With the disappearance of the engineer’s drawings the mystery that surrounded the man with the scarred foot was doubled. Neither Jack nor Mr. Ryder could be quite positive of the clue they had been following. To them the fact that the trouble maker went about without shoes argued that he was a peon, and they could well understand why a peon, imbued with the spirit of revolution, should seek to make conditions as uncomfortable as possible for President Huerta, against whose rule they were revolting. That the person in question should undertake to wreck the power plant, or portions of it, seemed quite natural. But when it came to stealing drawings that were absolutely useless to them the whole affair took on a different complexion. Who was this individual with the scar on[130] his foot? Was he a peon or was he some one of the other employees about the plant? Or again, was he a soldier, or a member of the band of rurales, or was he some one of the bandits in the mountains who ran the guard at night and accomplished his trickery under the very eyes of soldiers and employees? The whole situation was thoroughly muddled and Jack and Mr. Ryder spent days trying to fathom the knotty problem. To a technical man the drawings were of the utmost value, for they laid bare to him the secret of an invention that would make him wealthy. But on the other hand it would seem that the man was moved more by his sympathies with the revolutionists than by his desire for personal gain, since it was quite apparent that the person who was so industriously engaged in making things disagreeable for President Huerta and the man who stole the drawings was the same individual.
“It is a mighty peculiar situation,” said Mr. Ryder one evening, after he and Jack had been puzzling over the matter for several hours. “This is my only conclusion. The man must[131] be a peon, or a soldier, for they are the only persons hereabout who are interested in the revolution at all. He has heard of the drawings somehow, and believing that they would be of value to Zapata or Carranza (or whoever else he favors), he stole them. Later on he will probably turn them over to some one of these leaders with the hope, perhaps, that he will be given a commission or some other form of recognition for his service to the cause.
“But after I have reached that conclusion,” he added, “I am not absolutely certain that I am shooting in the right direction.”
For some time after the disappearance of the papers everything ran smoothly at the plant. But in the meantime disconcerting rumors were coming in from the mountains about bands of Zapatistas who were gathering at all points. The rurales who went out to patrol the hills and in particular to ride the transmission line to see that it was not disturbed were the first to bring in reports of skirmishes with these rebels. Almost daily several of the soldier-policemen would locate a handful of armed natives somewhere in the[132] hills. Always a fight followed which resulted in at least one or two fatalities. More than once these green-clad riders came into Necaxa with dead or wounded comrades in their arms. And on several occasions they appeared at the power plant with prisoners bound hand and foot and tied to the backs of horses or burros like so many sacks of flour.
Short work was made of these men. Their fate was sealed the moment they were captured by the rurales. As a matter of form they were given a drumhead trial; that is, they were taken before the chief officer of the rurales and asked a number of unimportant questions. No matter how these questions were answered the sentence was the same. The natives were always condemned to be shot at sunrise the following morning.
Jack was present at the trial of one of these unfortunates and after the rebel was taken to the guardhouse the lad and Mr. Ryder went to visit him. It gave Jack a rather uncanny feeling when he realized that the man with whom they were talking would be dead and cold in ten hours. The Vermonter was up before[133] sunrise to see the prisoner led out and placed against the gray wall of the power plant. The firing squad was composed of five men and an officer who stood with sword drawn while a soldier bound a handkerchief about the eyes of the victim. When this was done the executioners took careful aim and waited for the abrupt command to fire.
The five guns roared simultaneously, and Jack grew sick as he saw the blindfolded figure sway backward first, then recover its balance only to pitch forward with a groan and become an inert and lifeless mass. When the smoke had cleared away the officer walked calmly up to the dead man and drawing his revolver emptied the entire six chambers into the already lifeless body. This, Jack learned, was prescribed by the military regulations of Mexico, which state that an officer in charge of a firing squad, is h............