TROUBLE AT THE BORDER
"Here, here, what's eating you two?" Adair MacKenzie came bursting forth
from the door he had entered just a few moments before Nan's encounter
with the Mexican. "H-m-m, lost your pass, I'll wager." With the uncanny
instinct of many peppery old gentlemen, Adair MacKenzie as soon as he
saw the baffled expression on Nan's face, jumped immediately to the
right conclusion.
"Might have known that would happen. Should have taken care of them all
myself. Can't depend on women and girls. Always tell Alice that. Ought
to have a safe place to keep things. Old pouch my mother used to strap
around her waist was a good idea."
Nan couldn't restrain the smile that came to her eyes at this. She had
known one person in her life who tied a bag around her waist. That was
grim old Mrs. Cupp, assistant to Dr. Beulah Prescott, principal at
Lakeview Hall. Legend had it that Mrs. Cupp had a dark secret the key to
which she carried in the black bag which someone, in days long before
Nan and Bess descended on Lakeview Hall, had seen. Whether or not it was
so, Nan didn't know, but at Lakeview Hall, the words "Keep it a secret"
were generally expressed by saying "Put it in the black bag."
"Laughing at me, Miss!" Adair's roar brought Nan out of her reveries.
She jumped, and looking up into his face, she winged her way from
Lakeview Hall on the shores of the Great Lakes back to Laredo, Texas and
the immediate problem of the lost visitor's pass.
"I said you should take care of your things the way I do," he roared
again. "See," he pushed his hand inside his topcoat pocket, "Always know
where my things--" the end of the sentence was lost in a sputter, as
Adair MacKenzie searched frantically in pocket after pocket for his
visitor's pass. It was gone!
"W-w-why, somebody's picked my pockets. Can't allow this. Where's a
policeman? You, you, why don't you do something instead of standing
there and laughing?" Adair shook his cane at Walker Jamieson who was
grinning broadly at the spectacle of the old man fuming and sputtering
now, not at his own negligence, but at the inefficiency of a government
that would allow such things to happen. His tirade against Nan and her
carelessness were utterly forgotten.
But it wasn't necessary for Walker to do anything. Adair, in his
outburst, railing against governments in general now, calling down the
wrath of the gods on the heads of all policemen, and expressing himself
most forcibly on the subject of newspaper men in particular, attracted a
crowd. Shortly, English and Spanish words were being flung this way and
that and everyone was arguing, but what it was all about no one seemed
to know.
"Why, daddy, what has happened?" Alice having heard the excitement from
her seat in the office where her father had left her had worked her way
through the crowd, and now put a restraining hand on his arm.
Immediately, he was quiet. "I'm sorry, dear," he looked down at her
shamefacedly, "but these blundering Mexicans have lost not only that
poor young girl's," he pointed to Nan with his cane, "visitor's pass,
but mine too. It's an outrage! That's what it is, an outrage. And I
won't stand for it."
"Oh, Walker," Alice turned to the young reporter now, "What shall we
do?"
"I beg your pardon, Miss," the voice was that of a Texas Ranger with a
big ten-gallon hat who had watched the whole scene with some amusement,
"but if you'll step right over to the offices there" he nodded in the
direction of the door from which Alice had emerged a moment before, "Mr.
Nogales will take care of you."
"Thanks," Walker acknowledged the information, grinned, as though he was
sharing a joke with the stranger, took both Alice and her father by the
arm, and, with Nan, worked his way out of the crowd.
"It's a difficult problem." Lozario Nogales gave a slight Spanish accent
to his words as he spoke to the Americans who, a few moments after the
scene above, were ushered into his office. "You see, it's like this--"
he spoke slowly and fingered a pencil as he chose his words, for English
did not come any too easily to him.
"Nonsense! No difficulties at all." Adair MacKenzie was always impatient
with slow speech, "all you have to do is write out another of those
cards for each of us. Take you a minute. They're nothing but a lot of
silly red tape anyway. If I had my way about it, there would be no
passports, no customs, no visitors' passes, no anything that impedes
free movement of people across the borders. It's all foolishness the way
you Mexicans do these things." Thus, with utter inconsistency, Adair
MacKenzie, in a moment's time placed the whole burden of border
regulations in the laps of the Mexicans.
"But Senor," Lozario felt that he never would become accustomed to the
ways of these Americans, and of this American in particular, "there are
the rules."
"Rules! What rules?" Adair stormed further, then he caught Alice's eye
and capitulated, "Well, what are we to do?"
"It's simply this," Mr. Nogales was more than grateful for Alice's
presence which gave him at last an opportunity to speak, "there has been
a good deal of smuggling across the borders in the past few months, and
your American government has made new rules about the issuing of
duplicates when passes are lost."
"Smuggling?" Walker Jamieson now spoke up for the first time since the
party entered the office. "Smuggling what?"
"Well, the American gentleman knows that immigration laws prohibit the
free passage of certain nationalities into the United States."
Walker nodded. His work in San Francisco had brought this fact most
forcibly to his mind again and again, for there he had worked often
among the Chinese and the Japanese and numbered among them many close
friends. These people admired him and respected him greatly. They
thought that because he was a newspaper man, he could do anything in the
world for them that he wanted to do.
As a consequence, they were constantly coming to him with tales of
wives or mothers or children that they wanted to see, but could not get
into the United States because of the immigration laws.
"And the senor knows that these people somehow or other manage to get
across the border in spite of these laws?" Mr. Nogales continued. He
liked this young man.
"Yes." Walker knew that too. Often he had been amazed while covering his
beat in Chinatown to meet the very mothers, wives, or children he had
been asked to "get here for me, please, Mr. Jamieson" a few days after
being asked.
However, as he threaded through the dark streets of the famous San
Francisco Chinatown this surprise always wore off. The ways of the
people he was among were so silent and mysterious, even to him working
among them and calling them "friends", that he had grown to take such
sudden appearances for granted.
"Well, just lately," Mr. Nogales went on, "there have been even more
than the usual number of persons smuggled across. Your government and
mine has been working hard on the problem of putting an end to this.
One means of stopping it has been to check most thoroughly the
issuance of all duplicate visitor's passes."
Nan was beginning to see light in the whole situation now. Immigration
laws and the smuggling of aliens across the border was something she had
studied about in social science classes at Lakeview. This scene in the
Laredo offices was a school lesson brought to life.
Nan vaguely remembered, as she stood there listening and watching, that
Laura had once had a special report to give on this particular subject.
She remembered because it was at the time the girls were planning a big
spread down at the boathouse, and Laura had been so excited about the
whole thing that she had gone to class utterly unprepared. In the few
minutes before the assembly bell rang Nan helped her out, and so Laura
had managed to struggle through the social science hour.
Nan turned. She wished that Laura and the rest were here now, but she
knew that they were waiting in an outer office.
"Then you think," Walker Jamieson's words brought Nan back to the
present plight of herself and her cousin Adair, "that there is a regular
trade in visitors' passes, that the pickpocket who got ours wanted
nothing else?"
"You had no money stolen, did you?" Mr. Nogales queried.
"Uh-h-h-" Adair MacKenzie had been silent for a long while for him. Now
he rummaged through his pockets even as Nan checked on the contents of
her purse.
"Just as I thought," Mr. Nogales nodded his head, as the two agreed that
all their money was there. "Your visitors' passes are the only thing
missing. Just a moment, please, I'll see what can be done." With this,
he disappeared into the office of his superior, and Adair MacKenzie
followed him.
Nan, Alice, and Walker Jamieson looked hopelessly at one another as
Adair disappeared from their view.