"And is this your saddle?" I asked. "By the Mother of God, it is!" "Then you lie about the mule, for the saddle is my own." I rode on, leaving him yelling in the road. A short distance farther on an old peon walking along suddenly ran up and threw his arms around the animal’s neck. "Ah, at last! My beautiful mule which I lost! My Juanito!" I shook him off in spite of his entreaties that at least I should pay him fifty pesos as compensation for his mule. In town a cavalryman rode across in front of me, demanding his mule at once. He was rather ugly and had a revolver. I got away by saying that I was a captain of artillery and that the mule belonged to my battery. Every few feet some owner of that mule sprang up and asked me how dared I ride his own dear Panchito, or Pedrito, or Tomasito! At last one came out of a cuartel with a written order from his Colonel, who had seen the mule from his window. I showed them my pass signed by Francisco Villa. That was enough.... Across the wide desert, where the Constitutionalists had fought so long, the army was winding in from every direction, in long snake-like columns, dust hanging over them. And along the track, as far as the eye could reach, came the trains, one after another, blowing triumphant whistles, crowded with thousands of women and soldiers cheering. Within the city, dawn had brought absolute quiet and order. With the entrance of Villa and his staff the looting had absolutely ceased and the soldiers again respected other people’s property. A thousand were hard at work gathering up the bodies and carrying them to the edge of the city, where they were set on fire. Five hundred more policed the town. The first order issued was that any soldier caught drinking should be shot.