The mules’ legs were tied, and they were dragged with ropes to the coach, where the harness was slipped on them in spite of their frantic struggles. When all was ready, Patricio got on the box, seized the whip, and told us to cut away. The wild animals scrambled to their feet, bucking and squealing. Above the uproar came the crack of the heavy whip, and Patricio’s bellow: "_Andale! Ujos de la Gran’ Ch——!_" and they jerked forward, running, the big coach taking the arroyos like an express train. Soon it vanished behind its own pall of dust, and appeared hours afterward, crawling up the side of a great hill, miles away....
Panchito was eleven years old, already a trooper with a rifle too heavy for him, and a horse that they had to lift him on. His _compadre_ was Victoriano, a veteran of fourteen. Seven others of the Tropa were under seventeen. And there was a sullen, Indian-faced woman, riding side-saddle, who wore two cartridge-belts. She rode with the _hombres_—slept with them in the cuartels.
She jerked her head toward the fierce figure of Julian Reyes.
"Because he is," she answered. "He who stands under a good tree is sheltered by a good shade."
"A good rooster will crow in any chicken-coop," capped Isidro.
"A parrot is green all over," chimed in someone else.
"Faces we see, but hearts we do not comprehend," said José, sentimentally.
At noon we roped a steer, and cut his throat. And because there was no time to build a fire, we ripped the meat from the carcase and ate it raw.
"_Oiga_, meester," shouted José. "Do the United States soldiers eat raw meat?"
"It is good for the _hombres_. In the campaign we have no time for anything but _carne crudo_. It makes us brave."
By late afternoon we had caught up with the coach, and galloped with it down through the dry arroyo and up through the other side, past the great _ribota_ court that flanks the Hacienda of La Zarca. Unlike La Mimbrera, the Casa Grande here stands on a level place, with the peons’ houses in long rows at its flanks, and a flat desert barren of chaparral for twenty miles in front. Che Che Campa also paid a visit to La Zarca. The big house is a black and gaping ruin.
Of course, I took up quarters at the cuartel. And right here I want to mention one fact. Americans had insisted that the Mexican was fundamentally dishonest—that I might expect to have my outfit stolen the first day out. Now for two weeks I lived with as rough a band of ex-outlaws as there was in the army. They were without discipline and without education. They were, many of them, Gringo-haters. They had not been paid a cent for six weeks, and some were so desperately poor that they couldn’t boast sandals or serapes. I was a stranger with a good outfit, unarmed. I had a hundred and fifty pesos, which I put conspicuously at the head of my bed when I slept. And I never lost a thing. But more than that, I was not permitted to pay for my food; and in a company where money was scarce and tobacco almost unknown, I was kept supplied with all I could smoke by the _compañeros_. Every suggestion from me that I should pay for it was an insult.