your temper, you stand up to them and tell them to go to
the Devil.

"Now if they understand you, everything's all right;
they leave you alone and that's all there is to it; but some-
times they try to talk you down and hit you and--well,
you know how it is, a fellow's quick-tempered and he'll be
damned if he'll stand for someone ordering him around
and telling him what's what. So before you know it, you've
got your knife out or your gun leveled, and then off you
go for a wild run in the sierra, until they've forgotten the
corpse, see?

"All right: that's just about what happened to Mon-
ico. The fellow was a greater bluffer than the rest. He
couldn't tell a rooster from a hen, not he. Well, I spit on
his beard because he wouldn't mind his own business.
That's all, there's nothing else to tell.

"Then, just because I did that, he had the whole God-
damned Federal Government against me. You must have
heard something about that story in Mexico City--
about the killing of Madero and some other fellow,
Felix or Felipe Diaz, or something--I don't know.
Well, this man Monico goes in person to Zacatecas to
get an army to capture me. They said that I was a Mad-
erista and that I was going to rebel. But a man like me
always has friends. Somebody came and warned me of
what was coming to me, so when the soldiers reached
Limon I was miles and miles away. Trust me! Then my