When the paymaster had painfully waded through all the provisions that followed, telling how the land was to be applied for, etc., there was a silence. "That," said Martinez, "is the Mexican Revolucion." "It’s just what Villa’s doing in Chihuahua," I said. "It’s great. All you fellows can have a farm now." An amused chuckle ran around the circle. Then a little, bald-headed man, with yellow, stained whiskers, sat up and spoke. "Not us," he said, "not the soldiers. After a Revolucion is done it wants no more soldiers. It is the _pacificos_ who will get the land—those who did not fight. And the next generation...." He paused and spread his torn sleeves to the fire. "I was a school teacher," he explained, "so I know that Revolucions, like Republics, are ungrateful. I have fought three years. At the end of the first Revolucion that great man, Father Madero, invited his soldiers to the Capital. He gave us clothes, and food, and bull-fights. We returned to our homes and found the greedy again in power." "I ended the war with forty-five pesos," said a man. "You were lucky," continued the schoolmaster. "No, it is not the troopers, the starved, unfed, common soldiers who profit by the Revolucion. Officers, yes—some—for they get fat on the blood of the Patria. But we—no." "What on earth are you fighting for?" I cried. "I have two little sons," he answered. "And _they_ will get their land. And they will have other little sons. They, too, will never want for food...." The little man grinned. "We have a proverb in Guadalajara: ’Do not wear a shirt of eleven yards, for he who wants to be a Redeemer will be crucified.’" "I’ve got no little son," said fourteen-year-old Gil Tomas, amid shouts of laughter. "I’m fighting so I can get a thirty-thirty rifle from some dead Federal, and a good horse that belonged to a millionaire." Just for fun I asked a trooper with a photo button of Madero pinned to his coat who that was. "_Pues, quien sabe, señor?_" he replied. "My captain told me he was a great saint. I fight because it is not so hard as to work." "How often are you fellows paid?" "We were paid three pesos just nine months ago tonight," said the schoolmaster, and they all nodded. "We are the real volunteers. The _gente_ of Villa are professionals." Then Luis Martinez got a guitar and sang a beautiful little love song, which he said a prostitute had made up one night in a _bordel_. The last thing I remember of that memorable night was ’Gino Güereca lying near me in the dark, talking. "To-morrow," he said, "I shall take you to the lost gold-mines of the Spaniards. They are hidden in a cañon in the Western mountains. Only the Indians know of them—and I. The Indians go there sometimes with knives and dig the raw gold out of the ground. We’ll be rich...." *CHAPTER X* *THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS*