ion!"

He drained another glass. After a long pause, he continued:

"You ask me why I am still a rebel? Well, the revolution is like a
hurricane: if you're in it, you're not a man ... you're a leaf, a dead
leaf, blown by the wind."

Demetrio reappeared. Seeing him, Solis relapsed into silence.

"Come along," Demetrio said to Cervantes. "Come with me."

Unctuously, Solis congratulated Demetrio on the feats that had won him
fame and the notice of Pancho Villa's northern division.

Demetrio warmed to his praise. Gratefully, he heard his prowess
vaunted, though at times he found it difficult to believe he was the
hero of the exploits the other narrated. But Solis' story proved so
charming, so convincing, that before long he found himself repeating it
as gospel truth.

"Natera is a genius!" Luis Cervantes said when they had returned to the
hotel. "But Captain Solis is a nobody ... a timeserver."

Demetrio Macias was too elated to listen to him. "I'm a colonel, my
lad! And you're my secretary!"

Demetrio's men made many acquaintances that evening; much liquor flowed
to celebrate new friendships. Of course men are not necessarily even
tempered, nor is alcohol a good counselor; quarrels naturally ensued.
Yet many differences that occurred were smoothed out in a friendly
spirit, outside the saloons, restaurants, or brothels.

On the morrow, casualties were reported. Always a few dead. An old
prostitute was found with a bullet through her stomach; two of Colonel
Macias' new men lay in the gutter, slit from ear to ear.

Anastasio Montanez carried an account of the events to his chief.
Demetrio shrugged his shoulders. "Bury them!" he said.

XIX

"They're coming back!"

It was with amazement that the inhabitants of Fresnillo learned that
the rebel attack on Zacatecas had failed completely.

"They're coming back!"

The rebels were a maddened mob, sunburnt, filthy, naked. Their high
wide-brimmed straw hats hid their faces. The "high hats" came back as
happily as they had marched forth a few days before, pillaging every
hamlet along the road, every ranch, even the poorest hut.

"Who'll buy this thing?" one of them asked. He had carried his spoils
long: he was tired. The sheen of the nickel on the typewriter, a new
machine, attracted every glance. Five times that morning the Oliver had
changed hands. The first sale netted the owner ten pesos; presently it
had sold for eight; each time it changed hands, it was tw