try of Gobernacion (analogous to our national Department of Justice), they are employed constantly on scout service for the army, particularly during field manoeuvers or in actual campaigning.

To the rurales also falls the duty of selecting and training all the horses for the regular cavalry of the Mexican army, as well as for the mounted police of the different States. In a country like Mexico, where horsemanship has been reduced to its finest points, training a horse for the saddle means not merely teaching it to be bridlewise and to respond to the spur in walk, trot, and gallop. It implies the far more complicated art of training a horse to the hackamore halter so that it will slide, stop dead short, or turn on a dollar; besides mastering the difficult work of running down other horses, and bringing the lasso to bear. Compared with a welltrained Mexican rurale horse one of our crack polo ponies would make but a poor showing.

While the rurales are thus employed by the Mexican army they differ from the regular soldiers in several vital points. Any one of these would be enough to enhance the rurales in the eyes of the common people. First of all, in popular admiration, stands the fact that the rurales are better mounted and are better riders than the clumsy dragoons of the regular army. Furthermore they receive better pay than the soldiers or State police, and their pay is more regular. In addition to

Drawn by Edward Borein TEACHING A HORSE TO LIE DOWN

this they are better equipped. Their rig is not only more showy, but far better adapted to the needs of the service. Above all it is a glorification of the national cos

the unwritten law which requires rurales to remain unmarried. They may have sweethearts a-plenty, but no wives. This alone means much more than it would with us, for, in Mexico as in other LatinAmerican countries, the regular soldiers are allowed to take the field accompanied by hordes of women camp-followers, who cook and sew and carry bundles for their husbands. Even nursing babes follow their fathers into battle. This patriarchal practice, a relic of Indian life and the medieval barbarism of impressing all ablebodied peons into the marching columns during war time, without consideration for the women and children depending on them,-is scorned by the rurales. Your true rurale is a bachelor at heart who holds it a disgrace to have his free movements hampered by a woman. All of which does not make the rurales less pleasing to the eyes of the señoritas of Mexico.

In truth, a rurale in his full rig on horseback, is a sight to gladden the eyes of more than maidens. Clad in russet, or mouse-gray, or velvety black, all soft leather from neck to ankles, with elabo

own choosing. It is likely to consist of pearl-handled revolver, silver-embossed sheath-knife, braided lasso and quirt, hugeroweled spurs, enormous wide-brimmed sombrero, and silver-mounted horse-gear. Only the red woolen blankets, the swords, and the regulation Mauser carbines with cartridges to match, and, of course, the horses, are furnished by the government. The commissioned officers are distinguished by their lighter sabers with steel scabbards and by their silver-trimmed hats. Commanding officers are attended by buglers. But their real distinguishing marks are

The rurale lingo and ways of life are no less picturesque than their equipments. While the official medium of communication is military Spanish, their every-day language is racy vaquero talk, tinged with Indian idioms, and liberally interspersed with blood-curdling ancient Castilian oaths handed down from the days of Cortes and his conquistadores. All true rurales are born gamblers, are addicted to Mexican monte and mescal, know how to pluck the heart out of a guitar, and are fond of dancing the jota or fandango in the full glory of all their rig,-knife,

lasso, gun, spurs, and all. To "kiss and ride away like a rurale" has become a proverb of Mexico.

The military organization of the rurales. is very simple. There are some three thousand men in all, divided into twelve troops of two hundred men each. These troops are distributed all over Mexico in isolated detachments, and the men in them are shifted about at will according to the needs of the hour. At the moment when this was written two thirds of the entire force of the rurales were doing scout and skirmish service in the disaffected districts of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California. Very seldom, or never, so far as I am informed, have all the rurales been brought together to be viewed as one body. Still, every now and then, especially on September 16, the national holiday, there are grand reviews of rurales, at which a thousand and more of these wild horsemen may be seen cutting figures with their lassos, and performing other feats of daring horsemanship.

Every rurale troop is officered by one commandante, one captain, three first lieutenants, and twelve second lieutenants, called cabos,-"chiefs." Among the enlisted men in each troop are three top sergeants, twelve simple sergeants, twentyfour corporals, nine buglers, and two standard-bearers.

The commander-in-chief is General Francisco M. Ramirez, an old graybearded war veteran and hero of untold hairbreadth escapes and adventures, who is one of the popular idols of Mexico. Every peon boy old enough to swing his little lasso, knows the name and fame of Ramirez. Next under him comes Colonel Kosterlinsky, a Polish nobleman, who, so far as I am aware, is the only foreigner serving as an officer of rurales. There was another who served as a rough-rider under Roosevelt at San Juan hill, but he was killed in a fight with Yaqui Indians.

Compared to the rurales, our own regular cavalry and that of most European military establishments would have to be classed as mounted infantry. The rurales are horsemen and nothing else. Of other equipment, beyond what can be carried on the saddle, the rurales have none. Thus they have no machine-guns, no troop-wagons or pack-trains, no camp-kitchens, fieldsmithies, or tents. Every rurale carries

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his own supplies, light cooking utensils and horseshoeing outfit. From the moment that he swings into his vaquero saddle, he and his mount are expected to live off the country. Generally they live very well. They also have scout dogs, trained to run down fugitives and to hold their masters' horses by the bridle.

In all other respects the service is essentially that of irregular cavalry, comparable only to such lines of service as that of the Northwest Mounted Police of Canada, of the State Rangers of Texas, or that of the Trans-Baikal Cossacks in Siberia and northern Manchuria. There is no crack cavalry in the world better mounted than the rurales, not even excepting the Imperial Cossack guards of the Czar, the Royal Horseguards of King George of England, the Black Hussars of Brunswick, or the superb mounted police of New York City. One reason why the rurale men and mounts are so much better than the crack cavalry troops of other countries is because both men and horses serve almost continuously in the open, so that they do not grow rusty under the influences of barrack life.

When rurales are sent to chase bandits they know they are expected to get their men dead or alive. When the bandits put up a fight, the rurales generally find it more convenient to get their bandits dead. This saves both trouble and food. In all such matters your honest rurale has a strong sense for the economies of life. Prisoners are regarded as a useless expense. If a prisoner happens to be a crack shot and horseman and has sense enough to wish to reform into a good rurale, well and good; but, otherwise, it is considered impracticable to burden the government with mere deadwood.

There is a convenient law in Mexico which covers all such cases. It is called the ley fuga. By its terms soldiers and policemen are justified in shooting prisoners whenever they try to escape. In Mexico, it would seem, the instinct for liberty is so powerful that few prisoners can resist it, at least few bandit prisoners. Almost invariably they try to break loose. This is the more remarkable since dangerous prisoners in Mexico on their way to jail are always marched along with elbows triced behind the back and with a loop of a lasso around the neck, the other end of

which is fastened to a rurale saddle-horn. Even at night their bonds are not loosened. Yet most of the bandits unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the rurales, so it would appear from the rurales' reports, commit the singular error of trying to make a dash for freedom under the very muzzles of their captors' carbines. So they get themselves shot. At any rate, so say the official records. There is no bravery in such ferocity, when wreaked on helpless prisoners, yet it would be a mistake to call it cowardice.

No one who knows Mexico would ever call the rurales cowards.

Alone, or with a mere handful of comrades, they stake their lives against odds before which whole columns of regular soldiers recoil. When an outlaw crouching in ambush has been gunning for you, and has done his best to murder you and your comrades, it is hard for a simpleminded child of nature to see why such a man, once laid by the heels, should continue to live, any more than a rattlesnake? Though the rurales show themselves harsh and cruel under provoking circumstances, they make up for such faults by the bravery with which they expose themselves at the call of danger. Were not the rurales scouting and skirmishing in the van of the troops during Indian campaigns or rebel uprisings, the soldiers with their lumbering artillery and pack-trains would often be helpless.

During the present rebellion along the northern frontier of Mexico, the rurales of Chihuahua and Sonora have had to bear the brunt of the guerrilla fighting. Unlike the Federal troops, when meeting reverses, they have not scurried back into strong barracks, or settled down into intrenchments, but invariably have rallied and returned to the fray like wasps swarming around the head of a farmer. There was one instance, not long ago, when a detachment of thirty-five rurales ran into a band of some hundred insurrectos, whose advantage of position was such that the rurales were caught in a cross-fire and had to scatter for the open, leaving nine comrades dead on the field, and over a dozen horses. The affair was heralded as a great rebel victory. That night the scattered rurales got together again, and riding cautiously around the rebel stronghold, suddenly charged into it from the rear, taking the camp by surprise. A few men fell on both sides in the fierce night attack, but the bulk of the rebel force-more than a hundred strong-were taken unawares and surrendered.

After exploits like this, is it any wonder that the mere name of the rurales is enough to strike terror into the hearts of some nimble-footed nimble-footed people across the Rio Grande? Others in that country,-among them President Diaz,-proudly look upon the rurales as the flower of the best fighting forces of Mexico.