"Get down from your horse, friend," he said. "I am glad to welcome you here. My house" (pointing quizzically to the roof of his tent) "is at your disposal. Here are cigarettes. There is meat cooking on the fire." Upon the meadow, fully saddled, grazed the horses of the troop, about fifty of them. The men sprawled on the grass in the shade of the mesquite, chatting and playing cards. This was a different breed of men from the well-armed, well-mounted, comparatively disciplined troops of Villa’s army. They were simply peons who had risen in arms, like my friends of La Tropa—a tough, happy race of mountaineers and cowboys, among whom were many who had been bandits in the old days. Unpaid, ill-clad, undisciplined—their officers merely the bravest among them—armed only with aged Springfields and a handful of cartridges apiece, they had fought almost continuously for three years. For four months they, and the irregular troops of such guerrilla chiefs as Urbina and Robles, had held the advance around Torreon, fighting almost daily with Federal outposts and suffering all the hardships of the campaign, while the main army garrisoned Chihuahua, and Juarez. These ragged men were the bravest soldiers in Villa’s army. I had lain there about fifteen minutes, watching the beef sizzle in the flames and satisfying the eager curiosity of a crowd as to my curious profession, when there was a sound of galloping, and a voice, "They’re coming out of Lerdo! To horse!" Half a hundred men reluctantly, and in a leisurely manner, made for their horses. The colonel rose, yawning. He stretched. "—— —— the animals of Federals!" he growled. "They stay on our minds all the time. You never have time to think of more pleasant things. It’s a shame they won’t let us even eat our dinner!" We were mounted soon, trotting down the bank of the stream. Far in front sounded the pin-pricking rifles. Instinctively, without order, we broke into a gallop; through the streets of a little village, where the _pacificos_ stood on the roofs of their houses, looking off to the south, little bundles of their belongings beside them so they could flee if the battle went against us, for the Federals cruelly punish villages which have harbored the enemy. Beyond lay the stony little hill. We got off our horses, and throwing the reins over their heads, climbed on foot. About a dozen men already lay there, shooting spasmodically in the direction of the green bank of trees behind which lay Lerdo. Unseen scattering shots ripped from the blank desert between. About half a mile away small brown figures dodged around in the brush. A thin dust-cloud showed where another detachment was marching slowly north in their rear. "We already got one sure, and another one in the leg," said a soldier, spitting. "How many do you make them out?" asked the colonel. "About two hundred."