OLD FRIENDS EN ROUTE.
"_Si, senyorita_," laughed the stranger, "Jose Murillo."
"Where deed you come from?"
"The train on wheech I travel from the West eet join this train back at
the junction."
Teresa's eyes were flashing. She rose and confronted the young Mexican.
"Senyor Murillo," she said, in Spanish, "you have annoyed Juanita enough.
You have no right to follow her. You have threatened her. You have
frightened her. If you are the gentleman you profess to be, you will
leave her alone."
He showed his white teeth in a smile.
"I am a man with a purpose," he retorted, in the same language. "I love
Senyorita Garcia! Her father promised that she should be my wife!"
"Her father is dead," said Teresa, "and that promise no longer binds
her. In Mexico you sought to force her into a marriage. We are not in
Mexico now. We are in the United States. It's different here. My husband
is close at hand. If you do not leave us, I'll call him. He will protect
us from you."
"Pardon, senyorita," said Carker, also speaking in Spanish. "Permit me to
offer my protection. I will see that this man gives neither you nor
Senyorita Garcia further annoyance."
He rose and placed himself squarely before Murillo.
The Mexican glared fiercely at Greg.
"Gringo dog!" he sneered. "Who are you that offers your protection to
these ladies?"
"I am their friend, senyor, and the friend of Mrs. Gallup's husband.
It'll be a good thing for you if you move along and move at once."
Murillo laughed.
"You miserable gringo!" he exclaimed. "Do you think you can frighten me?
Do you think you can drive me away with words? I have followed that girl
a very long distance. She belongs to me by the promise of her father.
She cannot run away from me! I will have her!"
"Look here, Senyor Murillo," retorted Greg quietly, "if you don't move
along, I'll throw you out of that window!"
The Mexican fell back, and his hand was thrust into his bosom.
"Touch me, and you'll regret it!" he hissed, keeping his black eyes
fastened on Carker.
"Is it a knife or a pistol you have in your hand?" questioned Greg
quietly. "I know you've reached for one or the other. All the same I'll
make good by throwing you out of the window if you don't pass on!"
Teresa grasped Carker's arm and whispered in his ear:
"Wait! Here come the boyees!"
Ephraim and Barney were returning from the smoking compartment. The
moment they saw Murillo they hurried forward, realizing that something
unpleasant was taking place. Gallup uttered a cry of exasperation as he
recognized the Mexican.
"Look here, Barney," he exclaimed, "here's old Wan! Consarn his pate,
he's followed Juanita!"
"Begorra, we'll have to soak the persistint gint in the neck!" burst
from the young Irishman.
Murillo backed away a bit, and his hand came forth from his bosom. It
grasped a small shining revolver.
"Touch me, you gringo curs, and I'll keel you!" he threatened.
A stalky, broad-shouldered young man, wearing a broad-brimmed Stetson
hat, came down the aisle behind the Mexican. There was a certain breezy,
Western air about this broad-hatted stranger. He gave one sharp look at
Murillo, and a moment later he had the threatening Mexican in a grip of
iron. One of the stranger's hands shot over Murillo's shoulder and
grasped the revolver, turning the muzzle toward the roof of the car.
"A popgun like that is a whole lot dangerous for fools to play with,"
observed this person who had interrupted. "You ought to be turned over
some one's knee and spanked a-plenty. That's whatever!"
"Great Juniper!" squawked Ephraim Gallup, flourishing his arms with a
wild gesture of delight. "It's Buck--it's old Buck, by gum!"
"Hooroo, Badger, me bhoy!" laughed Barney. "Wherever did yez come from
so suddint, Oi dunno?"
"In truth, it is my old college mate from Kansas!" breathed Carker.
Badger had twisted the pistol out of Murillo's fingers, with one hand
while he easily held the Mexican helpless with the other hand. Badger
was a big man. He stood six feet tall, and every inch of him was put up
for strength and endurance. He was a fine-looking man, too, bronzed and
weather-beaten, as if he had seen much outdoor life, yet having a
certain atmosphere of ease and refinement about him which proclaimed him
no ordinary cow-puncher or laborer. There was command and
self-confidence in every glance of his eyes, in every movement of his
person. In spite of his youth, a critical, discerning stranger would
have pronounced him a man of much experience who feared nothing made of
flesh and blood.
Murillo snarled at the Kansan in Spanish:
"_Santissima! Caramba! Caraj----_"
Like a flash Badger snapped the revolver out through the open window,
and his hand closed on the throat of the furious Mexican, cutting the
vile word short.
"Here, you low-mouthed spawn of sin," grated the big Westerner, "there
are ladies present! If you use that word before them, I'll shut off your
wind a-plenty and let it stay shut! You hear me murmur!"
Murillo made one last furious struggle, but it was quite ineffectual,
and he finally subsided, lying limp in the grasp of the big man.
"Who is this greaser coyote?" asked Badger, as he relaxed his hold on
the man's throat, allowing him to catch a painful breath. "Whatever was
he doing a-pulling a popgun that fashion?"
"Oh, he ees the veree bad man, senyor!" exclaimed Teresa. "He annoy my
dear friend, Juanita! He follow her all the way from Mexico! He threaten
her eef she do not marry heem!"
Badger took a look at Juanita, and something like a gleam of admiration
came into his big brown eyes.
"Juanita, you sure have my sympathy a-plenty," he observed. "You don't
want to marry him?"
"Oh, no, no, senyor!" replied the frightened girl.
"Well, then I opine I'll drop him out of the window. That may jar him
some."
A second later Murillo, kicking and gasping, clawing at the air, had
been lifted like an infant by Badger, who seemed on the point of hurling
him headlong through the open window.
"Santa Maria! Mercee!" begged the frightened wretch. "Spare me, senyor!
Spare me, good senyor! Eef you throw me through the window, eet will keel
me!"
"And that wouldn't be any great loss to the world, I judge," said the
man from Kansas.
But now Juanita interfered.
"Oh, please do not throw heem from the train, senyor!" she implored.
"Even eef I do despise heem, I should not weesh to see heem keeled."
Badger chuckled.
"Well, on condition that the gent will promise a whole lot that he'll
quit bothering you, I'll let him off and won't throw him out of the
window. Speak up, you whining, chattering gopher! Make the promise
instanter, or out you go!"
"Oh, I promeese, senyor--I swear!" came from the frightened Mexican.
"Swear by all your saints," commanded Badger.
"By all the saints, I swear!" gasped Murillo.
"If I let you go now, you'll keep away from the senyorita in future?
You'll never trouble her again?"
Murillo choked, but his fear caused him to take the oath.
Badger dropped the wretch in an upright position, turned him down the
aisle, gave him a start, and said:
"Don't look back! Keep on going just as far as you can go on this train!
Get into the rear car, and if you show your cowardly mug around here
again, I'll kick you clean up through the top of your hat! You hear my
promise, I opine."
Murillo heard it, and he kept on going until he had vanished from the
car.
Barney Mulloy fairly quivered with laughter.
"Be heavins, Badger," he chuckled, "ye know how to handle a shnake! It's
a relation to St. Pathrick ye are, and he drove all the shnakes out av
Oireland. Hereafther you're St. Buck, begobs!"
"St. Buck is a heap good," laughed the Westerner, as he shook hands with
his old friends, removed his broad-brimmed Stetson, and made a sweeping
bow to the girls. "Mrs. Badger has a right jolly way of calling me angel
sometimes, but, on my word, I can't discover even a pimple of a wing
anywhere about me. But, say, people, however is it I find you all here
together? Wherever are you bound for?"
"Bloomfield," answered Barney and Ephraim, in chorus.
"We're taking Carker along with us," explained Gallup. "We're all going
to see old Frank at Bloomfield, by jinks!"
"Well, that's right fine," nodded Buck. "I'm bound for Bloomfield
myself. Mrs. Badger and a friend are in the next car. Say, Winnie will
be a heap surprised to see you boys. I'll lead her in. No, I have a
better idea than that. We'll all hit the trail for the other car and
descend on her in a bunch. There are plenty of empty seats in there, and
we can have a right jolly old time."
In his breezy, commanding way he gathered them all up and led them into
the next car, which had been attached to the train at the junction
recently left.
Mrs. Badger--the Winnie Lee of the old days at Yale--was dozing in her
chair when Buck came down upon her and awoke her by grasping her
shoulder and giving her a shake.
"Waugh!" cried he. "Part the curtains of your peepers, Winnie, and
observe this bunch of Injuns."
Mrs. Badger's companion was a slender young woman in a brown traveling
suit. She was rather pretty in a supercilious way, but she showed
questionable taste in a display of jewels while traveling.
"Oh, Buck, how you startled me, you great bear!" exclaimed Winnie. "What
is it? Who is it?"
"Take a survey," directed the Kansan, with a sweep of his hand. "Here is
our friend Gallup from Vermont, and that Frenchman, Mulloy, who was born
somewhere in the north of Ireland."
"Oh, Ephraim Gallup! Oh, Barney Mulloy!" cried Winnie, in delight, as
she sprang to her feet and grasped the hand of each.
"And you don't want to overlook Professor Gregory Carker, whose
earthquake predictions must have been unheeded by the people of Frisco.
Here he is, Winnie."
"Greg Carker!" burst from Winnie, as she shook hands with the young
socialist. "Why, Greg, you're as handsome as a poet! You remind me of
pictures of Lord Byron."
"Begobs, Ephie," whispered Mulloy, "we'll have to hold him and cut his
hair! It's his hair that the ladies are shtuck on. No mon who predicts
earthquakes has a roight to wear such ravishing hair."
At the mention of Carker's name Winnie Badger's companion had started
and was now sitting bolt upright, staring at Greg and smiling.
Ephraim proudly introduced his wife and Juanita to Winnie.
While this was taking place Carker observed Winnie's friend. In a moment
his face turned paler than usual, his eyelids started wide apart, and he
lifted one hand with a movement of surprise and consternation. She
looked straight into his eyes and continued to smile.
The others noted this. There was a hush, and all eyes were turned on the
two.
Finally Carker's lips parted.
"Madge!" he breathed. And then after a moment, during which his bosom
heaved, he repeated: "Madge!"
"Why, how do you do, Greg!" she laughed, extending her hand. "This is
perfectly delightful! This is a most unexpected pleasure! I never
dreamed of seeing you, Greg!"
"Why, this is queer!" exclaimed Winnie Lee. "So you know my friend, Mrs.
Morton, do you, Gregory?"
"I know her," came huskily, from Carker's lips. "I know her very well."
"Oh, yes," gushed the young woman, "we are old friends--dear old
friends."
Juanita had fallen back behind the others. Her hands quivered a bit, and
her white teeth were sunk into her lower lip. In a whisper she breathed
to herself:
"This is the woman!"