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BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

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OVER THE EXILE ROAD 51<br />

"Then why are you here?"<br />

"Au, we are all Yaquis to General Torres. It makes<br />

no difference to him. You are dark. You dress in my<br />

clothes and you will be a Yaqui—to him. He makes no<br />

investigation, asks no questions—only takes you."<br />

"Where are you from -" ' I asked of the old man.<br />

"Most of us are from Ures. They took us in the<br />

night and carried us away without allowing us to make<br />

up bundles of our belongings."<br />

"I am from Horcasitas," spoke up the young athlete<br />

with the babe on his arm. "I was plowing in the field<br />

when they came, and they did not give me time to unhitch<br />

my oxen."<br />

"Where is the mother of your baby?" I inquired curiously<br />

of the young father.<br />

"Dead in San Marcos," he replied, closing his teeth<br />

tight. "That three weeks' tramp over the mountains<br />

killed her. They have allowed me to keel) the little<br />

one—so far."<br />

"Did any of you make resistance when the soldiers<br />

came to take you? " I asked.<br />

"No." znswered the old man from Ures. "We went<br />

quietly; we did not try to run away." Then with a<br />

smile: "The officers found more trouble in looking after<br />

their men, their privates, to prevent them from running<br />

away, from deserting, than they did with us.<br />

"We were one hundred and fifty-three at the start, we<br />

of Ures," went on the 01(1 man. "Farm laborers, all of<br />

us. We worked for small farmers, poor men, men with<br />

not more than half a dozen families each in their employ.<br />

One day a government agent visited the neighborhood<br />

and ordered the bosses to give an account of all<br />

their laborers. The bosses obeyed, but they (lid not<br />

know what it meant until a few days later, when the

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