Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/299

 Rh The colonel was rather fond, as stated, of dwelling upon the soldier's point of view. One day, when he had been writing, as he said, to his mother, he declared, in a gloomy mood, not without its pathos: "That is the only tie that binds me to life. At forty-four, as you see me, I have passed through many disappointments and chagrins. I have little pleasure in the present and no great hopes for the future. Well, that is a proper state of mind for the soldier. "The soldier," he went on to say, "should be one who either sets little value upon life, and looks to death as a release, or one having a supreme sense of honor, of pride in his profession, and duty to his government. He makes a contract, as it were, with authority. He is well paid and highly considered; in return, he must be ready to spill his blood whenever his employer demands it."

The display of childish selfishness on my companion's part to which I have adverted consisted in getting up one morning and riding off on my horse, without saying so much as "By your leave." He had cast eyes on it as we went along, judged it to be on the whole preferable to his mule, and in this direct way took possession. The matter was adjusted, but not till it had assumed at one time an almost international aspect. It was in the coolness resulting from this incident that I rode on alone and first saw Iguala.

The expedition had stopped, after its usual day's march, before sunset, at the tropical hamlet of Platanillo. I was anxious, however, to pass the night instead in the notable city named. The twilight shuts down very rapidly here, and from the estimates of casual informants I `