A GAUNT PEASANT MOUNTED ON A SHAGGY PONY.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The word spread through the rebel camp, and the camp bestirred itself. A gaunt peasant, mounted on a shag-headed pony, brought the news, and it was voiced from mouth to mouth. The gray fog lifted slowly. Through the dim haze the rebels saw the gaunt peasant on his shag-headed pony as though fastened there.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The camp was impatient to hear the rest. Nearly two months had passed since the rebel general had gone with his army down into Pinar del Rio to fulfil his promise of marching from one end of Cuba to the other. The Spaniards drew a line across a narrow part of the island, and put their soldiers there, and called it the Trocha. They said they had Maceo entrapped. He never could pass the Trocha.
The rebels had waited patiently, longingly, for the chief's return. Morning after morning they had huddled over their fires, or those who had blankets remained swathed in them until the sun came out and warmed the steaming earth. Then the rebels foraged. They chewed sugar-cane for breakfast, and stewed beef and sweet-potatoes for dinner. They begged cigarettes from their comrades, and there were many who went without. The Spaniards had not been after them for days, for they had gone off to hold the Trocha or chase Maceo down in Pinar del Rio.
Occasionally the Havana papers found their way into the camp. They brought news always discouraging. Maceo was continually fleeing before the valor of Spanish arms. He would certainly be forced to throw himself against the Trocha, where disastrous defeat awaited him. Once a battle was fought, and, according to the papers, Maceo had left six hundred of their comrades on the field. The camp doubted. A giant mulatto, who had seen eight years' service in the last war, said the Spaniards lied! They always lied!
Thus down the labyrinth of winding paths, through wood and bush and swamp, the rebel camp had waited. And now Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The peasant brought the news, and the peasant did not lie.
The morning mists rolled up and away. The camp-fires crackled with a new vigor as their smoke followed the mists. The air was cool and crisp, for Cuban winters know cold nights and mornings. Ill-clad rebels gathered around the fires, while others refused to unwind themselves from tattered blankets captured in the last raid. They looked over the fires and through the smoke. The gaunt peasant was still there. He was big and bony. He looked like a giant on the little dingy horse; his bones were so big, and the horse was so little. And it seemed that his bones swung on hinges, well oiled. He gesticulated wildly. His arms went up and down, and his body turned from side to side. A rebel chief, tall and dignified, with grizzled mustaches, stood by his brown tent and listened carefully to every word he said.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The peasant did not lie. Once more he threw out his arms wildly. Then he brought both palms down upon the pommel of his saddle, and straightening his long arms, hunched his shoulders upon them and rested there. He had finished.
The chief's whistle sounded through the camp. The rebel band was happy. It had been in the swamp so long. It was impatient. It longed for a move; anything for a move, and the chief's whistle meant that it was going to move now.