II
The time of the crisis approached. Whether or not the
Revolution would be depended upon the Junta, and the Junta was
hard-pressed. The need for money was greater than ever before,
while money was harder to get. Patriots had given their last
cent and now could give no more. Section gang laborers-fugitive
peons from Mexico--were contributing half their scanty wages.
But more than that was needed. The heart-breaking, conspiring,
undermining toil of years approached fruition. The time was
ripe. The Revolution hung on the balance. One shove more, one
last heroic effort, and it would tremble across the scales to
victory. They knew their Mexico. Once started, the Revolution
would take care of itself. The whole Diaz machine would go down
like a house of cards. The border was ready to rise. One
Yankee, with a hundred I.W.W. men, waited the word to cross
over the border and begin the conquest of Lower California. But
he needed guns. And clear across to the Atlantic, the Junta in
touch with them all and all of them needing guns, mere
adventurers, soldiers of fortune, bandits, disgruntled American
union men, socialists, anarchists, rough-necks, Mexican exiles,
peons escaped from bondage, whipped miners from the bull-pens
of Coeur d'Alene and Colorado who desired only the more
vindictively to fight--all the flotsam and jetsam of wild
spirits from the madly complicated modern world. And it was
guns and ammunition, ammunition and guns--the unceasing and
eternal cry.
Fling this heterogeneous, bankrupt, vindictive mass across the
border, and the Revolution was on. The custom house, the
northern ports of entry, would be captured. Diaz could not
resist. He dared not throw the weight of his armies against
them, for he must hold the south. And through the south the
flame would spread despite. The people would rise. The defenses
of city after city would crumple up. State after state would
totter down. And at last, from every side, the victorious
armies of the Revolution would close in on the City of Mexico
itself, Diaz's last stronghold.
But the money. They had the men, impatient and urgent, who
would use the guns. They knew the traders who would sell and
deliver the guns. But to culture the Revolution thus far had
exhausted the Junta. The last dollar had been spent, the last
resource and the last starving patriot milked dry, and the
great adventure still trembled on the scales. Guns and
ammunition! The ragged battalions must be armed. But how? Ramos
lamented his confiscated estates. Arrellano wailed the
spendthriftness of his youth. May Sethby wondered if it would
have been different had they of the Junta been more economical
in the past.
"To think that the freedom of Mexico should stand or fall on a
few paltry thousands of dollars," said Paulino Vera.
Despair was in all their faces. Jose Amarillo, their last hope,
a recent convert, who had promised money, had been apprehended
at his hacienda in Chihuahua and shot against his own stable
wall. The news had just come through.
Rivera, on his knees, scrubbing, looked up, with suspended
brush, his bare arms flecked with soapy, dirty water.
"Will five thousand do it?" he asked.
They looked their amazement. Vera nodded and swallowed. He
could not speak, but he was on the instant invested with a vast
faith.
"Order the guns," Rivera said, and thereupon was guilty of the
longest flow of words they had ever heard him utter. "The time
is short. In three weeks I shall bring you the five thousand.
It is well. The weather will be warmer for those who fight.
Also, it is the best I can do."
Vera fought his faith. It was incredible. Too many fond hopes
had been shattered since he had begun to play the revolution
game. He believed this threadbare scrubber of the Revolution,
and yet he dared not believe.
"You are crazy," he said.
"In three weeks," said Rivera. "Order the guns."
He got up, rolled down his sleeves, and put on his coat.
"Order the guns," he said.
"I am going now."
