OVER THE LINE
Late into the night, yes, almost until the red sun was ready to rise
and shine down into the village of Paz amid the Mexican hills, did El
Capitan, Don Castro, Pedro and the "killers" hold conference in the
back room of the adobe saloon. Now the voices were high pitched and
now they were low, and all the while the deaf mute sat in his corner,
nodding, sleeping, and sometimes smiling.
At last a plan was agreed upon and certain men of the company girded
their pistol belts tighter about them. They were given money by El
Capitan and then they went out into the gray and reddening dawn to
where their horses awaited.
"Fail not!" ordered the big chief. "The son of Gringo pig must die!"
"He shall die!" promised Latro, with a cruel smile on his face. "We
shall meet with our comrades in Paloma and it will be strange if,
between us, we shall not find him."
"In Paloma, then, I will join you on the day agreed," said El Capitan.
Again the brown and wrinkled deaf mute in his corner smiled. Then the
leader seemed to remember the mute messenger with the double dagger,
for he turned to Don Castro and said:
"Now we shall see what he wants. A pest upon him for coming at such a
time! It is money he desires, I doubt not."
And money was just what the aged member of the Tola gang had come for.
It appeared, from what he wrote down on dirty pieces of paper, that he
was a member of a distant branch of the gang that had its headquarters
in the mountains. It was composed of poor peons, but they had been
promised a share in the oil wells, the profits of which were to be
divided among the Tolas.
It further appeared that El Capitan, Don Castro and the others, not
having sufficient funds of their own to wrest back from the Lemberg
family the wonderfully profitable wells, had levied contributions from
every member of the gang, rich and poor, promising in return money when
the wells should once more be owned by the ancient society.
"And this fellow says he and his fellow villagers are so poor from the
failure of their crops and because of the money they have given us to
get back our wells that they are starving," said El Capitan when he had
read what the deaf mute wrote. "A pest upon them! Why could they not
wait?" He walked the floor in anger.
"What is to be done?" asked Don Castro.
"What would you have?" retorted El Capitan. "We cannot afford
disaffection. These mountain members, though they add little to our
success, must still be considered. But I am tired of this pencil
scratching, Castro. You deal with this mute. Write him that if he will
wait a few days he shall have money to take to his friends. By that
time we shall have our wells back."
"If we get the girl and kill that devil of a detective--maybe," added
Don Castro, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"We will!" declared the leader. "Deal you, Castro, with our member from
the mountains. Pacify him--tell him to wait and all will be well."
"I suppose he is a member," suggested the other.
"Did he not have the double dagger? Who else but a member would dare
show it? He is a true Tola. Treat him well. And now we shall hope for
the best. I am weary--I would sleep!"
So while El Capitan staggered off to his room, Don Castro wrote more
messages to the deaf mute who read them slowly--and smiled.
It was several days after this, during which time El Capitan, together
with several of his most trusted men, had departed on a mission, that
Don Castro, sauntering one day into the café headquarters of the Tola
gang, inquired for Zenna, which, the deaf mute had written, was his
name.
"He is gone," the café proprietor answered.
"Gone?"
"Yes. He left in the night. Someone came to him with a note and he
departed hurriedly. Why? Was I supposed to detain him? Is all not
right?"
"I don't know about the last," said Don Castro slowly. "I hope so.
Certainly you had no orders to detain him. I wonder if he was a Tola."
"He had the double dagger," replied the café owner, who was also one of
the ruthless gang. "I saw him springing the blades in and out as he sat
here early in the evening."
"Yes, he had the double dagger," agreed Don Castro. "But I wonder--I
wonder!" Then, with a shrug of his shoulders he added: "But El Capitan
said he was one of us, and El Capitan should know."
Meanwhile the bent and aged deaf mute was making good time over the
mountain trails on the mule that had brought him to the village of Paz.
And, as he hastened forward, now and then he took out the double dagger
and looked at it. Ever and anon he smiled, wrinkling his bronzed face.
* * * * *
In a little adobe hut, long and narrow, several men were gathered one
hot, sultry evening. Two of the party were cowboys, by their dress.
One spoke in slow, drawling tones and moved but seldom. The other was
tall and slim.
Two others of the party were evidently Easterners, as their pale faces,
in contrast to the bronzed complexions of their companions, plainly
showed.
"Well, Baldy," remarked one of these latter, "we're a long, long way
from Times Square."
"You said it, Berry!" responded the other. "But this is the place the
chief told us to report to, isn't it?"
"You got it right, gentlemen," said the tall, thin cowboy. "Me an' Lazy
Ike doped this out as the best place to pull off the party; didn't
we, Ike?" he asked his companion who had gone into another part of
the long, low building which was divided in the middle by a partition
containing a door. "Where's Ike?" he asked, looking at Baldy and Berry.
"I crossed over into Mexico to get me a match for my cigarette,"
answered Lazy Ike, coming through the door. "Now I'm in the U. S. A.
once more," he went on as he sat down with the others.
"Is it true?" asked Baldy Stoler of Slim Burke, "that this building is
right over the line between the United States and Mexico?"
"You got it right, buddy," was the answer. "It was built for a saloon,
after prohibition started, so liquor could be sold to thirsty United
Staters who didn't want to go into Mexico. They could come in here and
imbibe and still be on Uncle Sam's land. In case of a raid the red-eye
and forty-rod could be hustled over to the other side of the saloon, on
to Mexican territory, and the prohibition people couldn't do a thing.
It got so, after a while, that the United States authorities and the
Mexican government made an agreement and this place was wiped out
by a joint raid. Since then this shack is in charge of the military
authorities of both countries."
"And when Nat telephoned Baldy and me to come here," said Berry, "and
when we met you two cowboys, you said this was the best place for the
trick."
"It is," asserted Slim Jim. "It's just over the line, you see."
Others in the crowd listened to this talk. Hard-fisted men they were,
and ready with their guns. Baldy looked at his watch and remarked:
"It's about time he was here if he's coming."
At that moment a door in the Mexican end of the building opened and an
old man shuffled in. Bent and wrinkled he was, and stained and dusty
from long travel.
"What do you want?" called Ike sharply. "Who are you?"
"Excuse me, señor, but I am deaf and dumb," was the reply.
For a moment this remarkable statement seemed to shock them all into
silence, and then Berry Todd laughed and cried:
"It's the chief himself--Nat Ridley!"
"Hush!" cautioned the detective, for he it was. "They are on the way.
They will soon be here. Into the other room with you--the United States
side and wait for my whistle. Have your guns ready."
"That's something we won't have nothin' else but," declared Lazy Ike
with his characteristic drawl.
A little later the aged Mexican seemed to be alone in the long, narrow
building that straddled the international line. He sat in a chair,
waiting, waiting, with a queer smile on his brown face.
Presently he heard the sound of horses ambling along the road, and the
smile changed to a stern expression. He rose as several men opened the
door and came in, El Capitan and Don Castro among them.
"He is here!" exclaimed the leader, glancing at the Mexican. "I thought
he was one of us, though you doubted him, Don Castro. Now then,
somebody, write and ask him where he has the girl and that pig of a
detective. I must have a drink," and El Capitan drew out a flask while
Don Castro wrote the questions of his chief on a piece of paper which
he handed the old Mexican, who had appointed this rendezvous after his
sudden flight from Paz.
But the deaf mute seemed to have some difficulty in reading the
writing. He held it up beneath a candle spluttering in a wall sconce.
And, as he raised his arms, Don Castro gave a cry of alarm.
"What is it?" cried El Capitan, nearly choking himself as he stopped
his drink half taken. "What is it?"
"We are betrayed!" shouted Don Castro. "See! This man is no peon! He is
in disguise! His skin is stained! I doubted him from the first. Now I
am sure!"
With a quick motion Don Castro pulled back the sleeve from the upraised
arm of the man reading the note. And while the hand and wrist were
stained a mahogany brown, the remainder of the arm was glistening white
skin.
"Son of a pig!" hissed El Capitan as, from an inner pocket, he drew his
double dagger and sprang toward Nat Ridley.