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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was his intention to stop at Jose's hut and deliver the message which Pesita had given him for the old Indian. Then he would disappear into the mountains to the west, join Pesita and urge a new raid upon some favored friend of General Francisco Villa, for Billy had no love for Villa.
As he went he slipped his hand inside his shirt and loosened something which hung beneath his left arm. "Li'l ol' ace-in-the-hole," he murmured affectionately. He found Pesita pacing back and forth before his tent an energetic bundle of nerves which no amount of hard riding and fighting could tire or discourage.
PESITA was a short, stocky man with a large, dark mustache. He attired himself after his own ideas of what should constitute the uniform of a general ideas more or less influenced and modified by the chance and caprice of fortune. At the moment that Billy, Bridge, and Miguel were dragged into his presence his torso was enwrapped in a once resplendent coat covered with yards of gold braid.
If, on the other hand, a neighbor of the last victim hears of it in time, and later Pesita comes to him, he assures Pesita that he is for Carranza, whereupon Pesita cries Viva Villa! and falls upon the poor unfortunate, who is lucky if he escapes with his life. But Americans! Ah, Pesita asks them no questions. He hates them all, and kills them all, whenever he can lay his hands upon them.
How easy it would have been to have hesitated a moment in the window before he made his presence known just long enough for Pesita to speak the single word that would have sent eleven bullets speeding into the body of the man who loved Barbara and whom Billy believed the girl loved. But did such a thought occur to Billy Byrne of Grand Avenue? It did not.
Nor did it. The brigand spokesman only grinned sardonically. "You may tell all this to Pesita himself, senor," he said. "Now come get a move on beat it!" The fellow had once worked in El Paso and took great pride in his "higher English" education. As he started to herd them from the hut Billy demurred. He turned toward Bridge. "Most of this talk gets by me," he said.
"Come this other way, Capitan. Pesita has so ordered it." Catching the drift of their remarks, Billy waved them to one side. "I'm bossin' this picnic," he announced. "Get out o' the way, an' be quick about it if you don't want to be hurted." Again he rode forward. Again the troopers interposed their mounts, and this time their leader cocked his carbine. His attitude was menacing.
As a matter of fact about all Billy had ever known of Mexico was that it had some connection with an important place called Juarez where running meets were held. To Billy Byrne, then, Pesita was a real general, and Billy, himself, a bona fide captain. He had entered an army which was at war with some other army. What they were warring about Billy knew not, nor did he care.
Wait until they are close up, then give them a few rounds; but go easy on the ammunition we haven't any too much." Pesita, expecting no resistance, rode boldly into the ranchyard. At the bunkhouse and the office his little force halted while three or four troopers dismounted and entered the buildings in search of victims. Disappointed there they moved toward the ranchhouse. "Lie low!"
"We were lucky to get off as well as we did," said an officer. Billy grinned inwardly as he thought of the pleasant frame of mind in which Pesita might now be expected to receive the news that eight of his troopers had been killed and his two "guests" safely removed from the sphere of his hospitality.
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