“It is well for him to train his men how to run fast,” said Jose, frowning sternly, “for some day they will meet Luis Longorio, and then—­you will see some of the swiftest running in all the world.”

“Yes!  Truly!” Dolores was trembling with excitement, her voice was shrill.  “God will need to lend them speed to catch this army of Longorio’s.  Otherwise no human legs could accomplish it.”

“Bah!  Who can argue with a woman?” sneered Jose.

Alaire, who had listened smilingly, now intervened to avert a serious quarrel.

“When the train arrives,” she told her horse-breaker, “I want you to find General Longorio and ask him to come here.”

“But, senora!” Jose was dumfounded, shocked.  “He is a great general—­”

“Give him this note.”  Quickly writing a few lines on a page from her note-book, she gave him the scrap of paper, which he carefully placed in his hat; then, shaking his head doubtfully, he left the car.

Flushed with triumph, Dolores took the first occasion to enlarge upon her theme.

“You will see what a monster this Longorio is,” she declared.  “It was like him to steal your beautiful cattle; he would steal a crucifix.  Once there was a fine ranch owned by a man who had two lovely daughters—­girls of great respectability and refinement.  But the man was a Candelerista.  Longorio killed him—­he and his men killed everybody on the hacienda except the daughters, and those he captured.  He took them with him, and for no good purpose, either, as you can imagine.  Naturally the poor creatures were nearly dead with fright, but as they rode along the elder one began talking with Longorio’s soldiers.  She made friends with them.  She pretended to care nothing about her fate; she behaved like a lost person, and the soldiers laughed.  They liked her spirit, God pity them!  Finally she declared she was a famous shot with a pistol, and she continued to boast until one of her guards gave her his weapon with which to show her skill.  Then what?  Before they could hinder her she turned in her saddle and shot her younger sister through the brain.  Herself she destroyed with a bullet in her breast.  Every word is the sacred truth, senora.  Longorio’s soul is stained with the blood of those two innocents.”

“I’ve heard many stories like that, from both sides,” Alaire said, gravely.

In the course of time the military train came creaking along on the main track and stopped, to the great interest of the southbound travelers.  It was made up of many stock cars crowded with cavalry horses.  Each animal bore its equipment of saddle and bridle, and penned in with them were the women and the children.  The soldiers themselves were clustered thickly upon the car roofs.  Far down at the rear of the train was a rickety passenger-coach, and toward this Jose Sanchez made his way.

There began a noisy interchange of greetings between the occupants of the two trains, and meanwhile the hot sun glared balefully upon the huddled figures on the car tops.  A half-hour passed, then occurred a commotion at the forward end of Alaire’s coach.