In pursuing bandits along the Sierra Madre it does not help you to take finger-prints from the walls of railroad cars or to file all finger-prints at headquarters. The thing is to get the bandits. When you have them, shoot them. This done, you may check up on the finger-prints. There is no other way.
In certain Latin-American countries, including Mexico, bandits, gangsters, hold-up men, highway-robbers, never see a court from the inside, never have a lawyer to speak to, never are allowed bail, never hear of a parole-board. This is the reason why there are no bandits and no gangsters who rule by their own laws. They may get away with one hold-up, perhaps with two; when very lucky, with three. Then they are no longer.
The bandits, corrupted Indians in part, mestizos mostly, are with rare exceptions small farmers, more peasants than farmers. They know every trail for miles around their homes, every mountain path, every hole in the ground where a man may hide, every crack in the rocks where a man might squeeze himself through. In such a crack a fugitive may sit for three days without food for fear of betraying his hiding-place.
Eighty out of every hundred federal soldiers are pure Indians, selected from those tribes for whom war has been the main occupation since this continent rose above the oceans. Against them no hide-out is of any use. The rest of the soldiers are mestizos who know all the tricks and can make use of them more cunningly than the bandits, for they have the advantage which every hunter has against the hunted. The officers in charge of the hunt know by long experience and by special education how to make use of their men to the best advantage.
Soldiers—all cavalry men in this case, and led by a first lieutenant or a captain—about eighteen in all, ride into a village. The officer has traced the tracks of certain horses to this village or to the vicinity. For many reasons he thinks it likely that a few of the bandits may live in this village, or have relatives here or friends.
The train had been attacked by about two hundred men, only twenty or twenty-five of them doing the actual killing and robbing, all the others being stationed along the road to take part in the fight only should it happen that the train came to a stop before the convoy was subdued. Otherwise they were to carry away the booty thrown out of the train by the robbers.
The assault over, the band breaks up in little groups. Most of them return to their villages, where they own a piece of land, have their families, and live the life of peaceful farmers. Many of them do not even tell their wives or mothers where they have been and what they have done while they were away, apparently gone to market. On coming back they hide their guns, or not, since the peasants after the revolution were allowed to have guns to fight the big hacendados, the former feudal lords, who by the revolution lost the greater part of their huge domains, which were parceled out to the peasants; so the possession of fire-arms alone is no proof that their owner is a bandit.
The officer works mainly on hunches, and he uses certain tricks which he knows that these bandits, ignorant and superStitious men with little intelligence, will inevitably fall for. Their minds are not quick enough to answer questions for any length of time without being so bewildered that they confess.
Now, the soldiers are riding into Chalchilmitesa, a village far off the roads, inhabited by Indian farmers.
In the shade before a palm hut two mestizos are squatting, smoking cigarettes they have made by rolling tobacco into corn leaves. They watch the soldiers with little interest and without making any move or trying to hide.
The soldiers pass. But thirty yards beyond the hut the officer orders them to halt. One of the mestizos rises and tries to go behind the hut. His pal, however, with a gesture of his head, tells him to stay where he is. He squats down again.
A sergeant has taken notice of the behavior of the two men and says a few words to his captain, who rides to a hut opposite the one where the two mestizos are. He asks for a drink of water and dismounts. Taking the earthen vessel in which the water is offered, he drinks, and asks if they have had much rain lately.
He meditates for a while, apparently about nothing in particular, and walks across to where the two mestizos are.
“You are living in this pueblo?”
“No, patron, we are not living here.”
“Where are you from?”
“We have our house and our piece of land, our milpa, in Mezquital, mi jefe.”
“On a visit here? Visiting your compadre, I figure.”
“Yes, coronel.”
The captain calls one of his men to bring his horse. The officer tries to mount his horse. He seems tired from the long march over the hot country. The horse is dancing about, and the officer has trouble getting his foot into the stirrup. The horse is nearly kicking the mestizos, so one of them rises and comes close to help the officer get into the saddle.
The captain has somehow touched the man. He sets his foot firmly on the ground again as if waiting for the horse to get quiet.
“What have you got in your pocket?” the officer asks the man unexpectedly.
The mestizo looks down along his pants and fixes his eyes on his pocket, which seems rather bulky. He turns around as though he wants to go back to the hut. But he notes all the soldiers coming along without having received an order to do so. At least so it seems to him. He now tries to calm himself by rolling another cigarette and asks his pal if he also would like another.
The captain is still standing, seemingly absolutely uninterested in anything. Just as the mestizo lights his cigarette, the captain grasps him by the shirt-collar with his left hand and at the same time thrusts his right hand in the man’s pocket.
The other mestizo has risen. He shrugs his shoulders as if to say that he does not care about what is going on here. But when he wants to go behind the hut, he finds three soldiers standing in his way. He grins and tries no other move.
Now the captain looks at what he has taken from the pocket of the mestizo. It is a rather expensive leather purse.
The captain laughs, and both the mestizos laugh as if the whole thing were just a joke.
He empties the purse into his hand. A few gold pieces, silver, a few coins, and small change. Twenty-five pesos.
“That’s your money?” asks the captain.
“What do you think, chief, of course, claro, it’s my money.”
“So much money and such a ragged and torn shirt?”
“I was just about to go to town tomorrow, coronel, and buy me another shirt.”
“You suffer often from nose-bleeding?” the captain asks.
The man looks down at his shirt. “You said it, mi jefe, I certainly do.”
“I thought so.” The officer looks at the other things found in the purse. A railroad ticket to Torreon. First class. This mestizo never rides first class. Something more still. The ticket has the date of the day when the train was robbed.
The other mestizo is searched quickly. He has little money loose in his pocket, but he has a diamond ring and two pearl earrings tucked away in the watch-pocket of his pants.
“Where are your horses?”
“In the corral back of the jacal,” the mestizo answers.
The captain sends one of his men to examine the hoofs. The man returns. “The hoofs fit all right, my captain.”
The horses are poor beasts. The saddles are old, worn-out, and ragged.
“Where are the rifles and the guns?”
One of the mestizos answers: “In the corral where the horses were.”