It was long after sunrise next morning when the cavalcade of horsemen and their prisoners appeared at the station. Though the wires had been restrung and service started at nightfall the previous evening, the rescuers and rescued as well were too tired even to make the four-mile ride back to the plant. They had all been without sleep for practically forty-eight hours and even while the lines were being repaired many of the rurales tossed themselves on the ground and promptly became unconscious. The result was a night camp along the transmission line trail with no guard except that maintained over the prisoners, and this was hardly necessary for the rebels had been awake as long, if not longer, than the men from the power house, and were equally as tired. Necaxa was not awake either when the[206] rurales arrived. Aside from the few regular soldiers who were doing sentry duty, no one seemed to be stirring about the little town. The night men, who had been forced to stay awake longer than the rest, had already left the station and crawled into bed thoroughly weary. But the clatter of hoofs and the shouts of the soldiers greeting the returning fighters awakened many of them and attracted the attention of the men at work in the power station. Soon the community was alive with curious soldiers and workmen, all eager to hear of the adventures of Mr. Ryder and his repair crew. But when they saw the line of prisoners and beheld José Cerro, helpless on a stretcher made of one of the rurale’s blankets, they cheered lustily, for the capture of the rebel leader meant that the country was rid of one of its most vicious bandits.
Arthur Strong, the day operator, was one of the first to greet the engineer. The moment he heard the soldiers arrive he left the control room in charge of his assistant and hurried downstairs.
“By Jove, we were mighty pleased to get[207] your telephone message last night,” he said to Mr. Ryder. “We thought that Cerro had done away with all of you. I am glad to see you again. You too, Jack, old boy.” Strong shook hands with his superior as he spoke. “And, say, perhaps you don’t think we’ve had one fine time around here since you left yesterday afternoon,” he continued, to Mr. Ryder. “Things nearly went to the devil until we locked that man Nedham up.”
“Nedham,” exclaimed Mr. Ryder; “what’s he been doing?”
“Doing?” exclaimed Long; “why the man’s been drunk on pulque! You know what that stuff will do with you. I hadn’t seen him since the battle until last night after the rurales cleared out. About eight o’clock he came stumbling into the control room. His eyes were bulging out and his face was red and ugly. I was on duty and I had about made up my mind to stick through the night, since Lyman had gone with the rescuers. Nedham came staggering in just when I was busiest. He said he was going to run the plant for the night. I could see that he was in no shape to[208] run anything nor to issue orders either, so I told him to get back home and sleep it off. Then he got ugly. But I knew he was drunk so I did not bother with him. Then he became insistent and noisy and when he tried to punch me I had to call in two soldiers. They took him to the guardhouse. He was in there all last night. This morning I let him out. I think he is up at his cottage now, very much the worse for his spree.”
“What a fine assistant I have!” said Mr. Ryder sarcastically. “Tell Lyman to go and rout him out. I want to talk with him.”
While the engineer and the operator were talking, Captain Alvarez and his rurales arranged their prisoners in line along the south wall of the power station. This scene had interested Jack far more than the recital of Nedham’s drunken actions for it began to look to the lad as if a wholesale slaughter was about to take place.
“Heavens, I hope Captain Alvarez doesn’t intend to execute them all,” said the youth to Mr. Ryder when the day operator ceased talking. “That would be hideous. It would be[209] brutal murder. You can’t countenance such actions, Mr. Ryder?”
“Indeed I can’t,” said the engineer, hurrying toward Captain Alvarez, “and besides I want to have a word with Cerro before any execution takes place. I think that man knows some things that will help clear up the mystery that surrounds all our recent trouble.”
To do justice to the Mexican commander it must be said that he had not intended to have a wholesale execution. He explained this to Mr. Ryder quite frankly and stated that he merely intended to make the rebel leader face the firing squad while his followers looked on. He thought that it would be a capital way of teaching a lesson. After the execution he purposed sending the whole horde of prisoners to Mexico City, where they would be turned over to General Rodriguez to be confined in the military prison.
“If it is all the same to you,” said Mr. Ryder, “I would like to have a few words with Cerro before he is shot.”
“Certain,” said the officer, “only et ez not[210] so easy to mek him to talk, he is ah what you call—ah—to handle hard you know.”
The rebel leader was lying on the ground near the entrance to the guardhouse. His wounds had been bound up the evening before by one of his followers, but in spite of all efforts to ease him, it was quite evident that the man was suffering a great deal.
Mr. Ryder bent over the pros............