Three times in the weeks that followed, the Constitutionalist forces seemed on the point of capturing Chihuahua. Have you ever walked out with your own firing squad and spent an endless half hour on a chilly morning in the company of an officer with drawn sword, five soldiers with loaded rifles and a sergeant with the revolver destined to give you your _coup de grace_? Three times that happened to me, at Mercado’s orders. My profession has seldom permitted me to indulge in personal hatreds, but as I was marched back from that third bad half hour my mind was filled with one thought: If ever I got Mercado where he had me then I would let him know what it felt like. Then matters came to a crisis. Reinforcements were brought up from Mexico City and the Constitutionalist besiegers suffered a crushing defeat. I could put no more hope in them. Kueck came again to see me. “Give me an order on Koglmeier for those papers,” he demanded. “There’s no use saying Koglmeier hasn’t got them, for I know he has.” I could see he was not bluffing, and knew the game was up. I signed the release for the papers. There had been no personal animosity between Kueck and myself. I had seen too much of life to be angry with a man simply because he was obeying his orders. [Illustration: Constitutionalist soldiers surrounding the first cannon captured by Villa after he was released from prison in Mexico City.] About September 12, 1913, Kueck came to escort me out of prison, and in his own carriage drove me to the railway station, bound north, out of Mexico. I had a sheaf of letters, signed by Kueck, which recommended me, as Baron von der Goltz, to the good offices of German Consular representatives throughout the United States and requested them to supply me with funds. The last man who spoke to me in Chihuahua was Col. Carlos Orozco, commander of the Sixth Battalion of Infantry, and Gen. Mercado’s right-hand man, though his bitter enemy. His farewell was a threat. “You are lucky to get out of Mexico,” he told me. “If you ever come back and I see you I will have you shot at once.” My next meeting with Col. Carlos Orozco occurred on Mexican soil. Escorted by Consul Kueck out of Mexico I went up to El Paso, determined to return to Mexico as soon as possible. But before I did anything else, I felt a very great desire to square accounts with Gen. Salvador Mercado. So I stopped off at El Paso to look for Labansat, the Constitutionalist about whom my friend Pablo Almendaris told me while I was in prison, I lost no time in getting into touch with him and other members of the Constitutionalist junta. Another acquaintance made at that time proved very useful to me later. Dr. L. A. Raschbaum, Francisco Villa’s personal physician, was a fellow guest at the Ollendorf Hotel.