The Mission of Janice Day Part 34

The twinkling lights of La Guarda were now near at hand. They were not halted but rattled into the sprawling little town and on to a large, square, low building, the entrance to which was a wide and dimly lighted archway.

"Hi tunket!" breathed Marty. "It looks like a police station. D'you s'pose we're going to be pinched, Janice?"

But he grinned as he asked the question and got down nonchalantly enough, to help his cousin alight.

"Not much like the calaboose at Middletown," he observed.

"You horrid boy!" Janice said. "Are you trying to scare me?"

"Couldn't do it," declared Marty with admiration. "You're a reg'lar feller, Janice."

"Thank you, dear. I know you mean to compliment me. Now, what is Manuel doing?"

The teamster had called some question into the empty archway of the building, repeating it several times. There now appeared a little, shrewd-looking Spaniard without a spear of hair on either head or face, and wearing a flapping gown over what was plainly his pajamas.

Manuel and this apparition gabbled in their own tongue for several minutes; then the teamster gestured toward the bald man, saying to Marty:

"Senor Don Abreguardo. He will tak' you in--alla right. _Mi dinero, senor._"

This was a request for payment, as Marty very well knew, so the boy handed over a five-dollar gold piece. Manuel looked at the coin suspiciously, bit it, rang it on one of the flagstones, weighed it thoughtfully in his palm, and finally pocketed it and drove off without further word.

"What do you know about that?" murmured Marty.

Janice had already turned to the old man in the flapping gown. He bowed very low to her.

"Within," he said clearly, in good English if a little stilted in diction--"within lies my poor house. We Mexicans have no word for 'home,' senorita; but _la patria_ means more than country. All I possess save _la patria_ lies herein. It is yours."

"Why, he is even more polite than Don Jose," whispered the girl as they followed the Mexican who had evidently got out of bed to attend them.

"Ye-as," Marty said slowly. "But it seems to me they offer too much."

"They are not as cautious as us Yankees," his cousin said, smiling.

"_Now_ you've said a mouthful," announced the boy with emphasis.

The pa.s.sage through the wall led to a roomy court around which the house was built. There was the tinkle of water falling into a basin, the fresh smell of vegetation, and by the light of the stars Janice saw that trees were growing here.

"It is late, senorita and senor. My family have retired. I will a.s.sign you both rooms and in the morning we will become acquainted--eh?" said the don. "This way, please. You are brother and sister?"

"Cousins," Janice explained.

"Ah--yes. You would not be separate far--eh? This room for you, then, senorita. The next on the right for our young senor--eh?"

Lamps burned in both rooms. They were comfortably furnished and the stone floor had rugs upon it.

"You will be undisturbed here, I a.s.sure you. In the morning, senorita, a woman will wait upon you."

He bowed and clattered away in his hard, heel-less slippers.

"Seems like a good sort of a creature, after all," Marty said. "Don Abreguardo, eh?"

Janice made no reply save to bid him good-night and entered her room.

She had lost that feeling of uncertainty and actual fear that had oppressed her. The future promised more cheer than she had believed possible.

Those back in Polktown had been entirely wrong. Her own judgment seemed to have been the sounder. Here she was, over the Border, miles on the way to her wounded father!

"And everybody so kind!" she thought as she sank to sleep on the comfortable couch under the canopy. "Only I wish we might have caused the arrest of that Tom Hotchkiss."

It seemed to the weary girl as though she closed her eyes and opened them immediately upon the broad sunshine and the tinkling fountain in the court of Don Abreguardo's dwelling. She heard Marty's voice and that of their host outside.

Janice arose and found herself well rested after her repose. She drew the lattices at the window and their clatter aroused something else.

Just inside her closed door, leaning against the wall, was something she had not before noticed. It looked like a bag of old clothes covered by a purple _serape_. This began to move, quite startling the girl for an instant.

The _serape_ was put aside languidly and a bare brown arm appeared.

Janice retreated to the other side of the canopied bed and watched. A girl's head was revealed--lank, black hair, a very dark face with high cheek bones, bead-black eyes, and huge silver rings hanging in the lobes of her ears, fairly touching her bared shoulders.

"What do you want here?" gasped Janice.

"I am the one sent, senorita!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the girl in English. "I help you, senorita. It is an honor." And, having risen quickly and as gracefully as a panther, she bowed.

"Oh! you are the maid?"

"_Si, senorita!_"

Janice decided she must be an Indian--one of pure blood. There was a look about her different from that of the Mexican girls she had seen.

"What is your name?" asked the girl from the North, giving herself up to the ministrations of the maid, who seemed quite skillful.

"Luz, senorita, is what I am called. It is the little name for Lucita, senorita."

"You have worked long for Don Abreguardo?"

"I was born in the house, senorita," said the girl, with a flash of her white teeth.

"Is there a large family?" Janice asked doubtfully. "I am a stranger, you know."

"His mother lives--the ancient Donna Abreguardo. He now has his second wife, has the good don. By his first he has two daughters and a son.

Young Don Ricardo is married and is at the Hacienda del Norte. The two senoritas are of the marriageable age--oh, yes! But in these troubled times who has thought for marriage?"

"And this is all his family?"

"There are the children. Three. Of the good don's second marriage. He has his quiver full, as my people say," and the Indian maid chuckled.

She seemed so intelligent that Janice would have continued the conversation had she not heard Marty moving so impatiently about the courtyard.

"Come on, Janice!" he said as she appeared. "There's breakfast waiting--and it ain't _all_ beans. I'm as hungry as a shark."