I. "On to Torreon!" II. The Army at Yermo III. First Blood IV. On the Cannon Car V. At the Gates of Gomez VI. The Compañeros Reappear VII. The Bloody Dawn VIII. The Artillery Comes Up IX. Battle X. Between Attacks XI. An Outpost in Action XII. Contreras’ Men Assault XIII. A Night Attack XIV. The Fall of Gomez Palacio PART V. CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION Carranza—An Impression PART VI. MEXICAN NIGHTS I. El Cosmopolita II. Happy Valley III. Los Pastores *INSURGENT MEXICO* *ON THE BORDER* Mercado’s Federal army, after its dramatic and terrible retreat four hundred miles across the desert when Chihuahua was abandoned, lay three months at Ojinaga on the Rio Grande. At Presidio, on the American side of the river, one could climb to the flat mud roof of the Post Office and look across the mile or so of low scrub growing in the sand to the shallow, yellow stream; and beyond to the low _mesa_, where the town was, sticking sharply up out of a scorched desert, ringed round with bare, savage mountains. One could see the square, gray adobe houses of Ojinaga, with here and there the Oriental cupola of an old Spanish church. It was a desolate land, without trees. You expected minarets. By day, Federal soldiers in shabby white uniforms swarmed about the place desultorily digging trenches, for Villa and his victorious Constitutionalists were rumored to be on the way. You got sudden glints, where the sun flashed on field guns; strange, thick clouds of smoke rose straight in the still air. Toward evening, when the sun went down with the flare of a blast furnace, patrols of cavalry rode sharply across the skyline to the night outposts. And after dark, mysterious fires burned in the town. There were thirty-five hundred men in Ojinaga. This was all that remained of Mercado’s army of ten thousand and the five thousand which Pascual Orozco had marched north from Mexico City to reinforce him. Of this thirty-five hundred, forty-five were majors, twenty-one colonels, and eleven generals. I wanted to interview General Mercado; but one of the newspapers had printed something displeasing to General Salazar, and he had forbidden the reporters the town. I sent a polite request to General Mercado. The note was intercepted by General Orozco, who sent back the following reply: ESTEEMED AND HONORED SIR: If you set foot inside of Ojinaga, I will stand you sideways against a wall, and with my own hand take great pleasure in shooting furrows in your back.