By late afternoon we had caught up with the coach, and galloped with it down through the dry arroyo and up through the other side, past the great _ribota_ court that flanks the Hacienda of La Zarca. Unlike La Mimbrera, the Casa Grande here stands on a level place, with the peons’ houses in long rows at its flanks, and a flat desert barren of chaparral for twenty miles in front. Che Che Campa also paid a visit to La Zarca. The big house is a black and gaping ruin. *CHAPTER V* *WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA* Of course, I took up quarters at the cuartel. And right here I want to mention one fact. Americans had insisted that the Mexican was fundamentally dishonest—that I might expect to have my outfit stolen the first day out. Now for two weeks I lived with as rough a band of ex-outlaws as there was in the army. They were without discipline and without education. They were, many of them, Gringo-haters. They had not been paid a cent for six weeks, and some were so desperately poor that they couldn’t boast sandals or serapes. I was a stranger with a good outfit, unarmed. I had a hundred and fifty pesos, which I put conspicuously at the head of my bed when I slept. And I never lost a thing. But more than that, I was not permitted to pay for my food; and in a company where money was scarce and tobacco almost unknown, I was kept supplied with all I could smoke by the _compañeros_. Every suggestion from me that I should pay for it was an insult. The only thing possible was to hire music for a _baile_. Long after Juan Sanchez and I rolled up in our blankets that night, we could hear the rhythm of the music, and the shouts of the dancers. It must have been midnight when somebody threw open the door and yelled: "Meester! _Oiga_, meester! Are you asleep? Come to the _baile_! _Arriba_! _Andale_!" "Too sleepy!" I said. After some further argument the messenger departed, but in ten minutes back he came. "El Capitan Fernando orders you to come at once! _Vamonos_!" Now the others woke up. "Come to the _baile_, meester!" they shouted. Juan Sanchez sat up and began pulling on his shoes. "Now we’re off!" said he. "The meester is going to dance! Captain’s orders! Come on, meester!" "I’ll go if all the Tropa does," I said. They raised a yell at that, and the night was full of chuckling men pulling on their clothes. Twenty of us reached the house in a body. The mob of peons blocking door and window opened to let us pass. "The meester!" they cried. "The meester’s going to dance!" Capitan Fernando threw his arms about me, roaring: "Here he comes, the _compañero_! Dance now! Go to it! They’re going to dance the _jota_!" "But I don’t know how to dance the _jota_!" Patricio, flushed and panting, seized me by the arm. "Come on, it’s easy! I’ll introduce you to the best girl in the Zarca!"