Tuztepec. I was writing a letter. I wanted to get word to my people, but they caught me before the letter was finished. They don't know where I am. They must think I am dead. My brother must have had to leave school. My—"
"Better stop," I said. "A cabo is coming!"
"No, not yet," he answered. "Quick! I will give you their address. Tell them that I never read the contract. Tell them that I never saw it until I came here. My brother's name is Juan ——"
"Look out!" I cried, but too late. "Whack!" The long cane struck the ploughman across the back. He winced, started to open his mouth again, but at a second whack he changed his mind and turned sullenly to his oxen.
The rains of our last two days in Valle Nacional made the trail to Tuztepec impassable, so we left our horses and traveled down river in a "balsa", a raft of logs on which was erected a tiny shelter house roofed with banana leaves. Two Indians, one at each end, poled and paddled the strange craft down the rushing stream, and from them we learned that the Indians themselves have had their day as slaves in Valle Nacional. The Spaniards tried to enslave them, but they fought to the death. They employed their tribal solidarity and fought in droves like wolves and in that way they regained and kept their freedom. Such a common understanding and such mass movements cannot, of course, be developed by the heterogeneous elements that today are brought together on the slave plantations.
At Tuztepec on our way we met Senor P——, politician, "labor agent," and relative of Felix Diaz, nephew of President Diaz and Chief of Police of Mexico City.
