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"We've got to go back to Tepatitlan, General," said Luis Cervantes, scanning the dispatch rapidly. "You've got to leave the men there while you go to Lagos and take the train over to Aguascalientes." There was much heated protest, the men muttering to themselves or even groaning out loud. Some of them, mountaineers, swore that they would not continue with the troop. Camilla wept all night.
"Bring me anyone you find hiding or running away," he commanded in a loud voice. "What? What did you say?" Valderrama cried in surprise. "The men of the sierra? Those brave men who've not yet done what those chickens down in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas have done all the time? Our own brothers, who weather storms, who cling to the rocks like moss itself? I protest, sir; I protest!"
They remembered that one year ago they had captured Zacatecas. They grew sadder still. Juchipila, like the other towns they had passed through on their way from Tepic, by way of Jalisco, Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, was in ruins. The black trail of the incendiaries showed in the roofless houses, in the burnt arcades.
And rising above the babble, from the car ahead ever the shrill voice, "Gentlemen, a well-dressed young man stole ..." The streets in Aguascalientes were so many refuse piles. Men in khaki moved to and fro like bees before their hive, overrunning the restaurants, the crapulous lunch houses, the parlous hotels, and the stands of the street vendors on which rotten pork lay alongside grimy cheese.
There's plenty of pretty girls to give us a good time," Blondie said. "Right now I feel like getting damn drunk," Demetrio answered, spurring his horse forward and leaving them as if he wished to abandon himself entirely to his sadness. After many hours of riding he called Cervantes. "Listen, Tenderfoot, why in hell do we have to go to Aguascalientes?"
In Zacatecas and Aguascalientes, in the little country towns and the neighboring communities, haciendas and ranches were deserted. When one of the officers found a barrel of tequila, the event assumed miraculous proportions. Everything was conducted with secrecy and care; deep mystery was preserved to oblige the soldiers to leave on the morrow before sunrise under Anastasio and Venancio.
"Don't you think it advisable to go to Aguascalientes first, General?" Luis Cervantes asked. "What for?" "Our funds are melting slowly." "Nonsense ... forty thousand pesos in eight days!" "Well, you see, just this week we recruited over five hundred new men; all the money's gone in advance loans and gratuities," Luis Cervantes answered in a low voice. "No! We'll go straight to the sierra.
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