in a strap. "You never got into the picture
at all. I want you right in there among the horses, under
their feet."

"Land sakes!" said the Sister of Mercy. "You ain't no
right to ask me to go in there among them horses and be
trampled."

"Ain't you _paid_ to be trampled?" said the manager
angrily. Then as he caught sight of Villa he broke off
and said: "Frank, you boys done fine. It's going to be
a good act, all right. But it ain't just got the right
amount of ginger in it yet. We'll try her over _once_
again, anyway."

"Now, boys," he continued, calling out to the crowd with
a voice like a megaphone, "this afternoon at three-thirty
--Hospital scene. I only want the wounded, the doctors
and the Sisters of Mercy. All the rest of youse is free
till ten to-morrow--for the Indian Massacre. Everybody
up for that."

It was an hour or two later that I had my interview with
Villa in a back room of the little _posada_, or inn, of
the town. The General had removed his ferocious wig of
straight black hair, and substituted a check suit for
his warlike costume. He had washed the darker part of
the paint off his face--in fact, he looked once again
the same Frank Villa that I used to know when he kept
his Mexican cigar store in Buffalo.

"Well, Frank," I said, "I'm afraid I came down here under
a misunderstanding."

"Looks like it," said the General, as he rolled a cigarette.

"And you wouldn't care to go back even for the offer that
I am commissioned to make--your old job back again, and
half the profits on a new cigar to be called the Francesco
Villa?"

The General shook his head.

"It sounds good, all right," he said, "but this
moving-picture business is better."

"I see," I said, "I hadn't understood. I thought there
really was a revolution here in Mexico."

"No," said Villa, shaking his head, "been no revolution
down here for years--not since Diaz. The picture companies
came in and took the whole thing over; they made us a
fair offer--so much a reel straight out, and a royalty,
and let us divide up the territory as we liked. The first
film we done was the bombardment of Vera Cruz. Say, that
was a dandy; did you see it?"

"No," I said.

"They had us all in that," he continued. "I done an
American Marine. Lots of people think it all real when
they see it."

"Why," I said, "nearly everybody does. Even the President--"

"Oh, I guess he knows," said Villa, "but, you see, there's
tons of money in it and it'