The Mission of Janice Day Part 37

Marty exploded a mighty "Cricky!" Then he asked: "Is _that_ why you Mexicans are fighting all the time?"

"To get back our land--our own. To govern ourselves. _Si_, senor,"

Carlitos declared eagerly. "We long for a deliverer--a devoted leader who will free us from taskmasters both native and foreign. But we desire no foreign intervention--by goodness, no! Hands off, gringos. I weesh that Rio Grande," he concluded, pointing into the northeastern distance, "were ten thousand miles wide."

"Heh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom Hotchkiss, peering in the direction Carlitos pointed. "Is _that_ the river--just over there?"

"It is five miles away, senor."

"But I thought you were taking me away from the river all this time?"

sputtered the other. "Why! that's the Border, isn't it?"

"But yes, senor. We have to follow the road. I cannot drive the tin Leezie through the chaparral."

"I don't like it," muttered the man. "I thought we were already a long way from the States."

Marty nudged his cousin. "Scart as he can be, Janice," he whispered.

"'By goodness, yes!' I believe if we had the time, we could march old Red Vest back over the Border and clap him into jail!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BANDITS

The party got under way once more, Carlitos again silent and, Janice thought, Tom Hotchkiss eyeing her and Marty from time to time suspiciously. The fugitive had discovered that the couple in the back of the car were not Mexicans, and Hotchkiss was suspicious of all Americans. Indeed, he was living a very uneasy existence. Being naturally of a cowardly nature, even the distance he had put between himself and Polktown did not seem to his mind great enough to insure safety. The fact that, although they had been four hours on the road from La Guarda to San Cristoval, they were only five miles from the Rio Grande, greatly excited him.

Had their errand to San Cristoval and beyond not been so pressing, Janice and Marty might have conspired with Carlitos to get the swindling storekeeper back over the Border at some point where an American law officer could be found.

Janice believed she could do this. She was feeling much more certain of herself than she had on the train. Two days at the Border had made a great change in Janice Day. Marty was not the only independent one. The girl felt that, after all, the world outside her heretofore sheltered life was not so very difficult.

Thus far she had met nothing but kindness from people whom she had not expected to be kind. The way to her father seemed to be wide open before her. She was going to accomplish her mission without an iota of the trouble she had feared.

However, as this was not the time to make the attempt to bring Hotchkiss to justice she pulled the veil closer over her face and avoided the man's eyes when he chanced to look back. She hoped the fellow was just worried. Of course, being a thief and a swindler, he was suspicious of everybody. He showed very plainly that he distrusted even Carlitos. The Mexican, however, seemed in a cheerful mood again. His outbreak against the "buzzard," Senor Balda.s.so Nunez, must have relieved his mind.

They rattled up hill and down dale. Don Abreguardo's handmaid had put a basket of lunch into the car. At another well they stopped and ate this, Janice offering some to Carlitos and to his fat and perspiring seat mate.

"But yes, senorita," Carlitos said politely. "We do not reach La Gloria till sunset. Then we eat at Tomas Lopez's hotel. Fine hotel--by goodness, yes!"

"Why didn't you tell me it was so far?" grumbled Tom Hotchkiss. "I would have brought something along to eat."

Carlitos shrugged his shoulders. "I forget," he said. "Me, I have plent'

tobac' for roll cigareet; what more any _hombre_ need, I see not!"

They went on, pa.s.sing through a village now and then. Having turned now directly from the river, Tom Hotchkiss seemed in a better mood. He commented frankly upon the miserable habitations and the miserable people he saw.

"I don't see what they get out of it," he observed. "Filthy rags to clothe them, nothing to eat but beans, and most of the houses no better than pig-stys. Why! even the chickens--look at 'em, will you? They ain't fit to eat, they're so scrawny."

"They are not for eat, senor," said Carlitos softly. "They are for fight."

"For fighting, you mean?"

"_Si_, senor. The Mexican may be poor, but never too poor to fight good game c.o.c.k on Sunday after ma.s.s--by goodness, yes!"

In one of the villages Carlitos slowed down--then stopped. There was a group of old women squatting in the street before the door of an adobe dwelling. They swayed from side to side, moaning in unison, while now and then one would lift up her head and wail aloud.

"What is the matter with them?" demanded Janice.

Carlitos had removed his hat and crossed himself, muttering a prayer.

"It is a funeral, senorita," he explained. "See! they carry heem to his grave."

Four men came forth from the house, carrying a packing case on their shoulders. This makeshift casket had stenciled on its end: "Gla.s.s. Use No Hooks." The intimation that the corpse was so fragile amused Marty.

"Hi tunket!" he murmured. "Don't these folks down here beat ev'rything you ever saw Janice?"

The old women mourners scuttled out of the way. A band of three musicians, whose instruments consisted of a cornet, a piccolo, and a drum, appeared and headed the procession. All the village fell in behind the band and the pall-bearers, two and two, and when they turned out of the main street to mount the hill toward the cemetery, Carlitos cranked up again and the car went on, leaving the funeral cortege marching blithely to the strains of a well-known Mexican air.

The wail of the cornet, the squealing of the piccolo, and the rattle of the drum accompanied the automobile out of town and a long way into the country. They began to mount into higher ground the farther they got from the river. It was almost sunset as Carlitos had prophesied when they saw La Gloria lying above them on a cheerful mesa.

The town was nearly ringed around by green trees. The main streets were paved. The plaza, or central square, was gay with shops and there was a bandstand. Senor Tomas Lopez's hotel was about on a par with the Pez hostelry at Fort Hanc.o.c.k.

But after the dusty and nerve-racking ride in the automobile a chance for quiet, a bath, and relaxation between the clean coa.r.s.e sheets of a bed, seemed heavenly to Janice Day. She really did not want to get up for supper.

Marty, however, kept calling to her and would not be denied. He had found out that there was beefsteak--of a sort--for supper.

"I never did realize before," he sadly admitted, "how tired a feller could get of just beans. I never want ma, when I get home again, to have 'em on Sat.u.r.day nights and Sunday mornings--never! Shucks! I feel like I was turning into a bean myself. I bet if you planted me I'd sprout into a beanstalk."

They sat in the window till late in the evening and watched the people in the square. There was a band and it played some of the popular airs they were familiar with in the North. But when it essayed the native music Janice liked it better.

Old and young promenaded, the girls in bright costumes, the young _caballeros_ in garments quite as gay--sashes, short velvet jackets, sombreros with cords of silver bullion, and some of them with clattering silver spurs on their heels. Here and there scuffled an Indian through the throng in a brightly dyed _serape_. The older women sat on benches or in the arched doorways, many of them smoking big, black cigars. And the children were everywhere, but more nearly dressed than they had been at the Border. Up here on the mesa the nights were chilly.

They got out of La Gloria very early in the morning, for Carlitos a.s.sured them it would be a long day's journey to San Cristoval even if nothing happened to the automobile.

"An' me, I never know when she goin' to break down," he said with one of his disarming smiles.

Hotchkiss quarreled with the Mexican before the party got off. "How do I know where you're takin' me? I can't buy a map of the country--don't believe they ever _made_ one down here. And who are these folks I'm a-travelin' with? I thought they were Mex; but I see they are white folks."

"What am _I_--n.i.g.g.e.r, huh?" demanded Carlitos, "You not lik-a travel weeth me, you pay me an' stop here. I no care."

"We won't bite you, Mister," drawled Marty, keeping well in the background, however. "What are you scared of?"

"What's your name?" growled Hotchkiss suspiciously.

"Down here it's George Washington. What's yours?" returned Marty, chuckling and backing still further away.

"Just as near Abraham Lincoln as yours is George Washington," snarled Hotchkiss.