The Hattiesburg news., 1910-10-17

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view Orieans' La 1867
tirely familiar with modern fire arms
for my gun case seemed to please
them greatly. l noticed that two of
their number seemed to have been
wounded. One showed an unmistak-
able gun-shot wound in the shoulder
half healed and another had his head
bound up. Some of them were armed
| with old style rifles and some with
pistols, but all had great hooked hene-
quen knives, weapons that are terrific
| ly effective in the hands of men train
ed to use them. The quiet deliberate
| manner in which they had gone about
the capture and their silence were in
marked contrast with many other ma
tive raids which l have witnessed or
known.
After perhaps an hour of travel
through the forest l began to hear
voices on ahead of us and the barking
of dogs. Then l caught sight of some
flaring torches and in a few minutes
l was stood on my feet against a tree
and found myself confronting the en-
tire band, men, women and children,
numbering about two hundred. All of
the able bodied men had gone to effect
my capture. Outside of a great volume
of chatter and much curiosity as to
my outfit there was no marked demon
stration among them.
Captured by Maya Rebels.
BY the light of the torches l could
make out that we were in clearing in
which two ruined buildings of one OF
the old towns stood and that the band
appeared to be camped in the build
ings. l saw large number of other
wounded men and one of the fellows
who was guarding me wore a part of
the outfit of a Mexican regionale and
carried fine Mauser rifle. From all
of this l gathered that l had fallen
into the hands of band of Maya reb-
els and my heart sank within me.
My fears were not assuaged by the
behavior of young man obviously
the brother of the chief of the band.
He was anxious to display himself in
some way and taking an old well-worn
henequen knife, whetted to razorlike
keenness, he approached me and with
deft swings and cuts Topped off all the
protruding ends of cord, etc., that he
could without loosening me. He
trimmed me as neatly as he would a
bough and then amused himself by
seeing how close he could swing the
blade to my nose without touching it.
The women and children and nearly
all of the men went back to bed soon,
and nature so asserted herself that |
too, dropped into a doze and did not
waken till dawn. Then l discovered
something else that pleased me great
ly. In trimming me down, the young
Maya had cut off too much from one
of the principal knots and whenever |
chose could separate it by filling out
my chest.
| They appeared to have but a small
supply of food and the signs of more
wounded stretched in an outdor hos
pital under the trees convinced me
that they had been hard pressed by
government troops at no late date and
had retreated into the Businesses of
| the forest. For two days we had been
living on our carried water supply and
| was curious as to what theirs was
| Very soon l knew.
When the sun was about an hour
| high the chief called together a num-
Der of the older men and they held a
long conference concerning me. At
last one approached and addressed me
in Spanish patois, asking me about
the troops of Gen. Flores and where
they were moving. When l replied in
| Spanish, l noticed the listeners ex-
changing glances. I told them who
was, what l was doing in the country
and that l know nothing about the
| federal troops. When l said this the
chief laughed at me and thrust in my
face the papers I had got from the
Mexican consul in Belize. The chief
could not read the papers which he
had found in my belongings, nor could
any of his band, but on the envelope
was blazoned the Mexican crest and
colors and on the papers was the Mex
ican seal. l saw that was convicted
by circumstantial evidence of having
something to do with the Mexican