iods when
they did not see him for a week at a time. Once, he was away a month.
These occasions were always capped by his return, when, without
advertisement or speech, he laid gold coins on May Sethby's desk. Again,
for days and weeks, he spent all his time with the Junta. And yet again,
for irregular periods, he would disappear through the heart of each day,
from early morning until late afternoon. At such times he came early and
remained late. Arrellano had found him at midnight, setting type with
fresh swollen knuckles, or mayhap it was his lip, new-split, that still
bled.

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 crump