with anywhere near so many passengers. But she took the load well. He shifted the speed-change lever to the third speed and they hummed through the air, while the soldiers yelled with surprise, and grabbed one another.
Through the motor-roar, Lieutenant Duros shouted a few sentences to Hike, treating him with such respect as one diplomat shows another. His English was excellent, though with a quaint little softening of the words.
“These revolutionists—they are not revolutionists,” he cried. “We must wipe them out. I, I was with Madero, I was a real revolutionist. Me, I send many pesos the year to Russia, for the revolutionists there. I love freedom. But these men, they are robbers. We must wipe them out.”
And so Hike suddenly remembered into what a terrible business of bloodshed they were plunging; but he shut his mouth grimly, and drove ahead, while Lieutenant Duros watched with admiration.
An hour and seven minutes after he had left the rancho, they swooped in sight of it. Surrounding the ranch were over two hundred insurrectos. They were attacking the gates with axes.