"I think it would be fun if you would tell me some of the things he's done. Not the yarn about the actress and the man higher up--Mr. Hard told me that--but some other really exciting ones." "I'm not sufficiently interested in the chap," replied Scott, gruffly. "Perhaps you'd like to carry him his dinner and ask him to tell you himself." "I would," replied the girl, promptly. "I thought perhaps you were thinking of starving him." "No, I don't care to starve him. I want to swap him off for our horses, if I can. He ain't worth a dozen or two good horses, but we can try." "Well, of course, we have the car to make things square." "Yes, we have the car, in case we have to quit in a hurry." "Quit? You mean before Bob comes back?" the girl's face was a bit scared. "We may get orders to close up the mine. You heard what he said--that the state had seceded? Well, that means civil war, and civil war in Mexico can mean a good many things. I'm not sure that I want two women on my hands under the circumstances." "What are you talking about, Marc Scott? Is it a Yaqui rising?" Mrs. Van Zandt thrust her head through the hole in the wall. "I don't know what it is. Pachuca says there's a revolution on. I'm hoping to get more news about it when Hard comes back." "I don't take much stock in these Yaqui yarns," said Matt, coming back with another supply of food. "Them Indians ain't half as bad as the greasers like to make out. Of course, they feel like they had a right to raise thunder now and then because they know they ain't been treated white. But you take it from me, I've been knockin' around Mexico for some time, and nine times out of ten there's a greaser back of everything that's laid at a Yaqui's door." "That's true enough," nodded Mrs. Van. "I made up my mind when I read in that El Paso paper that there was going to be a Yaqui rising and that the gov'ment was orderin' troops into Sonora, that the gov'ment most probably had somethin' up its sleeve." "Most likely," acceded Scott. "Well, I don't expect to understand Mexican politics," said Polly, "but why, if Mr. Carranza wants to be president again, doesn't he come out like a little man and say so, instead of trying to stir up things with troops?" "He can't be president again. The constitution under which he took office forbids a second term," replied Scott. "He might be military dictator, however, if he stirred up a revolution and came out on top. That's what the Sonora people say. But you can't tell; it may be a square deal and there may be a Yaqui rising." "Even then this ain't the place for women folks," grumbled O'Grady. "Nor men neither," retorted Mrs. Van Zandt. "I've been trying to get Mr. Herrick on the 'phone to let him know there was trouble on board, but I couldn't even get Central." "Pachuca would attend to that, of course," said Scott. "We'll drive over there in the morning and see if he doesn't want to come back with us."