I
The slow-rolling winter's sun rose coldly, far to the south, riding
up from behind the saw-toothed Sierras of Mexico to throw a silvery
halo on Gadsden, the border city. A hundred miles of desert lay in its
path--a waste of broken ridges, dry arroyos, and sandy plains--and then
suddenly, as if by magic, the city rose gleaming in the sun.
It was a big city, for the West, and swarming with traffic and men.
Its broad main street, lined with brick buildings and throbbing with
automobiles, ran from the railroad straight to the south until, at a
line, it stopped short and was lost in the desert.
That line which marked the sudden end of growth and progress was the
border of the United States; the desert was Mexico. And the difference
was not in the land, but in the government.
As the morning air grew warm and the hoar frost dripped down from the
roofs the idlers of the town crept forth, leaving chill lodgings and
stale saloons for the street corners and the sun.
Against the dead wall of a big store the Mexicans gathered in shivering
groups, their blankets wrapped around their necks and their brown
ankles bare to the wind. On another corner a bunch of cowboys stood
clannishly aloof, eying the passing crowd for others of their kind.
In this dun stream which flowed under the morning sun there were mining
men, with high-laced boots and bulging pockets; graybeards, with the
gossip of the town in their cheeks; hoboes, still wearing their Eastern
caps and still rustling for a quarter to eat on; somber-eyed refugees
and soldiers of fortune from Mexico--but idlers all, and each seeking
his class and kind.
If any women passed that way they walked fast, looking neither to the
right nor to the left; for they, too, being so few, missed their class
and kind.
Gadsden had become a city of men, huge-limbed and powerful and with
a questing look in their eyes; a city of adventurers gathered from
the ends of the world. A common calamity had driven them from their
mines and ranches and glutted the town with men; for the war was on in
Mexico and from the farthermost corners of Sonora they still came, hot
from some new scene of murder and pillage, to add their modicum to the
general discontent.
As the day wore on the crowd on the bank corner, where the refugees
made their stand, changed its complexion, grew big, and stretched far
up the street. Men stood in shifting groups, talking, arguing, gazing
moodily at those who passed.
Here were hawk-eyed Texas cattlemen, thinking of their scattered herds
at Mababi or El Tigre; mining men, with idle prospects and deserted
mines as far south as the Rio Yaqui; millmen, ranchers, and men of
trades--all driven in from below the line and all chafing at the leash.
While a hundred petty chiefs stood out against Madero and lived by
ransom and loot, they must cool their heels in Gadsden and wait for the
end to come.
Into this seething mass of the dispossessed, many of whom had lost a
fortune by the war, there came two more, with their faces still drawn
and red from hard riding through the cold. They stepped forth from the
marble entrance of the big hotel and swung off down the street to see
the town.
They walked slowly, gazing into the strange faces in the vague hope of
finding some friend; and Gadsden, not to be outdone, looked them over
curiously and wondered whence they had come.
The bunch of cowboys, still loitering on the corner, glanced scornfully
at the smaller man, who sported a pair of puttees--and then at the big
man's feet. Finding them encased in prospector's shoes they stared
dumbly at his wind-burned face and muttered among themselves.
He was tall, and broad across the shoulders, with far-seeing blue eyes
and a mop of light hair; and he walked on his toes, stiff-legged,
swaying from the hips like a man on horseback. The rumble of comment
rose up again as he racked past and then a cowboy voice observed:
"I bet ye he's a cowpunch!"
The big man looked back at them mockingly out of the corner of his eye
and went on without a word.
It is the boast of cowboys that they can tell another puncher at a
glance; but they are not alone in this--there are other crafts that
leave their mark and other men as shrewd. A group of mining men took
one look at the smaller man, noting the candle-grease on his corduroys
and the intelligence in his eyes; and to them the big man was no more
than a laborer--or a shift-boss at most--and the little man was one
of their kind. Every line in his mobile face spoke of intellect and
decision, and as they walked it was he who did the talking, while the
big man only nodded and smiled.
They took a turn or two up the street, now drifting into some clamorous
saloon, now standing at gaze on the sidewalk; and as the drinks began
to work, the little man became more and more animated, the big man more
and more amiable in his assent and silence.
Then as they passed the crowd of refugees they stopped and listened,
commenting on the various opinions by an exchange of knowing smiles.
An old prospector, white-haired and tanned to a tropic brown, finally
turned upon a presumptuous optimist and the little man nodded
approvingly as he heard him express his views.
"You can say what you please," the prospector ended, "but I'm going
to keep out of that country. I've knowed them Mexicans for thirty
years now and I'm telling you they're gitting treacherous. It don't
do no good to have your gun with you--they'll shoot you from behind
a rock--and if they can't git you that way, they'll knife you in your
sleep.
"I've noticed a big change in them _paisanos_ since this war
come on. Before Madero made his break they used to be scared of
Americans--thought if they killed one of us the rest would cross the
border and eat 'em up. What few times they did tackle a white man he
generally give a good account of himself, too, and I've traveled them
trails for years without hardly knowing what it was to be afraid of
anybody; but I tell you it's entirely different over there now."
"Sure! That's right!" spoke up the little man, with spirit. "You're
talking more sense than any man on the street. I guess I ought to
know--I've been down there and through it all--and it's got so now that
you can't trust _any_ of 'em. My pardner and I came clear from the
Sierra Madres, riding nights, and we come pretty near knowing--hey,
Bud?"
"That's right," observed Bud, the big man, with a reminiscent grin. "I
begin to think them fellers would get us, for a while!"
"Mining men?" inquired the old prospector politely.
"Working on a lease," said the little man briefly. "Owner got scared
out and let us in on shares. But no more for muh--this will hold me for
quite a while, I can tell you!"
"Here, too," agreed the big man, turning to go. "Arizona is good enough
for me--come on, Phil!"
"Where to?" The little man drew back half resentfully, and then he
changed his mind. "All right," he said, falling into step, "a gin fizz
for mine!"
"Not on an empty stomach," admonished his pardner; "you might get lit
up and tell somebody all you know. How about something to eat?"
"Good! But where're you going?"
The big man was leading off down a side street, and once more they came
to a halt.
"Jim's place--it's a lunch-counter," he explained laconically. "The
hotel's all right, and maybe that was a breakfast we got, but I get
hungry waiting that way. Gimme a lunch-counter, where I can wrop my
legs around a stool and watch the cook turn 'em over. Come on--I been
there before."
An expression of pitying tolerance came over the little man's face
as he listened to this rhapsody on the quick lunch, but he drew away
reluctantly.
"Aw, come on, Bud," he pleaded. "Have a little class! What's the use of
winning a stake if you've got to eat at a dog-joint? And besides--say,
that was a peach of a girl that waited on us this morning! Did you
notice her hair? She was a pippin! I left four-bits under my plate!"
The big man waggled his hand resignedly and started on his way.
"All right, pardner," he observed; "if that's the deal she's probably
looking for you. I'll meet you in the room."
"Aw, come on!" urged the other, but his heart was not in it, and he
turned gaily away up the main street.
Left to himself, the big man went on to his lunch-counter, where he
ordered oysters, "a dozen in the milk." Then he ordered a beefsteak, to
make up for several he had missed, and asked the cook to fry it rare.
He was just negotiating for a can of pears that had caught his eye when
an old man came in and took the stool beside him, picking up the menu
with a trembling hand.
"Give me a cup of coffee," he said to the waiter, "and"--he gazed at
the bill of fare carefully--"and a roast-beef sandwich. No, just the
coffee!" he corrected, and at that Bud gave him a look. He was a small
man, shabbily dressed and with scraggly whiskers, and his nose was very
red.
"Here," called Bud, coming to an instant conclusion, "give 'im his
sandwich; I'll pay for it!"
"All right," answered the waiter, who was no other than Sunny Jim, the
proprietor, and, whisking up a sandwich from the sideboard, he set it
before the old man, who glanced at him in silence. For a fraction of a
second he regarded the sandwich apathetically; then, with the aid of
his coffee, he made way with it and slipped down off his stool.
"Say," observed the proprietor, as Bud was paying his bill, "do you
know who that oldtimer was?"
"What oldtimer?" inquired Bud, who had forgotten his brusk benefaction.
"Why, that old feller that you treated to the sandwich."
"Oh--him! Some old drunk around town?" hazarded Bud.
"Well, he's that, too," conceded Sunny Jim, with a smile. "But lemme
tell you, pardner, if you had half the rocks that old boy's got you
wouldn't need to punch any more cows. That's Henry Kruger, the man that
just sold the Cross-Cut Mine for fifty thousand cash, and he's got more
besides."
"Huh!" grunted Bud, "he sure don't look it! Say, why didn't you put me
wise? Now I've got to hunt him up and apologize."
"Oh, that's all right," assured the proprietor; "he won't take any
offense. That's just like Old Henry--he's kinder queer that way."
"Well, I'll go and see him, anyway," said Bud. "He might think I was
butting in."
And then, going about his duty with philosophical calm, he ambled off,
stiff-legged, down the street.