When I woke in the morning she was gone. I opened my door and looked out. Morning had come dazzlingly, all blue and gold—a heaven of flame-trimmed big white clouds and windy sky, and the desert brazen and luminous. Under the ashy bare trees the peddlers’ morning fire leaped horizontal in the wind. The black women, with wind-folded draperies, crossed the open ground to the river in single file, with red water-jars on their heads. Cocks crew, goats clamored for milking, and a hundred horses drummed up the dust as they were driven to water. Elizabetta was squatted over a little fire near the corner of the house, patting _tortillas_ for the Captain’s breakfast. She smiled as I came up, and politely asked me if I had slept well. She was quite contented now; you knew from the way she sang over her work. Presently the Captain came up in a surly manner and nodded briefly to me. "I hope it’s ready now," he grunted, taking the _tortillas_ she gave him. "You take a long time to cook a little breakfast. _Carramba_! Why is there no coffee?" He moved off, munching. "Get ready," he flung back over his shoulder. "We go north in an hour." "Are you going?" I asked curiously. Elizabetta looked at me with wide-open eyes. "Of course I am going. _Seguro_! Is he not my man?" She looked after him admiringly. She was no longer revolted. "He is my man," she said. "He is very handsome, and very brave. Why, in the battle the other day——" Elizabetta had forgotten her lover. *PART TWO* *FRANCISCO VILLA* *CHAPTER I* *VILLA ACCEPTS A MEDAL* It was while Villa was in Chihuahua City, two weeks before the advance on Torreon, that the artillery corps of his army decided to present him with a gold medal for personal heroism on the field. In the audience hall of the Governor’s palace in Chihuahua, a place of ceremonial, great luster chandeliers, heavy crimson portières, and gaudy American wallpaper, there is a throne for the governor. It is a gilded chair, with lion’s claws for arms, placed upon a dais under a canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by a heavy, gilded, wooden cap, which tapers up to a crown. The officers of artillery, in smart blue uniforms faced with black velvet and gold, were solidly banked across one end of the audience hall, with flashing new swords and their gilt-braided hats stiffly held under their arms. From the door of that chamber, around the gallery, down the state staircase, across the grandiose inner court of the palace, and out through the imposing gates to the street, stood a double line of soldiers, with their rifles at present arms. Four regimental bands grouped in one wedged in the crowd. The people of the capital were massed in solid thousands on the Plaza de Armas before the palace. "_Ya viene!_" "Here he comes!" "Viva Villa!" "Viva Madero!" "Villa, the Friend of the Poor!"