"Make ready, all you darling Jalisco girls of my heart, for I'm coming along too!" Quail shouted, twisting back the brim of his hat. The enthusiasm and rejoicing were general. Demetrio's friends, in the excitement of drunkenness, offered their services. Demetrio was so happy that he could scarcely speak. They were going to fight Orozco and his men! At last, they would pit themselves against real men! At last they would stop shooting down the Federals like so many rabbits or wild turkeys. "If I could get hold of Orozco alive," Blondie said, "I'd rip off the soles of his feet and make him walk twenty-four hours over the sierra!" "Was that the guy who killed Madero?" asked Meco. "No," Blondie replied solemnly, "but once when I was a waiter at 'El Monico,' up in Chihuahua, he hit me in the face!" "Give Camilla the roan mare," Demetrio ordered Pancracio, who was already saddling the horses. "Camilla can't go!" said War Paint promptly. "Who in hell asked for your opinion?" Demetrio retorted angrily. "It's true, isn't it, Camilla? You were sore all over, weren't you? And you've got a fever right now?" "Well--anything Demetrio says." "Don't be a fool! say 'No,' come on, say 'No,"' War Paint whispered nervously into Camilla's ear. "I'll tell you, War Paint.... It's funny, but I'm beginning to fall for him.... Would you believe it!" Camilla whispered back. War Paint turned purple, her cheeks swelled. Without a word she went out to get her horse that Blondie was saddling. IX A whirlwind of dust, scorching down the road, suddenly broke into violent diffuse masses; and Demetrio's army emerged, a chaos of horses, broad chests, tangled manes, dilated nostrils, oval, wide eyes, hoofs flying in the air, legs stiffened from endless galloping; and of men with bronze faces, ivory teeth, and flashing eyes, their rifles in their hands or slung across the saddles. Demetrio and Camilla brought up the rear. She was still nervous, white-lipped and parched; he was angry at their futile maneuver. For there had been battles, no followers of Orozco's to be seen. A handful of Federals, routed. A poor devil of a priest left dangling from a mesquite; a few dead, scattered over the field, who had once been united under the archaic slogan, RIGHTS AND RELIGION, with, on their breasts, the red cloth insignia: Halt! The Sacred Heart of Jesus is with me! "One good thing about it is that I've collected all my back pay," Quail said, exhibiting some gold watches and rings stolen from the priest's house. "It's fun fighting this way," Manteca cried, spicing every other word with an oath. "You know why the hell you're risking your hide." In the same hand with which he held the reins, he clutched a shining ornament that he had torn from one of the holy statues. After Quail, an expert in such matters, had examined Manteca's treasure covetously, he uttered a solemn guffaw. "Hell, Your ornament is nothing but tin!"