MOVING PICTURES
Although the performance had already started the four managed to find
seats on the front row.
The audience was a noisy, talkative one. A constant jabbering of
tongues sounded on all sides; laughter rang out at frequent intervals,
and the pianist, sitting opposite the boys, had difficulty in making
the melodious notes of his instrument heard.
One of the first things the Americans noticed was the excellence of his
playing. With fascinated attention they watched his deft fingers moving
over the keyboard, even while the first part of a three reel thriller
was flashing on the big white screen above.
“Some music that!” declared Cranny. “It’s better’n the canned variety.”
“Simply great,” said Dick.
When the lights flashed up during an interval all three lads uttered
exclamations of surprise.
“Great Scott! another American,” exclaimed Tom, in a voice which he
intended to be low, though his words easily carried to the pianist’s
ears. The latter looked toward them earnestly. He was an extremely
good-looking young chap--only a lad, and he seemed to be entirely out
of place amid such surroundings.
“Hello!” he greeted them with a smile. “Yes, another American!”
In an instant they were chatting with delightful informality, unheeding
either the stares or the gruff remarks of several Mexicans near at hand.
“My name is Jimmy Raymond,” the pianist informed them. “What’s yours?”
Tom supplied the information.
“A club,” began Jimmy. “Why, I never----”
“Of course not,” said Tom graciously. “We’ve heard that before. Now for
goodness’ sake tell us what you are doing here?”
“Playing the piano.”
“Oh, please don’t joke---- Say, boys, we’ll have to tell the Texas
Rangers about this meeting.”
A peculiar change came over Jimmy’s face at these words, though
the tones of his voice remained the same as he said: “The Texas
Rangers--what do you mean?”
The observant Tom, ever ready to scent a mystery, began to wonder if
they hadn’t come across one here. It seemed to him very strange indeed
that a boy of Jimmy’s refined appearance should be making his living in
a little Mexican motion-picture theater. But before he had a chance to
say any more the lights faded, and the second reel of the tragedy was
flashing on the screen.
Tom lost all his interest in the pictures. His detective instincts were
aroused, and by the time the interior was aglow with light for the last
time that night he had managed to convince himself that it was his duty
to learn as much as possible about Jimmy Raymond.
When the lad stood up Tom Clifton made a discovery that sent a little
jarring note through him. He could see even when the pianist had been
seated that he was tall, but that he should actually be as tall as
himself was never dreamed of. Tom even felt a little aggrieved. So
long accustomed to looking down upon his fellows he had almost come to
regard it as a right not to be infringed upon.
“I guess you two chaps are the highest humans of your age in Mexico,”
gurgled Cranny. “Come on, Raymond, we want to have a conversation with
you.”
When compatriots meet in a foreign land the ties of country, the common
tongue, are often the means of forming warm friendships in a remarkably
brief space of time. Such was the case of Jimmy Raymond and the others.
And they quickly found that the lad had a lively tongue, but apparently
a strong disinclination to talk about himself.
“Really, fellows,” he told them, as they walked out on the street
together, “I haven’t much to tell you. I’m from Texas. You see,” he
hesitated, “I got confoundedly hard up in this town, and, as an awful
lot of good money was spent on my musical education, I hit upon the
melody business as a way to keep me alive.”
“You play like a bird; you touch the heart-strings,” chirped Dick.
“Thanks, old chap. Whatever ability I have has proven a mighty good
thing for me. I believe every one ought to learn something so he can
turn it to account in case of necessity.”
“There it goes again,” grumbled Cranny to himself. Then the old joyous
light came back into his eyes, and he chuckled without any apparent
reason. “You’re mighty right, Jimmy,” he said aloud.
If Jimmy was not prodigal in dispensing information about himself, he
proved decidedly inquisitive regarding the lives and adventures of
each of his companions. A continual flow of questions was constantly
receiving answers. Jimmy seemed profoundly happy, though at times a
curious expression flitted over his face, half sad, half discontented,
as if life to his mind was not altogether what it should be.
Of course the atmosphere of mystery which, to Tom at least, surrounded
the Texas lad, made him all the more interesting to the Rambler, and
having found one who listened to his tales of the club with unconcealed
delight he was eloquent on the subject of life in the open. His
descriptions of cowboy life in Wyoming especially pleased the lad.
“Crickets! What a dandy time you must have had,” he exclaimed, a
wistful note in his voice. “But come along to my room. You’ve no idea,
fellows, what a relief it is to hear English spoken.”
“Then why are you staying in Mexico?” asked Tom bluntly.
Jimmy eyed him for a second, with a most curious expression: then,
shrugging his shoulders, he replied, “I’ve got a job.”
The hotel at which he had put up was situated not far from the plaza.
In the moonlight, with its grim old adobe walls partly shadowed by
towering cottonwoods, and artistic balconies to relieve the grimness
of square, severe outlines, it bore almost an inviting aspect. A dim,
yellowish glimmer shone from the open door, and from somewhere inside
came the musical, twanging notes of a guitar.
“What a comic-opera country it seems,” grinned Dick.
“Except at times, I suppose,” said Cranny.
To the intense astonishment of the proprietor, Jimmy led the crowd up
a flight of stairs to a large room, facing the street.
“Here’s where I hang out, fellows,” he said, lighting a lamp.
The boys looked about them with interest. Several prints, mostly
American, decorated the walls. The furnishings were dingy, and almost
every article of furniture had suffered some sort of injury during the
course of its apparently long existence. Certainly it was not at all
the place which seemed suited to the requirements of a lad like Jimmy.
“Sit down, fellows, and make yourselves miserable,” he laughed. “Oh, by
the way, Tom”--he walked to a table in the middle of the room--“here’s
a cracker-jack book on cowboy life--want it?”
“Sure thing,” answered Tom, accepting the proffered volume. He looked
approvingly at the picture of a wonderfully rearing bronco on the
cover; such a horse as he had never seen in nature, or ever expected
to. “I reckon this tale’s got the punch all right,” he exclaimed,
slipping the book into his pocket. “Say, Jimmy, how long are you going
to stay on this side of the Rio?”
“Until I get tired of it, Tom.”
“But don’t you know that livin’ here is ’most as bad as bein’ in a
house stored full of dynamite bombs, an’ havin’ a careless chap in
charge?” asked Cranny.
“I guess I’m no more afraid than you.”
“Good boy! You’ll do.”
It was getting late, but no one paid any attention to this, until the
solemn notes of a distant bell, ringing out the hours of midnight,
warned them of the passage of time.
“We are now being introduced to another day,” remarked Bob.
“And we’ll be introduced to a mighty sleepy feeling in the morning
unless we hit the trail for the plaza,” chirped Dick.
Even then it was hard to tear themselves away, and, when at last they
did so, Jimmy’s face lost some of its cheerful expression.
“I’ll see you some time again to-morrow,” he said in eager
tones--“so-long!”
A moment later the four were out on the street. The town seemed wrapped
in slumber. Their footsteps echoed noisily; voices in the dreamy
silence rose startlingly clear.
“Jimmy Raymond’s a mighty fine chap,” began Tom. “But say, boys--don’t
you think----”
“Of course,” interrupted Cranny, with a laugh.
“What?”
“A mighty mysterious one, as well.”