The Mission of Janice Day Part 46

"Something's got to be done for me. I can't be treated this way, you know."

"Senor B-Day!" exploded the little general. "Do you know this man?"

"Day!"

Tom Hotchkiss almost shrieked it and would have sprung forward to peer into Mr. Broxton Day's face had not two of the barefooted soldiers held him back by the ungentle means of their bayonets.

"Yes. It is Thomas Hotchkiss," Mr. Day said, eyeing the fat man without favor.

"You're Brocky Day!" exclaimed the prisoner with sudden relief. "Well, you tell these fellers----"

The general raised his hand for silence. The soldiers suddenly pinned Mr. Hotchkiss into his corner with points that evidently hurt.

"Ouch!"

"You know this man, Senor Day?"

"Yes, General."

"Is he to be trusted to speak the truth?"

"Never," said Mr. Day firmly, "unless the truth serves him better than lying."

"Ah!"

"I understand he claims to have escaped from Gomez?"

"_Si_, senor."

"It may be so," said Mr. Day. "My daughter and nephew say they were in Gomez's power day before yesterday and they have reason to believe that this Hotchkiss was captured by the bandit."

"And how strong was Gomez's party when the senorita saw eet?"

"Forty!"

"Ah! But this man say he have thousands of troops--that an attack in force is intended on the mesa."

"It sounds as though there was some fighting going on out there,"

admitted Mr. Day. "But it may just be my own troops wasting ammunition.

They have plenty--and are like children."

Mr. Day gave Tom Hotchkiss a long and penetrating stare.

"I'm free to confess, _mi general_," he said finally, "I don't know whether to believe this fellow or not. He's a criminal, wanted by the American officers. That is sure. It has always been my opinion that if a man is crooked in one environment he is very apt to be so in another."

Before the doughty little commander could make reply the rattle of rifle shots increased. It grew nearer. Janice clung to her father's arm.

The door of the office-car was flung open and the Madam suddenly appeared. She wore a wonderfully figured satin boudoir gown and a cap to match; and she was plainly very much frightened.

"General! General!" she cried. "The cook has left! Is there really danger?"

General De Soto Palo muttered something in Spanish that was probably not polite. His wife saw and recognized Janice.

"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "We are the only two females here! Return with me. I see the general is disturbed. Come, my dear. We are such goot friends--yes?"

Before Janice could reply there sounded the sharp _plop_ of a bullet and a hole appeared in the window-pane directly above the general's desk.

The bits of shattered gla.s.s showered over the little man in the nightcap; but he did not move or show any alarm.

Tom Hotchkiss squealed and tried to lie down in his corner. The two barefoot soldiers prodded him to a standing posture again.

This had been a baggage car in its day, and the windows were few and high. The impact of other bullets in the wooden walls was plainly heard.

The rifle fire was advancing and it was not all ammunition wasted by the government troops.

"My angel," said the general softly, "take the senorita into the other car. Lie down below the level of the window sills--both. That will be safer."

Madam seized Janice's hand and drew her out through the vestibule. Mr.

Day made a motion to Marty.

"Just go along and see that nothing happens to them, my boy," he said.

The Pullman car was fitted with thin steel shutters over the plate-gla.s.s windows and they had been closed the night before; but evidently General De Soto Palo did not altogether trust these shutters to keep out stray bullets.

The sharp ping of the lead as it sunk in the woodwork or the more resonant ring of those bullets glancing from the shutters became more and more frequent. The explosion of the guns sounded nearer. It was plain that the government troops were retreating from the southern edge of the mesa where the attack had opened. Dario Gomez and his followers seemed to be pressing on.

"Well, Marty, you wanted to see a battle," his cousin said to the boy.

"Are you satisfied now?"

"Huh! I'm not seein' this one, am I?" he challenged. "Hi! what's that?"

he added briskly.

The distant shriek of a steam whistle came faintly to her ears. Janice and the general's wife looked at each other. Marty drawled:

"Sounds like the old _Constance Colfax_ comin' into the dock, don't it, Janice? But I reckon they don't have steamboats up in these hills, do they?"

CHAPTER XXIX

"JUDGE B-DAY"

The long call of the whistle through the hills was smothered in another and nearer burst of firearms. The rattle of bullets against the half-armored side of the Pullman told their own story and told it unmistakably. The bandits were coming in force; the troops under General Palo's subordinates were not standing up to the enemy at all!

The three in the Pullman heard the doughty little general charging out of the other car to take personal leadership of the defending forces, and Janice believed her father, wounded though he was, had gone with him.

Marty had shot through the corridor of the car and the open compartments to the rear. There he clawed open the door and stepped out upon the observation platform.

Again he had heard that cheerful, raucous whistle.