Front matter (continued 5)

In Hermosillo Carranza had been remote from the world's new centers. No one knew but what he might be accomplishing great things. But when the First Chief of the Revolution began to move toward the American border, the attention of the world was concentrated upon him; and the attention of the world revealed so little to concentrate upon, that rumors rapidly spread of the non-existence of Carranza; for example, one paper said that he was insane, and another alleged that he had disappeared altogether.

I was in Chihuahua at the time. My paper wired me these rumors and ordered me to go and find Carranza. It was at the immensely exciting time of the Benton murder. All the protestations and half-veiled threats of the British and American governments converged upon Villa. But by the time I had received the message Carranza and his Cabinet had arrived at the Border and broken the six months' silence in a startling way. The First Chief's declaration to the State Department was practically this:

"You have made a mistake in addressing representations in the Benton case to General Villa. They should be addressed to me as First Chief of the Revolution and head of the Provisional Constitutionalist Government. Moreover, the United States has no business to address, even to me, any representations concerning Benton, who was a British subject. I have received no envoy from the government of Great Britain. Until I do I will make no answer to the representations of any other government. Meanwhile, a thorough investigation will be made of the circumstances of Benton's death, and those responsible for it will be judged strictly according to law."

At the same time Villa received a pretty plain intimation that he was to keep out of international affairs, and Villa gratefully shut up.

That was the situation when I went to Nogales. Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, really form one big straggling town. The international boundary runs along the middle of the street, and at a small customs-house lounge a few ragged Mexican sentries, smoking interminable cigarettes, and evidently interfering with nobody, except to collect export taxes from everything that passes to the American side. The inhabitants of the American town go across the line to get good things to eat, to gamble, to dance, and to feel free; the Mexicans cross to the American side when somebody is after them.

I arrived at midnight and went at once to a hotel in the Mexican town where the Cabinet and most of the political hangers-on of Carranza were staying; sleeping four in a room, on cots in the corridors, on the floor, and even on the stairs. I was expected. A temperamental Constitutionalist consul up the line, to whom I had explained my errand, evidently considered it of great importance; for he had telegraphed to Nogales that the entire fate of the Mexican Revolution depended upon Mr. Reed's seeing the First Chief of the Revolution immediately upon his arrival. However, everybody had gone to sleep, and the proprietor, routed out of his back office, said that he hadn't the slightest idea what the names of any of the gentlemen were or where they slept. Yes, he said, he had heard that Carranza was in town. We went around kicking doors and Mexicans until we stumbled upon an unshaven but courteous gentleman who said that he was the Collector of Customs for the whole of Mexico under the new government. He waked up in turn the Secretary of the Navy, who routed out the Secretary of the Treasury; the Secretary of the Treasury finally flushed the Secretary of Hacienda, who finally brought us to the room of the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Señor Isidro Fabela. Señor Fabela said that the First Chief had retired and couldn't see me; but that he himself would give me immediately a statement of just what Carranza thought about the Benton incident.

Now none of the newspapers had ever heard of Señor Fabela before. They were all clamoring to their correspondents, wanting to know who he was. He seemed to be such an important member of the provisional government, and yet his antecedents were not known at all. At different times he apparently filled most of the positions in the First Chief's Cabinet. Rather medium height and distinguished-looking, suave, courteous, and evidently very well educated, his face was decidedly Jewish. We talked for a long time, sitting on the edge of his bed. He told me what the First Chief's aims and ideals were; but in them I could discern nothing of the First Chief's personality whatever.

"Oh, yes," he said, "of course I could see the First Chief in the morning. Of course he would receive me."

But when we came right down to cases, Señor Fabela told me that the First Chief would answer no questions outright. They had all to be put in writing, he said, and submitted to Fabela first. He would then take them to Carranza and bring back his answer. Accordingly, the next morning I wrote out on paper about twenty-five questions and gave them to Fabela. He read them carefully.

"Ah!" he said; "there are many questions here that I know the First Chief will not answer. I advise you to strike them out."

"Well, if he doesn't answer them," I said, "all right. But I would like to give him a chance to see them. He could only refuse to answer them."

"No," said Fabela, politely. "You had better strike them out now. I know exactly what he will answer and what he will not. You see, some of your questions might prejudice him against answering all the rest, and you would not want that to occur, would you?"

"Señor Fabela," I said, "are you sure that you know just what Don Venustiano won't answer?"

"I know that he won't answer these," he replied, indicating four or five which dealt rather specifically with the platform of the Constitutionalist government: such as land distribution, direct elections, and the right of suffrage among the peons.

"I will bring back your answers in twenty-four hours," he said. "Now I will take you to see the Chief; but you must promise me this: that you will not ask him any questions,—that you will simply go into the room, shake hands with him, and say 'How do you do,' and leave again immediately."

I promised, and, together with another reporter, followed him across the square to the beautiful little yellow municipal palace. We stood a while in the patio. The place was thronged with self-important Mexicans button-holing other self-important Mexicans who rushed from door to door with portfolios and bundles of papers. Occasionally, when the door of the Department of the Secretaryship opened, a roar of typewriters smote our ears. Officers in uniform stood about the portico waiting for orders. General Obregon, Commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining in a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guadalajara. He started for Hermosillo three days afterward, and marched his army four hundred miles through a friendly country in three months. Although Obregon had shown no startling capacity for leadership, Carranza had made him General-in-Chief of the Army of the North-West, with a rank equal to Villa's. Talking to him was a stout, red-haired Mexican woman in a black satin princess dress embroidered with jet, with a sword at her side. She was Colonel Ramona Flores, Chief-of-Staff to the Constitutionalist General Carrasco, who operates in Tepic. Her husband had been killed while an officer in the first Revolution, leaving her a gold-mine, with the proceeds of which she had raised a regiment and taken the field. Against the wall lay two sacks of gold ingots which she had brought north to purchase arms and uniforms for her troops. Polite American concession-seekers shifted from one foot to the other, hat in hand. The ever-present arms and ammunition drummers poured into the ears of whoever would listen, praises of their guns and bullets.

Four armed sentries stood at the palace doors, and others lounged around the patio. There were no more in sight, except two who flanked a little door half-way down the corridor. These men seemed more intelligent than the others. Anybody who passed was scrutinized carefully, and those who paused at the door were questioned according to some thorough formula. Every two hours this guard was changed; the relief was in charge of a general, and a long colloquy took place before the change was effected.

"What room is that?" I asked Señor Fabela.

"That is the office of the First Chief of the Revolution," he answered.

I waited for perhaps an hour, and during that time I noticed that nobody entered the room except Señor Fabela and those he took with him. Finally he came over to me and said:

"All right. The First Chief will see you now."

We followed him. The soldiers on guard threw up their rifles.

"Who are these señores?" asked one.

"It's all right. They are friends," answered Fabela, and opened the door.

It was so dark within that at first we could see nothing. Over the two windows blinds were drawn. On one side was a bed, still unmade, and on the other a small table covered with papers, upon which stood a tray containing the remains of breakfast. A tin bucket full of ice with two or three bottles of wine stood in a corner. As our eyes became accustomed to the light, we saw the gigantic, khaki-clad figure of Don Venustiano Carranza sitting in a big chair. There was something strange in the way he sat there, with his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been placed in it and told not to move. He did not seem to be thinking, nor to have been working,—you couldn't imagine him at that table. You got the impression of a vast, inert body—a statue.

He rose to meet us, a towering figure, seven feet tall it seemed. I noticed with a kind of shock that in that dark room he wore smoked glasses; and, although ruddy and full-cheeked, I felt that he was not well,—the thing you feel about tuberculous patients. That tiny, dark room, where the First Chief of the Revolution slept and ate and worked, and from which he hardly ever emerged, seemed too small—like a cell.

Fabela had entered with us. He introduced us one by one to Carranza, who smiled a vacant, expressionless smile, bowed slightly, and shook our hands. We all sat down. Indicating the other reporter, who could not speak Spanish, Fabela said:

"These gentlemen have come to greet you on behalf of the great newspapers which they represent. This gentleman says that he desires to present his respectful wishes for your success."

Carranza bowed again slightly, and rose as Fabela stood up, as if to indicate that the interview was over.

"Allow me to assure the gentlemen," he said, "of my grateful acceptance of their good wishes."

Again we all shook hands; but as I took his hand I said in Spanish:

"Señor Don Venustiano, my paper is your friend and the friend of the Constitutionalists."

He stood there as before, a huge mask of a man. But as I spoke he stopped smiling. His expression remained as vacant as before, but suddenly he began to speak:

"To the United States I say the Benton case is none of your business. Benton was a British subject. I will answer to the delegates of Great Britain when they come to me with representations of their government. Why should they not come to me? England now has an Ambassador in Mexico City, who accepts invitations to dinner from Huerta, takes off his hat to him, and shakes hands with him!

"When Madero was murdered the foreign powers flocked to the spot like vultures to the dead, and fawned upon the murderer because they had a few subjects in the Republic who were petty tradesmen doing a dirty little business."

The First Chief ended as abruptly as he had begun, with the same immobility of expression, but he clenched and unclenched his hands and gnawed his mustaches. Fabela hurriedly made a move toward the door.

"The gentlemen are very grateful to you for having received them," he said, nervously. But Don Venustiano paid no attention to him. Suddenly he began again, his voice pitched a little higher and louder:

"These cowardly nations thought they could secure advantages by standing in with the government of the usurper. But the rapid advancement of the Constitutionalists showed them their error, and now they find themselves in a predicament."

Fabela was plainly nervous.

"When does the Torreon campaign begin?" he asked, attempting to change the subject.

"The killing of Benton was due to a vicious attack on Villa by an enemy of the Revolutionists," roared the First Chief, speaking louder and louder and more rapidly; "and England, the bully of the world, finds herself unable to deal with us unless she humiliates herself by sending a representative to the Constitutionalists; so she tried to use the United States as a cat's paw. More shame to the United States," he cried, shaking his fists, "that she allowed herself to join with these infamous Powers!"

The unhappy Fabela made another attempt to dam the dangerous torrent. But Carranza took a step forward, and, raising his arm, shouted:

"I tell you that, if the United States intervenes in Mexico upon this petty excuse, intervention will not accomplish what it thinks, but will provoke a war which, besides its own consequences, will deepen a profound hatred between the United States and the whole of Latin America, a hatred which will endanger the entire political future of the United States!"

He ceased talking on a rising note, as if something inside had cut off his speech. I tried to think that here was the voice of aroused Mexico thundering at her enemies; but it seemed like nothing so much as a slightly senile old man, tired and irritated.

Then we were outside in the sunlight, with Señor Fabela agitatedly telling me not to publish what I had heard,—or, at least, to let him see the dispatch.

I stayed at Nogales a day or two longer. The next day after my interview, the typewritten paper upon which my questions had been printed was returned to me; the answers written in five different handwritings. Newspaper men were in high favor at Nogales; they were treated always with the utmost courtesy by the members of the Provisional Cabinet; but they never seemed to reach the First Chief. I tried often to get from these Cabinet members the least expression of what their plans were for the settlement of the troubles which caused the Revolution; but they seemed to have none, except a Constitutional Government. During all the times I talked with them I never detected one gleam of sympathy for, or understanding of, the peons. Now and again I surprised quarrels about who was going to fill the high posts of the new Mexican Government. Villa's name was hardly ever mentioned; when it was it was in this manner:

"We have every confidence in Villa's loyalty and obedience."

"As a fighting man Villa has done very well—very well, indeed. But he should not attempt to mingle in the affairs of Government; because, of course, you know, Villa is only an ignorant peon."

"He has said many foolish things and made many mistakes which we will have to remedy."

And scarcely a day passed but what Carranza would give out a statement from headquarters:

"There is no misunderstanding between General Villa and myself. He obeys my orders without question, as any common soldier. It is unthinkable that he would do anything else."

I spent a good deal of time loafing around the Municipal Palace; but I never saw Carranza again but once. It was toward sunset, and most of the Generals, drummers, and politicians had gone to dinner. I lounged on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the patio, talking with some soldiers. Suddenly the door of that little office opened, and Carranza himself stood framed in it, arms hanging loosely by his sides, his fine old head thrown back, as he stared blindly over our heads across the wall to the flaming clouds in the west. We stood up and bowed, but he didn't notice us. Walking with slow steps, he came out and went along the portico toward the door of the palace. The two guards presented arms. As he passed they shouldered their rifles and fell in behind him. At the doorway he stopped and stood there a long time, looking out on the street. The four sentries jumped to attention. The two men behind him grounded their arms and stopped. The First Chief of the Revolution clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers working violently. Then he turned, and pacing between the two guards, went back to the little dark room.

PART SIX

MEXICAN NIGHTS

CHAPTER I

EL COSMOPOLITA

El Cosmopolita is Chihuahua's fashionable gambling hell. It used to be owned by Jacob La Touche—"The Turk"—a fat shambling man, who came to Chihuahua barefooted with a dancing bear twenty-five years ago, and became many times a millionaire. He owned an extravagant residence on the Paseo Bolivar, which was never called anything but "The Palace of Tears," because it was built with the proceeds of the Turk's gambling concessions, which ruined many families. But the wicked old man slunk away with Mercado's retreating Federal army; and when Villa came to Chihuahua he gave "The Palace of Tears" to General Ortega as a Christmas present, and confiscated El Cosmopolita.

Having a few idle pesos from my expense account, we used to frequent El Cosmopolita. Johnny Roberts and I stopped on our way from the hotel to take a few hot Tom-and-Jerries at a Chinese bar, run by a hoary Mongolian named Chee Lee. From there we proceeded to the gaming tables with the leisurely air of Russian Grand Dukes at Monte Carlo.

One entered first a long, low room, lighted with three smoky lanterns, where the roulette game was.

Above the table was a sign which read:

"Please do not get on the roulette table with your feet."

It was a vertical wheel, not a horizontal one, bristling with spikes which caught a flexible steel strip and finally stopped the wheel opposite a number. Each way the table extended twelve feet, always crowded with at least five rows of small boys, peons, and soldiers—excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of small bills on the numbers and colors, and arguing violently over the winnings. Those who lost would set up terrible screams of rage as the croupier raked their money into the drawer, and often the wheel was quiet for three-quarters of an hour while some player, who had lost ten cents, exhausted his vocabulary upon the treasurer, the owner of the place and his ancestors and descendants ten generations each way, and upon God and his family, for allowing such injustice to go unpunished. Finally he would take himself off, muttering ominously: "Á ver! We shall see!" while the others would sympathetically make way for him, murmuring: "Ah! Que mala suerte!"

Near where the croupier sat was a worn place in the cloth with a small ivory button in the center. And when anyone was winning largely at the wheel the croupier would press this little button, which stopped the wheel where he wished, until the winner was discouraged from playing further. This was looked upon as perfectly legitimate by all present, since, carramba!, there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a loss!

The most amazing diversity of money was used. Silver and copper had long since been forced out of circulation in Chihuahua because of revolutionary hard times. But there were still some Mexican bank-bills; besides those there was fiat money, printed on ordinary writing-paper by the Constitutionalist army, and worth nothing; scrip issued by the mining companies; I.O.U.'s; notes of hand; mortgages; and a hundred different valés of various railroads, plantations, and public service corporations.

But the roulette table did not long interest us. There was not enough action for your money. So we shouldered our way into a small room, blue with smoke, where a perpetual poker game was going at a fan-shaped, baize-covered table. At a little recess at the straight side of the table sat the dealer; chairs were distributed around the circumference where the players sat. One played against the bank, the dealer scraping into the drawer a tenth of every pot—the house's commission. Whenever anyone began to plunge, and displayed a large wad, the dealer would give a shrill, penetrating whistle and two suave gentlemen, who were employed by the house, would come running and take a hand. There was no limit as long as you had chips, or if your stack was underlaid with bank-bills. The gentleman in possession of the "buck" had the say whether it was to be draw poker (cerrado) or stud (abierto). Stud was the most fun, because a Mexican could never realize that the next card would not give him a magnificent hand, and he bet increasing amounts on every card with wildly growing excitement.

The strict rules of the American game, which so restrict freedom of action, were absent here. Johnny and I would lift a corner of our cards as soon as they were dealt, to show each other. And when I seemed to be drawing ahead Johnny would impulsively push his whole stack over to me; with the next card Johnny's, hand would seem to have more promise than mine, and I would push both stacks back to him. By the time the last card was dealt all the chips would be laying neutrally between us, and whoever had the best hand bet our entire joint capital.

Of course nobody objected to this way of playing, but to offset it the dealer would whistle shrilly to the two house players and slyly deal them each a hand off the bottom of the pack.

Meanwhile a Chinaman would be dashing madly between the table and a lunch-counter across the street, bearing sandwiches, chile con carne, and cups of coffee to the players, who ate and drank loudly during the game, and spilled coffee and food into the jack-pot.

Occasionally some player who had traveled extensively in foreign lands got up and walked around his chair to dispel a run of bad luck; or asked for a new deck with an off-hand, expensive air. The dealer would bow politely, sweep the deck into his drawer and produce another one. He had only two decks of cards in the house. Both were about a year old, and largely decorated with the meals of former players.

Of course, the American game was played. But there would sometimes enter a Mexican who was not intimately acquainted with the subtleties of the American deck. In the Mexican deck, for example, the seven, eight and nine spots are omitted. One such person, a pompous, pretentious Mexican, sat in one night just as I had called for a hand of stud. Before the dealer could whistle, the stranger had produced a great wad of money—all sorts, sizes and denominations, and bought one hundred pesos' worth of chips. The game was on. I drew three hearts in rapid succession, secured Roberts' pile, and began to play for a flush. The stranger gazed at his cards for a long time as if they were new to him. Then he flushed the deep red of intense excitement, and pushed in fifteen dollars. With the succeeding card he turned quite pale and pushed in twenty-five dollars, and when he looked at his last card he turned red again, and bet fifty dollars.

By some miracle I had filled a flush. But the man's wild betting scared me. I knew that a flush was good for almost anything in stud poker, but I couldn't keep up with that pace, so I passed the bet to him. He rose at that and protested violently.

"How do you mean 'Pass the bet?'" he cried, shaking both fists.

It was explained to him, and he subsided.

"Very well, then," he said. "Since this fifteen dollars is all I have, and you will not let me buy any more chips, I will bet everything," and he pushed it into the center.

I called him.

"What have you got?" he almost screamed, leaning trembling over the table. I spread out my flush. With an excited laugh he banged the table a great blow.

"Straight!" he cried—and turned up four, five, six, ten, Jack.

He had already reached out an arm to gather in the money when the entire table burst into a clamor.

"It is wrong!"

"It is not a straight!"

"The money belongs to the Gringo!"

He lay sprawled out on the table with both arms round the pot.

"How?" he cried sharply, looking up. "It is not a straight? Look here—four, five, six, ten, knave!"

The dealer interposed:

"But it should have been four, five, six, seven, eight," he said. "In the American pack there are seven, eight and nine."

"How ridiculous!" sneered the man. "I have played cards all my life, and never, never have I seen a seven, eight or nine!"

By this time most of the roulette table throng had swarmed in at the door. They added their clamor to ours.

"Of course it is not a straight!"

"Of course it must be! Is there not four, five, six, ten, knave?"

"But the American pack is different!"

"But this is not the United States. This is Mexico!"

"Hey! Pancho!" shouted the dealer. "Go at once and notify the police!"

The situation remained the same. My opponent still lay upon the table with the jack-pot in his arms. A perfect pandemonium of argument filled the place; in some cases it had developed a personal note, and hands were stealing to hips. I unobtrusively pushed my chair against the wall. Presently the Chief of Police arrived with four or five gendarmes. He was a large, unshaven man whose mustaches twisted up to his eyes; dressed in a loose, dirty uniform with red plush epaulettes. As he came in everybody began explaining to him at once. The dealer made a megaphone out of his hands and shouted through the din; the man on the table turned up a livid face, insisting shrilly that it was an outrage for Gringo rules to spoil a perfectly good Mexican game like stud poker.

The chief listened, curling his mustaches, his chest swelling with the importance of being the deciding factor in an argument involving such large sums of money. He looked at me. I said nothing, but bowed politely. He returned the bow. Then, turning to his policeman he pointed a dramatic finger at the man at the table.

"Arrest this goat!" he said.

It was a fitting climax. Shrieking and protesting, the unfortunate Mexican was led into a corner, where he stood facing the table.

"The money belongs to this gentleman," continued the Chief of Police. "As for you, you evidently do not understand the rudiments of this game. I have a mind...."

"Perhaps," said Roberts, politely, nudging me, "the Señor Captain would like to show the gentleman....?"

"I should be only too glad to loan him a few chips," I added, raking in the pile.

"Oiga!" said the Chief. "I will be glad to do so. Superlative thanks, sir!"

He drew up a chair, and, out of politeness, the buck was given to him.

"Abierto!" he said, with the air of an old hand.

We played. The Chief of Police won. He rattled his chips like a professional gambler, slapping the buck to his neighbor, and we played again.

"You see," said the Chief of Police, "it is easy if you observe the rules." He twisted his mustache, ruffled the cards, and pushed in twenty-five dollars. He won again.

After some time one of the policemen approached him respectfully and said:

"I beg you pardon, mi capitan, but what shall we do with the prisoner?"

"Oh!" said the Chief, staring. He waved his hand casually. "Just release him and return to your stations."

Long after the last wheel had been spun on the roulette table, the lamps blown out, and the most feverish gambler ejected into the street, we sat playing in the poker room. Roberts and I were down to about three pesos apiece. We yawned and nodded with sleepiness. But the Chief of Police had his coat off and was crouched like a tiger over his cards. Now he was losing steadily....

CHAPTER II

HAPPY VALLEY

It happened to be the day of a fiesta, and, of course, nobody worked in Valle Allegre. The cock-fight was to take place at high noon in the open space back of Catarino Cabrera's drinking shop—almost directly in front of Dionysio Aguirre's, where the long burro pack-trains rest on their mountain journeys, and the muleteers swap tales over their tequila. At one, the sunny side of the dry arroyo that is called a street was lined with double rows of squatting peons—silent, dreamily sucking their corn-husk cigarettes as they waited. The bibulously inclined drifted in and out of Catarino's, whence came a cloud of tobacco smoke and a strong reek of aguardiente. Small boys played leap-frog with a large yellow sow, and on opposite sides of the arroyo the competing roosters, tethered by the leg, crew defiantly. One of the owners, an ingratiating, business-like professional, wearing sandals and one cerise sock, stalked around with a handful of dirty bank-bills, shouting:

"Diez pesos, señores! Only ten dollars!"

It was strange; nobody seemed too poor to bet ten dollars. It came on toward two o'clock, and still no one moved, except to follow the sun a few feet as it swung the black edge of the shadow eastward. The shadow was very cold, and the sun white hot.

On the edge of the shadow lay Ignacio, the violinist, wrapped in a tattered serape, sleeping off a drunk. He can play one tune when intoxicated—Tosti's "Good-Bye." When very drunk he also remembers fragments of Mendelssohn's "Spring Song." In fact, he is the only high-brow musician in the whole State of Durango, and possesses a just celebrity. Ignacio used to be brilliant and industrious—his sons and daughters are innumerable—but the artistic temperament was too much for him.

The color of the street was red—deep, rich, red clay—and the open space where the burros stood, olive drab; there were brown crumbling adobe walls and squat houses, their roofs heaped high with yellow cornstalks or hung with strings of red peppers. A gigantic green mesquite tree, with roots like a chicken's foot, thatched on every branch with dried hay and corn. Below, the town fell steeply down the arroyo, roofs tumbled together like blocks, with flowers and grass growing on them, blue feathers of smoke waving from the chimneys, and occasional palms sticking up between. They fell away to the yellow plain where the horse-races are run, and beyond that the barren mountains crouched, tawny as lions, then faintly blue, then purple and wrinkled, notched and jagged across the fierce, bright sky. Straight down and away through the arroyo one saw a great valley, like an elephant's hide, where the heat-waves buck-jumped.

A lazy smoke of human noises floated up: roosters crowing, pigs grunting, burros giving great racking sobs, the rustling crackle of dried corn-stalks being shaken out of the mesquite tree, a woman singing as she mashed her corn on the stones, the wailing of a myriad of babies.

The sun fairly blistered. My friend Atanacio sat upon the sidewalk thinking of nothing. His dirty feet were bare except for sandals, his mighty sombrero was of a faded dull brick color embroidered with tarnished gold braid, and his serape was of the pottery blue one sees in Chinese rugs, and decorated with yellow suns. He rose when he saw me. We removed our hats and embraced after the Mexican fashion, patting each other on the back with one hand while we shook the other.

"Buenos tardes, amigo," he murmured. "How do you seat yourself?"

"Very well, much thanks. And you? How have they treated you?"

"Delicious. Superlative thanks. I have longed to see you again."

"And your family? How are they?" (It is considered more delicate in Mexico not to ask about one's wife, because so few people are married.)

"Their health is of the best. Great, great thanks. And your family?"

"Bien, bien! I saw your son with the army at Jimenez. He gave me many, many remembrances of you. Would you desire a cigarette?"

"Thanks. Permit me, a light. You are in Valle Allegre many days?"

"For the fiesta only, señor."

"I hope your visit is fortunate, señor. My house is at your orders."

"Thanks. How is it that I did not see you at the baile last night, señor? You, who were always such a sympathetic dancer!"

"Unhappily Juanita is gone to visit her mother in El Oro, and now, therefore, I am a platonico. I grow too old for the señoritas."

"Ah, no, señor. A caballero of your age is in the prime of life. But tell me. Is it true what I hear, that the Maderistas are now at Mapimi?"

"Si, señor. Soon Villa will take Torreon, they say, and then it is only a matter of a few months before the Revolution is accomplished."

"I think that, yes. But tell me; I have great respect for your opinion. Which cock would you advise me to bet on?"

We approached the combatants and looked them over, while their owners clamored in our ears. They sat upon the curbing negligently herding their birds apart. It was getting toward three of the afternoon.

"But will there be a cock-fight?" I asked them.

"Quien sabe?" drawled one.

The other murmured that possibly it would be mañana. It developed that the steel spurs had been forgotten in El Oro, and that a small boy had gone after them on a burro. It was six miles over the mountains to El Oro.

However, no one was in any hurry, so we sat down also. Appeared then Catarino Cabrera, the saloon keeper, and also the Constitutionalist jefe politico of Valle Allegre, very drunk, walking arm in arm with Don Priciliano Saucedes, the former jefe under the Diaz government. Don Priciliano is a fine-looking, white-haired old Castilian who used to lend money to the peons at twenty per cent. Don Catarino is a former schoolmaster, an ardent Revolutionist—he lends money at a slightly less rate of usury to the same parties. Don Catarino wears no collar, but he sports a revolver and two cartridge-belts. Don Priciliano during the first Revolution was deprived of most of his property by the Maderistas of the town, and then strapped naked upon his horse and beaten upon his bare back with the flat of a sword.

"Aie!" he says to my question. "The Revolution! I have most of the Revolution upon my back!"

And the two pass on to Don Priciliano's house, where Catarino is courting a beautiful daughter.

Then, with the thunder of hoofs, dashes up the gay and gallant young Jesus Triano, who was a Captain under Orozco. But Valle Allegre is a three days' ride from the railroad, and politics are not a burning issue there; so Jesus rides his stolen horse with impunity around the streets. He is a large young man with shining teeth, a rifle and bandolier, and leather trousers fastened up the side with buttons as big as dollars—his spurs are twice as big. They say that his dashing ways and the fact that he shot Emetario Flores in the back have won him the hand of Dolores, youngest daughter of Manuel Paredes, the charcoal contractor. He plunges down the arroyo at a gallop, his horse tossing bloody froth from the cruel curb.

Captain Adolfo Melendez, of the Constitutionalist army, slouches around the corner in a new, bottle-green corduroy uniform. He wears a handsome gilded sword which once belonged to the Knights of Pythias. Adolfo came to Valle Allegre on a two weeks' leave, which he prolonged indefinitely in order to take to himself a wife—the fourteen-year-old daughter of a village aristocrat. They say that his wedding was magnificent beyond belief, two priests officiating and the service lasting an hour more than necessary. But this may have been good economy on Adolfo's part, since he already had one wife in Chihuahua, another in Farral, and a third in Monterey, and, of course, had to placate the parents of the bride. He had now been away from his regiment three months, and told me simply that he thought they had forgotten all about him by this time.

At half-past four a thunder of cheers announced the arrival of the small boy with the steel spurs. It seems that he had got into a card game at El Oro, and had temporarily forgotten his errand.

But, of course, nothing was said about it. He had arrived, which was the important thing. We formed a wide ring in the open space where the burros stood, and the two owners began to "throw" their birds. But at the first onslaught the fowl upon which we had all bet our money spread its wings, and, to the astonishment of the assembled company, soared screaming over the mesquite tree and disappeared toward the mountains. Ten minutes later the two owners unconcernedly divided the proceeds before our eyes, and we strolled home well content.

Fidencio and I dined at Charlie Chee's hotel. Throughout Mexico, in every little town, you will find Chinamen monopolizing the hotel and restaurant business. Charlie, and his cousin Foo, were both married to the daughters of respectable Mexican villagers. No one seemed to think that strange. Mexicans appear to have no race prejudices whatever. Captain Adolfo, in a bright yellow khaki uniform and another sword, brought his bride, a faintly pretty brown girl with her hair in a bang, wearing chandelier lusters as earrings. Charlie banged down in front of each of us a quart bottle of aguardiente, and, sitting down at the table, flirted politely with Señora Melendez, while Foo served dinner, enlivened with gay social chatter in pidgin Mexican.

It seemed that there was to be a baile at Don Priciliano's that evening, and Charlie politely offered to teach Adolfo's wife a new step which he had learned in El Paso, called the Turkey Trot. This he did until Adolfo began to look sullen and announced that he didn't think he would go to Don Priciliano's, since he considered it a bad thing for young wives to be seen much in public. Charlie and Foo also tendered their regrets, because several of their countrymen were due in the village that evening from Parral, and said that they would, of course, want to raise a little Chinese hell together.

So Fidencio and I finally departed, after solemnly promising that we would return in time for the Chinese festivities after the dance.

Outside, strong moonlight flooded all the village. The jumbled roofs were so many tipped-up silvery planes, and the tree-tops glistened. Like a frozen cataract the arroyo fell away, and the great valley beyond lay drowned in rich, soft mist. The life-sounds quickened in the dark—excited laughter of young girls, a woman catching her breath at a window to the swift, hot torrent of a man's speech as he leaned against the bars, a dozen guitars syncopating each other, a young buck hurrying to meet his novia, spurs ringing clear. It was cold. As we passed Cabrera's door a hot, smoky, alcoholic breath smote us. Beyond that you crossed on stepping-stones the stream where the women wash their clothes. Climbing the other bank we saw the brilliant windows of Don Priciliano's house, and heard the far strains of Valle Allegre's orchestra.

Open doors and windows were choked with men—tall, dark, silent peons, wrapped to the eyes in their blankets, staring at the dance with eager and solemn eyes, a forest of sombreros.

Now Fidencio had just returned to Valle Allegre after a long absence, and as we stood on the outside of the group a tall young fellow caught sight of him, and, whirling his serape like a wing, he embraced my friend, crying:

"Happy return, Fidencio! We looked for you many months!"

The crowd swayed and rocked like a windy wheat field, blankets flapped dark against the night. They took up the cry:

"Fidencio! Fidencio is here! Your Carmencita is inside, Fidencio. You had better look out for your sweetheart! You can't stay away as long as that and expect her to remain faithful to you!"

Those inside caught the cry and echoed it, and the dance, which had just begun, stopped suddenly. The peons formed a lane through which we passed, patting us on the back with little words of welcome and affection; and at the door a dozen friends crowded forward to hug us, faces alight with pleasure.

Carmencita, a dumpy, small Indian girl, dressed in a screaming blue ready-made dress that didn't fit, stood over near the corner by the side of a certain Pablito, her partner, a half-breed youth about sixteen years old with a bad complexion. She affected to pay no attention to Fidencio's arrival, but stood dumbly, with her eyes on the ground, as is proper for unmarried Mexican women.

Fidencio swaggered among his compadres in true manly fashion for a few minutes, interspersing his conversation with loud virile oaths. Then, in a lordly manner, he went straight across the room to Carmencita, placed her left hand within the hollow of his right arm, and cried: "Well, now; let's dance!" and the grinning, perspiring musicians nodded and fell to.

There were five of them—two violins, a cornet, a flute and a harp. They swung into "Tres Piedras," and the couples fell in line, marching solemnly round the room. After parading round twice they fell to dancing, hopping awkwardly over the rough, hard, packed-dirt floor with jingling spurs; when they had danced around the room two or three times they walked again, then danced, then walked, then danced, so that each number took about an hour.

It was a long, low room, with whitewashed walls and a beamed ceiling wattled with mud above, and at one end was the inevitable sewing-machine, closed now, and converted into a sort of an altar by a tiny embroidered cloth upon which burned a perpetual rush flame before a tawdry color print of the Virgin which hung on the wall. Don Priciliano and his wife, who was nursing a baby at her breast, beamed from chairs at the other end. Innumerable candles had been heated on one side and stuck against the wall all around, whence they trailed sooty snakes above them on the white. The men made a prodigious stamping and clinking as they danced, shouting boisterously to one another. The women kept their eyes on the floor and did not speak.

I caught sight of the pimply youth glowering with folded arms upon Fidencio from his corner; and as I stood by the door, fragments of the peons' conversation floated in to me:

"Fidencio should not have stayed away so long."

"Carramba! See the way Pablito scowls there. He thought surely Fidencio was dead and that Carmencita was his own!"

And then a hopeful voice:

"Perhaps there will be trouble!"

The dance finally ended and Fidencio led his betrothed correctly back to her seat against the wall. The music stopped. The men poured out into the night where, in the flare of a torch, the owner of the losing rooster sold bottles of strong drink. We toasted each other boisterously in the sharp dark. The mountains around stood dazzling in the moon. And then, for the intervals between dances were very short, we heard the music erupt again, volcanically and exuberantly, into a waltz. The center of twenty curious and enthusiastic youths—for he had traveled—Fidencio strutted back into the room. He went straight to Carmencita, but as he led her out upon the floor Pablito glided up behind, pulling out a large obsolete revolver. A dozen shouts rang:

"Cuidado, Fidencio! Look out!"

He whirled, to see the revolver pointed at his stomach. For a moment no one moved. Fidencio and his rival looked at each other with wrathful eyes. There was a subdued clicking of automatics everywhere as the gentlemen drew and cocked their weapons, for some of them were friends of Pablito's. I heard low voices muttering:

"Porfirio! Go home and get my shotgun!"

"Victoriano! My new rifle! It lies on the bureau in mother's room."

A shoal of small boys like flying-fish scattered through the moonlight to get firearms. Meanwhile, the status quo was preserved. The peons had squatted out of the range of fire, so that just their eyes showed above the window-sills, where they watched proceedings with joyous interest. Most of the musicians were edging toward the nearest window; the harpist, however, had dropped down behind his instrument. Don Priciliano and his wife, still nursing the infant, rose and majestically made their way to some interior part of the house. It was none of their business; besides, they did not wish to interfere with the young folks' pleasure.

With one arm Fidencio carefully pushed Carmencita away, holding his other hand poised like a claw. In the dead silence he said:

"You little goat! Don't stand there pointing that thing at me if you're afraid to shoot it! Pull the trigger while I am unarmed! I am not afraid to die, even at the hand of a weak little fool who doesn't know when to use a gun!"

The boy's face twisted hatefully, and I thought he was going to shoot.

"Ah!" murmured the peons. "Now! Now is the time!"

But he didn't. After a few minutes his hand wavered, and with a curse he jammed the pistol back into his pocket. The peons straightened up again and crowded disappointedly around the doors and windows. The harpist got up and began to tune his harp. There was much thrusting back of revolvers into holsters, and the sprightly social conversation grew up again. By the time the small boys arrived with a perfect arsenal of rifles and shotguns, the dance had been resumed. So the guns were stacked in a corner.

As long as Carmencita claimed his amorous attention and there was a prospect of friction, Fidencio stayed. He swaggered among the men and basked in the admiration of the ladies, outdancing them all in speed, abandon and noise.

But he soon tired of that, and the excitement of meeting Carmencita palled upon him. So he went out into the moonlight again and up the arroyo, to take part in Charlie Chee's celebration.

As we approached the hotel we were conscious of a curious low moaning sound which seemed akin to music. The dinner-table had been removed from the dining-room into the street, and around the room turkey-trotted Foo and another Celestial. A barrel of aguardiente had been set up on a trestle in one corner, and beneath it sprawled Charlie himself, in his mouth a glass tube which syphoned up into the barrel. A tremendous wooden box of Mexican cigarettes had been smashed open on one side, the packages tumbling out upon the floor. In other parts of the room two more Chinamen slept the profound sleep of the very drunk, wrapped in blankets. The two who danced sang meanwhile their own version of a once popular ragtime song called "Dreamy Eyes." Against this marched magnificently "The Pilgrim's Chorus" from Tannhäuser, rendered by a phonograph set up in the kitchen. Charlie removed the glass tube from his mouth, put a thumb over it, and welcomed us with a hymn which he sang as follows:

"Pooll for the shore, sailor,

Pooll for the shore!

Heed not the lowling lave

But pooll for the shore!"

He surveyed us with a bleary eye, and remarked: "Bledlau! Je' Calist is wid us here toni'!"

After which he returned the syphon to his mouth.

We blended into these festivities. Fidencio offered to exhibit the steps of a new Spanish fandango, the way it was danced by the damned "grasshoppers" (as Mexicans call the Spaniards). He stamped bellowing around the room, colliding with the Chinamen, and roaring "La Paloma." Finally, out of breath, he collapsed upon a nearby chair, and began to descant upon the many charms of Adolfo's bride, whom he had seen for the first time that day. He declared that it was a shame for so young and blithe a spirit to be tied to a middle-aged man; he said that he himself represented youth, strength and gallantry, and was a much more fitting mate for her. He added that as the evening advanced he found that he desired her more and more. Charlie Chee, with the glass tube in his mouth, nodded intelligently at each of these statements. I had a happy thought. Why not send for Adolfo and his wife and invite them to join our festivities? The Chinamen asleep on the floor were kicked awake and their opinion asked. Since they could understand neither Spanish nor English, they answered fluently in Chinese. Fidencio translated.

"They say," he said, "that Charlie ought to be sent with the invitation."

We agreed to that. Charlie rose, while Foo took his place at the glass tube. He declared that he would invite them in the most irresistible terms, and, strapping on his revolver, disappeared.

Ten minutes later we heard five shots. We discussed the matter at length, not understanding why there should be any artillery at that time of night, except that probably two guests returning from the baile were murdering each other before going to bed. Charlie took a long time, in the meanwhile, and we were just considering the advisability of sending out an expedition to find him when he returned.

"Well, how about it, Charlie?" I asked. "Will they come?"

"I don't think so," he replied doubtfully, swaying in the doorway.

"Did you hear the shooting?" asked Fidencio.

"Yes, very close," said Charlie. "Foo, if you will kindly get out from under that tube...."

"What was it?" we asked.

"Well," said Charlie, "I knocked at Adolfo's door and said we were having a party down here and wanted him to come. He shot at me three times and I shot at him twice."

So saying, Charlie seized Foo by the leg and composedly lay down under the glass tube again.

We must have stayed there some hours after that. I remember that toward morning Ignacio came in and played us Tosti's "Good-bye," to which all the Chinamen danced solemnly around.

At about four o'clock Atanacio appeared. He burst open the door and stood there very white, with a gun in one hand.

"Friends," he said, "a most disagreeable thing has happened. My wife, Juanita, returned from her mother's about midnight on an ass. She was stopped on the road by a man muffled up in a poncho, who gave her an anonymous letter in which were detailed all my little amusements when I last went for recreation to Juarez. I have seen the letter. It is astonishingly accurate! It tells how I went to supper with Maria and then home with her. It tells how I took Ana to the bull-fight. It describes the hair, complexion and disposition of all those other ladies and how much money I spent upon them. Carramba! It is exact to a cent!

"When she got home I happened to be down at Catarino's taking a cup with an old friend. This mysterious stranger appeared at the kitchen door with another letter in which he said I had three more wives in Chihuahua, which, God knows, is not true, since I only have one!

"It is not that I care, amigos, but these things have upset Juanita horribly. Of course, I denied these charges, but, valgame Dios! women are so unreasonable!

"I hired Dionysio to watch my house, but he has gone to the baile, and so, arousing and dressing my small son, that he may carry me word of any further outrages, I have come down to seek your help in preserving my home from this disgrace."

We declared ourselves willing to do anything for Atanacio—anything, that is, that promised excitement. We said that it was horrible, that the evil stranger ought to be exterminated.

"Who could it be?"

Atanacio replied that it was probably Flores, who had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affections. We forced aguardiente upon him and he drank moodily. Charlie Chee was pried loose from the glass tube, where Foo took his place, and sent for weapons. And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revolvers of different makes.

Almost immediately came a furious pounding on the door, and Atanacio's young son flung himself in.

"Papa!" he cried, holding out a paper. "Here is another one! The man knocked at the back door, and when Mamma went to find out who it was she could only see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the hair. He gave her a note and ran away, taking a loaf of bread off the window."

With trembling hands Atanacio unfolded the paper and read aloud:

Your husband is the father of forty-five small children in the State of Coahuila.

(Signed) Some One Who Knows Him.

"Mother of God!" cried Atanacio, springing to his feet, in a transport of grief and rage. "It is a lie! I have always discriminated! Forward, my friends! Let us protect our homes!"

Seizing our revolvers we rushed out into the night. We staggered panting up the steep hill to Atanacio's house—sticking close together so no one would be mistaken by the others for the Mysterious Stranger. Atanacio's wife was lying on the bed weeping hysterically. We scattered into the brush and poked into the alleys around the house, but nothing stirred. In a corner of the corral lay Dionysio, the watchman, fast asleep, his rifle by his side. We passed on up the hill until we came to the edge of the town. Already dawn was coming. A never-ending chorus of roosters made the only sound, except the incredibly soft music from the baile at Don Priciliano's, which would probably last all that day and the next night. Afar, the big valley was like a great map, quiet, distinct, immense. Every wall corner, tree branch and grass-blade on the roofs of the houses were pricked out in the wonderful clear light of before-dawn.

In the distance, over the shoulder of the red mountain, went a man covered up in a red serape.

"Aha!" cried Atanacio. "There he goes!"

And with one accord we opened up on the red blanket. There were five of us, and we had six shots apiece. They echoed fearfully among the houses and clapped from mountain to mountain, reproduced each one a hundred times. Of a sudden the village belched half-dressed men and women and children. They evidently thought that a new revolution was beginning. A very ancient crone came out of a small brown house on the edge of the village rubbing her eyes.

"Oiga!" she shouted. "What are you shooting at?"

"We are trying to kill that accursed man in the red blanket, who is poisoning our homes and making Valle Allegre a place unfit for a decent woman to live in!" shouted Atanacio, taking another shot.

The old woman bent her bleary eyes upon our target.

"But," she said gently, "that is not a bad man. That's only my son going after the goats."

Meanwhile, the red-blanketed figure, never even looking back, continued his placid way over the top of the mountain and disappeared.

CHAPTER III

LOS PASTORES

The romance of gold hangs over the mountains of Northern Durango like an old perfume. There, it is rumored, was that mythical Ophir whence the Aztecs and their mysterious predecessors drew the red gold that Cortez found in the treasury of Moctezuma. Before the dawn of Mexican history the Indians scratched these barren hillsides with dull copper knives. You can still see the traces of their workings. And after them the Spaniards, with flashing, bright helmets and steel breast-plates, filled from these mountains the lofty treasure-ships of the Indies. Almost a thousand miles from the Capital, over trackless deserts and fierce stony mountains, a tiny colorful fringe of the most brilliant civilization in Europe flung itself among the canyons and high peaks of this desolate land; and so far was it from the seat of change that long after Spanish rule had disappeared from Mexico forever, it persisted here. The Spaniards enslaved the Indians of the region, of course, and the torrent-worn, narrow valleys are still sinister with legend. Almost anybody around Santa Maria del Oro can tell you stories of the old days when men were flogged to death in the mines, and the Spanish overseers lived like princes.

But they were a hardy race, these mountaineers. They were always rebelling. There is a legend of how the Spaniards, finally discovering themselves alone, two hundred leagues from the seacoast, in the midst of an overwhelmingly hostile native race, attempted one night to leave the mountains. Fires sprang up on the high peaks, and the mountain villages throbbed to the sound of drums. Somewhere in the narrow defiles the Spaniards disappeared forever. And from that time, until certain foreigners secured mining concessions there, the place had an evil name. The authority of the Mexican government barely reached it.

There are two villages which were the capitals of the gold-seeking Spaniards in this region, and where the Spanish tradition is still strong: Inde, and Santa Maria del Oro,—usually called El Oro. Inde, the Spaniards romantically named from their persistent dream that this new world was India; Santa Maria del Oro was called so on the same principle that one sung a Te Deum in honor of bloody victory—a gratefulness to heaven for the finding of red gold, Our Lady of the Gold.

In El Oro one can still see the ruins of a monastery—they call it now, vaguely, the Collegio—the pathetic little arched roofs of a row of monkish cells built of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and torrential rains. It partly surrounds what was once the patio of the cloister, and a great mesquite tree towers there over the forgotten headstone of an ancient grave, inscribed with the lordly name of Doña Isabella Guzman. Of course, everybody has entirely forgotten who Doña Isabella was, or when she died. There still stands in the public square a fine old Spanish church with a beamed ceiling. And over the door of the tiny Palacio Municipal is the almost erased carving of the arms of some ancient Spanish house.

Here is romance for you. But the inhabitants have no respect for tradition, and hardly any memory of the ancients who left these monuments. The exuberant Indian civilization has entirely obliterated all traces of the conquistadores.

El Oro is noted as the gayest town of all the mountain region. There are bailes almost every night, and far and near it is a matter of common knowledge that El Oro is the home of the prettiest girls in Durango. In El Oro, too, they celebrate feast days with more ebullience than in other localities. All the charcoal-burners and goat-herds and pack-train drivers and ranchers for miles around come there on holidays,—so that one feast-day generally means two or three without work, since there must be one day for celebrating, and at least another for coming and returning home.

And what Pastorellas they have in El Oro! Once a year, on the Feast of the Santos Reyes, they perform Los Pastores all over this part of the country. It is an ancient miracle play of the kind that used to take place all over Europe in the Renaissance,—the kind that gave birth to Elizabethan drama, and is now extinct everywhere in the world. It is handed down by word of mouth from mother to daughter, from the remotest antiquity. It is called "Luzbel," the Spanish for Lucifer, and depicts Perverse Man in the Midst of His Deadly Sin, Lucifer, the Great Antagonist of Souls, and the Everlasting Mercy of God Made Flesh in the Child Jesus.

In most places there is only one performance of Los Pastores. But in El Oro there are three or four on the night of the Santos Reyes, and others at different times of the year, as the spirit moves. The cura, or village priest, still trains the actors. The play takes place no longer in the church, however. It is added to from generation to generation, sometimes being twisted to satirize persons in the village. It has become too profane, too realistic, for the Church; but still it points the great moral of medieval religion.

Fidencio and I dined early on the night of the Santos Reyes. Afterward, he took me along the street to a narrow alley-way between adobe walls, which led through a broken place into a tiny corral behind a house hung with red peppers. Under the legs of two meditative burros scurried dogs and chickens, a pig or so, and a swarm of little naked brown children. A wrinkled old Indian hag, smoking a cigarette made of an entire corn-husk, squatted upon a wooden box. Upon our appearance she arose, muttering toothless words of greeting, lifted the lid of the box, and produced an olla full of new-made aguardiente. The distillery was in the kitchen. We paid her a silver peso, and circulated the jug among the three of us, with many polite wishes for health and prosperity. Over our heads the sunset sky yellowed and turned green, and a few large mountain stars blazed out. We heard laughter and guitars from the lower end of the town, and the uproarious shouts of the charcoal-burners finishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed much more than her share....

"Oh, mother!" said Fidencio. "Where are they going to give the Pastores to-night?"

"There are many Pastores," she answered with a leer. "Carramba! what a year it is for Pastores! There is one in the schoolhouse, and another back of Don Pedro's, and another in the casa of Don Mario, and still another in the house of Perdita, who was married to Thomas Redondo, who was killed last year in the mines; may God have mercy on his soul!"

"Which will be the best?" demanded Fidencio, kicking a goat which was trying to enter the kitchen.

"Quien sabe?" she shrugged vaguely. "Were my old bones not so twisted I would go to Don Pedro's. But I would be disappointed. There are no Pastores nowadays such as the ones we used to give when I was a girl."

We went, then, to Don Pedro's, down a steep, uneven street, stopped every few feet by boisterous bankrupts who wanted to know where a man could establish credit for liquor. Don Pedro's was a considerable house, for he was the village rich man. The open square which his buildings enclosed would have been a corral ordinarily; but Don Pedro could afford a patio, and it was full of fragrant shrubs and barrel cacti,—a rude fountain pouring from an old iron pipe in the center. The entrance to this was a narrow, black archway, in which sat the town orchestra playing. A pine torch was stuck by its pitch against the outside wall, and under this a man took up fifty-cent pieces for the entrance fee. We watched for some time, but nobody seemed to be paying anything. A clamorous mob stood around him, pleading special privilege—that they ought to get in free. One was Don Pedro's cousin; another his gardener; a third had married the daughter of his mother-in-law by his first marriage; one woman insisted that she was the mother of a performer. There were other entrances at which no guardian stood; and through these, when they found themselves unable to cajole the gentleman at the main door, the crowd placidly sifted. We paid our money amid an awed silence and entered.

White, burning moonlight flooded the place. The patio sloped upward along the side of the mountain, where there was no wall to stop the view of great planes of shining upland, tilted to meet the shallow jade sky. To the low roof of the house a canopy of canvas drooped out over a flat place, supported by slanting poles, like the pavilion of a Bedouin king. Its shadow cut the moonlight blacker than night. Six torches stuck in the ground around the outside of the place sent up thin lines of pitchy smoke. There was no other light under the canopy, except the restless gleams of innumerable cigarettes. Along the wall of the house stood black-robed women with black mantillas over their heads, the men-folks squatting at their feet. Wherever there was space between their knees were children. Men and women alike smoked their cigarros, handing them placidly down so that the little ones might take a puff. It was a quiet audience, speaking little and softly, perfectly content to wait, watching the moonlight in the patio, and listening to the music, which sounded far away in the arch. A nightingale burst into song somewhere among the shrubs, and all of us fell ecstatically silent, listening to it. Small boys were dispatched to tell the band to stop while the song went on. That was very exciting.

During all this time there was no sign whatever of the performers. I don't know how long we sat there, but nobody made any comment on the fact. The audience was not there primarily to see the Pastores; it was there to see and hear whatever took place, and everything interested it. But being a restless, practical Westerner, alas! I broke the charmed silence to ask a woman next to me when the play would begin.

"Who knows?" she answered tranquilly.

A newcomer, after turning my question and the answer over in his mind, leaned across.

"Perhaps to-morrow," he said. I noticed that the band was playing no longer. "It appears," he continued, "that there are other Pastores at Doña Perdita's house. They tell me that those who were to have performed here have gone up there to see them. And the musicians have also gone up there. For the past half-hour I have been considering seriously going up there myself."

We left him, still considering seriously; the rest of the audience had settled down for an evening of pleasant gossip, having apparently forgotten the Pastores altogether. Outside, the ticket-taker with our peso had long since gathered his companions to him and sought the pleasing hilarity of a cantina.

And so we strolled slowly up the street toward the edge of town where the whitewashed plaster walls of rich men's houses give way to the undecorated adobes of the poor. There all pretense of streets ended, and we went along burro paths between huts scattered according to their owners' whims, through dilapidated corrals to the house of the widow of Don Tomas. It was built of sun-dried mud bricks, jutting part way into the mountain itself, and looked as the stable of Bethlehem must have looked. As if to carry out the analogy, a great cow lay in the moonlight just beneath the window, breathing and chewing her cud. Through the window and the door, over a throng of heads, we could see candle light playing on the ceiling and hear a whining chant sung by girlish voices, and the beat of crooks keeping time on the floor with jingling bells.

It was a low, dirt-floored, whitewashed room, raftered and wattled with mud above, like any peasant dwelling in Italy or Palestine. At the end farthest from the door was a little table heaped with paper flowers where two tall church candles burned. Above it, on the wall, hung a chromo of the Virgin and Child. And in the middle of the flowers was set a tiny wooden model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to represent the Infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, except for a small space in the middle of the floor, was packed with humanity: a fringe of children sitting cross-legged around the stage, half-grown-ups and girls kneeling, and behind them, until they choked the doorway, blanketed peons with their hats off, eager and curious. By some exquisite chance, a woman sat next to the altar, her breast exposed as she nursed her baby. Other women with their babies stood along the wall on both sides of her, except for a narrow, curtained entrance into another room where we could hear the giggling of the performers.

"Has it begun?" I asked a boy next to me.

"No," he answered; "they just came out to sing a song to see if the stage was big enough."

It was a merry, noisy crowd, bandying jokes and gossip across each others' heads. Many of the men were exhilarated with aguardiente, singing snatches of ribald songs with their arms around each other's shoulders, and breaking out every now and then into fierce little quarrels that might have led to anything—for they were all armed. And right in the middle of everything a voice said:

"S-s-sh! They are going to begin now!"

The curtain was lifted, and Lucifer, hurled from Heaven because of his invincible pride, stood before us. It was a young girl—all the performers are girls, in distinction to the pre-Elizabethan miracle plays, where the actors were boys. She wore a costume whose every part had been handed down from immeasurable antiquity. It was red, of course—red leather—the conventional medieval color for devils. But the exciting thing about it was that it was evidently the traditional rendering of the uniform of a Roman legionary (and the Roman soldiers who crucified Christ were considered a little less than devils in the Middle Ages). She wore a wide, skirted doublet of red leather, under which were scalloped trousers, falling almost to the shoe tops. There doesn't seem to be much connection here until you remember that the Roman legionaries in Britain and in Spain wore leather trousers. Her helmet was greatly distorted, because feathers and flowers had been fastened to it; but underneath you could trace the resemblance to the Roman helmet. A cuirass covered her breast and back; instead of steel it was made of small mirrors. And a sword hung at her side. Drawing the sword, she strutted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man's:

"Yo soy luz; ay en mi nombre se vet

Pues con la luz

Que baje

Todo el abismo encendi——"

A splendid soliloquy of Lucifer hurled from heaven:

"Light am I, as my name proclaims—and the light of my fall kindled all the great abyss. Because I would not humble myself, I, who was the Captain General, be it known to all men, am to-day the accursed of God.... To thee, O mountains, and to thee, O sea, I will make my complaint, and thus—alas!—relieve my overburdened breast.... Cruel fortune, why art thou so inflexibly severe? ... I who yesterday dwelt serene in yonder starry vault am to-day disinherited, abandoned. Because of my mad envy and ambition, because of my rash presumption, gone is my palace of yesterday, and to-day finds me sad among these mountains, mute witnesses of my grievous and pitiful state.... O mountains! happy art thou!—happy art thou in all, whether bleak and bare, or gay with leafy verdure! O ye swift brooks flowing free, behold me! ..."

"Good! good!" said the audience.

"That's the way Huerta is going to feel when the Maderistas enter Mexico City!" shouted one irrepressible revolutionist, amid laughter.

"Behold me in my affliction and guilt——" continued Luzbel.

Just then a large dog came through the curtain, cheerfully wagging his tail. Immensely pleased with himself, he nosed among the children, licking a face here and there. One baby slapped him violently, and the dog, hurt and astonished, made a rush between Lucifer's legs in the midst of that sublime peroration. A second time Lucifer fell, and, rising amid the wild hilarity of the house, laid about her with her sword. At least fifty of the audience descended upon the dog and ejected him howling, and the play went on.

Laura, married to Arcadio, a shepherd, appeared singing at the door of her cottage—that is to say, through the curtain....

"How peacefully falls the light of the moon and the stars this supremely beautiful night! Nature appears to be on the point of revealing some wonderful secret. The whole world is at peace, and all hearts, methinks, are overflowing with joy and contentment.... But—who is this—of such pleasing presence and fascinating figure?"

Lucifer prinked and strutted, avowing with Latin boldness his love for her. She replied that her heart was Arcadio's; but the Arch-devil dwelt upon her husband's poverty, and himself promised her riches, towering palaces, jewels and slaves.

"I feel that I am beginning to love thee," said Laura. "Against my will—I cannot deceive myself——"

At this point there was smothered laughter in the audience: "Antonia! Antonia!" said everybody, grinning and nudging. "That's just the way Antonia left Enrique! I always thought the Devil was in it!" remarked one of the women.

But Laura had pangs of conscience about poor Arcadio. Lucifer insinuated that Arcadio was secretly in love with another, and that settled it.

"So that thou mayst not be troubled," Laura said calmly, "and, so that I may be free from him, I shall even watch for an opportunity to kill him."

This was a shock, even to Lucifer. He suggested that it would be better to make Arcadio feel the pangs of jealousy, and in an exultant aside remarked with satisfaction that "her feet are already in the direct pathway to Hell."

The women, apparently, felt a good deal of satisfaction at this. They nodded virtuously to one another. But one young girl leaned over to another, and, sighing, said:

"Ah! But it must be wonderful to love like that!"

Arcadio returned, to be reproached by Laura with his poverty. He was accompanied by Bato, a combination of Iago and Autolycus, who attended the dialogue between the shepherd and his wife with ironical asides. By means of the jeweled ring that Lucifer had given Laura, Arcadio's suspicions were aroused, and, when Laura had left him in haughty insolence, he gave vent to his feelings:

"Just when I was happy in her fidelity, she with cruel reproaches embitters my heart! What shall I do with myself?"

"Look for a new mate," said Bato.

That being rejected, Bato gave the following modest prescription for settling the difficulty:

"Kill her without delay. This done, take her skin and carefully fold it away. Shouldst thou marry again, let the bride's sheet be that skin, and thus prevent another jilting. To still further strengthen her virtue, tell her gently but firmly: 'Sweetheart, this thy sheet was once my wife; see that thou dost carry thyself circumspectly lest thou, too, come to the same end. Remember that I am a hard and peevish man who does not stick at trifles.'"

At the beginning of this speech the men began to snicker, and when it ended they were guffawing loudly. An old peon, however, turned furiously on them:

"There is a proper prescription!" he said. "If that were done more often there would not be so many domestic troubles."

But Arcadio didn't seem to see it, and Bato recommended the philosophic attitude.

"Stop thy complaining and leave Laura to her lover. Free thus from obligations, thou wilt become rich, and be able to eat well, dress well, and truly enjoy life. The rest matters but little.... Seize, therefore, this opportunity toward thine own good fortune. And do not forget, I beg thee, once thy fortune is made, to regale this meager paunch of mine with good cheer."

"Shame!" cried the women, clucking. "How false!" "The desgraciado!" A man's voice piped up: "There is some truth in that, señoras! If it weren't for the women and children we all might be able to dress in fine clothes and ride upon a horse."

A fierce argument grew up around this point.

Arcadio lost patience with Bato, and the latter plaintively said:

"If thou hast any regard for poor Bato, let us go to supper."

Arcadio answered firmly, not until he had unburdened his heart.

"Unburden and welcome," said Bato, "until thou art tired. As for me, I shall put such a knot in my tongue that even shouldst thou chatter like a parrot I shall be mute." He seated himself on a large rock and pretended to sleep; and then for fifteen minutes Arcadio unburdened himself to the mountains and the stars.

"Oh, Laura, inconstant, ungrateful and inhuman, why hast thou caused me such woe? Thou hast wounded my faith and my honor and hast put my soul in torment. Why dost thou mock my ardent love? Oh, thou steep stills and towering mountains, help me to express my woe! And thou, stern, immovable cliffs, and thou, silent woods, help me to ease my heart of its pain...."

Amid heartfelt and sympathetic silence the audience mourned with Arcadio. A few women sobbed openly.

Finally Bato could stand it no longer.

"Let us go to supper," he said. "Better it is to suffer a little at a time!"

A perfect gale of laughter cut off the end of the sentence.

Arcadio: "To thee only, Bato, have I confided my secret."

Bato (aside): "I do not believe I can keep it! Already my mouth itches to tell it. This fool will learn that 'a secret and a pledge to none should be entrusted.'"

Enter a group of shepherds with their shepherdesses, singing. They were dressed in their feminine Sunday best with flowery summer hats, and carried enormous wooden apostolic crooks, hung with paper flowers and strings of bells.

"Beautiful is this night beyond compare,—

Beautiful and peaceful as never before,

And happy the mortal who beholds it.

Everything proclaims that the Son of God,

The Word Divine made human flesh,

Will soon be born in Bethlehem

And mankind's ransom be complete."

Then followed a dialogue between ninety-year-old, miserly Fabio and his sprightly young wife, to which all present contributed, upon the subject of the great virtues of women and the great failings of men.

The audience joined violently in the discussion, hurling the words of the play back and forward—men and women drawing together in two solid hostile bodies. The women were supported by the words of the play, but the men had the conspicuous example of Laura to draw from. It passed soon into an argument about the virtues and failings of certain married couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time.

—— Bras, one of the shepherds, stole Fabio's wallet from between his knees as he slept. Then came gossip and backbiting. Bato forced Bras to share with him the contents of the stolen wallet, which they opened, to find none of the food they expected. In their disappointment, both declared their willingness to sell their souls to the Devil for a good meal. Lucifer overheard the declaration and attempted to bind them to it. But after a battle of wits between the rustics and the Devil—the audience solid to a man against the underhanded tactics of Lucifer—it was decided by a throw of the dice, at which the Devil lost. But he had told them where food could be obtained, and they went for it. Lucifer cursed God for interfering in behalf of two worthless shepherds. He marveled that "a hand mightier than Lucifer's has been stretched out to save." He wondered at the Everlasting Mercy toward worthless Man, who has been a persistent sinner down the ages, while he, Lucifer, had felt God's wrath so heavily. Sweet music was suddenly heard—the shepherds singing behind the curtain—and Lucifer mused upon Daniel's prophecy that "the Divine Word shall be made Flesh." The music continued, announcing the birth of Christ among the shepherds. Lucifer, enraged, swore that he would use all his power to the end that all mortals shall at some time "taste Hell," and commanded Hell to open and receive him "in its center."

At the birth of Christ the spectators crossed themselves, the women muttering prayers. Lucifer's impotent raging against God was greeted with shouts of "Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Death to the Devil for insulting God!"

Bras and Bato returned, ill from overeating, and, believing they were about to die, called wildly for help. Then the shepherds and shepherdesses came in, singing and pounding the floor with their crooks, as they promised they would cure them.

At the beginning of Act II, Bato and Bras, fully restored to health, were discovered again plotting to steal and eat the provisions laid by for a village festival, and as they went out to do so Laura appeared, singing of her love for Lucifer. Heavenly music was heard, rebuking her for her "adulterous thoughts," whereupon she renounced all desire for guilty love and declared that she would be content with Arcadio.

The women of the audience rustled and nodded and smiled at these exemplary sentiments. Sighs of relief were heard all over the house that the play was coming out right.

But just afterward the sound of a falling roof was heard, and Comic Relief, in the persons of Bras and Bato, entered, carrying a basket of food and a bottle of wine. Everybody brightened up at the appearance of these beloved crooks; anticipatory mirth went around the room. Bato suggested that he eat his half while Bras stood guard, whereupon Bato ate Bras's share, too. In the midst of the quarrel that followed, before they could hide the traces of their guilt, the shepherds and shepherdesses came back in search of the thief. Many and absurd were the reasons invented by Bato and Bras to explain the presence of the food and drink, which they finally managed to convince the company was of diabolical origin. In order to further cover their traces they invited the others to eat what is left.

This scene, the most comic of the whole play, could hardly be heard for the roars of laughter that interrupted every speech. A young fellow reached over and punched a compadre.

"Do you remember how we got out of it when they caught us milking Don Pedro's cows?"

Lucifer returned, and was invited to join the feast. He incited them maliciously to continue discussion of the robbery, and little by little to place the blame upon a stranger whom they all agreed having seen. Of course they meant Lucifer, but, upon being invited to describe him, they depicted a monster a thousand times more repulsive than the reality. None suspected that the apparently amiable stranger seated in their midst was Lucifer.

How Bato and Bras were at last discovered and punished, how Laura and Arcadio were reconciled, how Fabio was rebuked for his avariciousness and saw the error of his ways, how the Infant Jesus was shown lying in his manger, with the three strongly individualized Kings out of the East, how Lucifer was finally discovered and cast back into hell—I have not space here to describe.

The play lasted for three hours, absorbing all the attention of the audience. Bato and Bras—especially Bato—received their enthusiastic approbation. They sympathized with Laura, suffered with Arcadio, and hated Lucifer with the hatred of gallery gods for the villain in the melodrama. Only once was the play interrupted, when a hatless youth rushed in and shouted:

"A man has come from the army, who says that Urbina has taken Mapimi!"

Even the performers stopped singing—they were pounding the floor with jingling crooks at the time—and a whirlwind of questions beat upon the newcomer. But in a minute the interest passed, and the shepherds took up their song where they had dropped it.

When we left Doña Perdita's house, about midnight, the moon had already gone behind the western mountains, and a barking dog was all the noise in the dark sharp night. It flashed upon me, as Fidencio and I went home with our arms about each others' shoulders, that this was the kind of thing which had preceded the Golden Age of the Theater in Europe—the flowering of the Renaissance. It was amusing to speculate what the Mexican Renaissance would have been if it had not come so late.

But already around the narrow shores of the Mexican Middle Ages beat the great seas of modern life—machinery, scientific thought, and political theory. Mexico will have to skip for a time her Golden Age of Drama.