"Really, I don't know what to make of it. That last car load of
machinery rusted for a month in the damp heat of the Tehuantepec tropics
before we got it traced. It has happened so often now that I'm almost
tempted to suspect a design."
Seyd's complaint to Peters, the agent, nearly a year later summed the
exasperating experiences which had retarded the building of the new
smelter. Beginning before the end of the last flood, the failure in
deliveries had multiplied as the work of construction proceeded, until
it seemed to Seyd that his material had been distributed on a thousand
side tracks by an impartial hand. While two high-priced American
mechanics had spent their expensive leisure shooting and fishing he had
spent most of his own time tracing the shipments, and now, with the
rains almost due again, another month would be required to finish the
work.
"You have sure had your share of bad luck." While sympathizing with him,
Peters discouraged the idea of premeditation. "You don't know these
Mexican roads. Our charter calls for the employment of sixty-five per
cent. of Mexican help, and, if you'll believe me, that means six hundred
per-cent. of inefficiency. Take this _mozo_ of mine. He's been with me
six years. But, though I show him the correct way to do a thing a
thousand times, the moment my back is turned he'll go at it in some fool
wrong-headed way of his own. The wonder to me is not, that your freight
goes wrong, but that it ever arrives. Nevertheless, you've had, as I
say, your fill of bad luck. If I were you I'd just jump the up
train--she's due in twenty minutes--and call on the general traffic
manager in Mexico City. He can do more for you in five minutes than I
can in ten days."
It was sound advice. Quick always to perceive advantage, Seyd answered,
"Give me a ticket."
Because of his isolation, the agent's wells of speech were always
brimming, and while waiting for the train he delivered himself of
several pieces of news. "By the way, Don Luis went up yesterday to lodge
a protest with the government against the dam a gringo company is
building across the valley fifty miles north of San Nicolas. It is
located just below the Barranca de Tigres, a canon that drains all the
watershed west of the volcano. They have cloudbursts up there, and when
one lets go--well, old Noah's deluge isn't in it. When I was hunting
jaguar in the canon a couple of years ago I saw watermarks a hundred
and fifty feet up the mountainside. Boulders big as churches were piled
up in the bed of the stream like pebbles, and if that dam was built of
solid concrete instead of clay they'd go through it like it was dough.
Though I'd be the last man to go back on my own folks, I'm bound to
confess that we do carry some things with a bit too high a hand. If that
dam ever breaks, the wave will sweep the barranca clean between its
walls. But, Lordy! that won't cut any figure with the paint-eaters that
hedge in Diaz. To secure a rake-off they'd see all Guerrero drown, and
I'm doubting that the General's kick will do any good."
Seyd nodded. "No, the times are against him--both in this and his other
efforts to hold back civilization. So far, he and Sebastien have
succeeded pretty well in checking it here in Guerrero. But it is
creeping in around them--some day will flow over their heads. They might
as well stand in the path of a barranca flood."
The naming of Sebastien brought the second piece of news. "That reminds
me--you almost had him for a fellow traveler. I forwarded a cable
message last night that his mother had died in France. I rather thought
that he'd be in for this train."
"Then she is coming back?"
Seyd meant Francesca. But Peters misunderstood. "Yes, they've shipped
her by a German line that runs to Havana and Vera Cruz. By mistake the
cable was sent to another Rocha somewhere up in Sinaloa, and, being a
Mexican, he slept on it a week before replying that his mother was
there, quite lively and frisky at home. So it arrived here ten days
late--long enough to put Miss Francesca and her mother into Vera Cruz.
Yes, the senora was there--had just joined them--luckily, for death is
too grim a thing for a young girl to face by herself." Just then the
train drew into the station, and as Seyd climbed on, he added: "If you
could find time to pass the word on to Don Luis he'd surely appreciate
it. He puts up at the Iturbide."
Seyd's nod was purely automatic, for the news had loosed once more
bitter tides which had lain dormant these last few months under the
weight of his business cares. Unconscious, too, of the import that
events would presently give to such apparently trivial consent, he
nodded again when Peters asked permission to look through a batch of
American papers which had come for him by yesterday's mail.
For that matter, it would have been difficult to discern anything
unusual or alarming in the spectacle of Peters as he sat in his office
after the departure of the train, heels on the table and chair
comfortably tilted, while he slit, one after the other, the covers of
Seyd's papers. Yet while he smoked and read his way down through the
pile he unconsciously but surely prepared the way for the event which
was approaching at the top speed of Sebastien's horse. Had he read, or
Sebastien ridden, a little faster or slower things had gone differently.
But, just as though it had been predoomed and destined, eyes and hoofs
kept perfect time. Just as Peters opened Seyd's Albuquerque paper
Sebastien walked in.
"Left--an hour ago." Yawning, Peters laid down the Albuquerque paper on
top of the pile, and as the train usually ran from two to twelve hours
late three hundred and sixty-five days in the year he lent a sympathetic
ear to Sebastien's vitriolic curses.
"I can wire for a special," he suggested. "They could send an engine and
car down from Cuernavaca in little more than an hour."
"If you will be so kind, senor."
In all Guerrero, Peters was the one gringo with whom Sebastien was on
speaking terms, and he now accepted both a cigar and a paper to while
away the time. After one glance had shown it to be a gringo sheet he
would have cast it aside, but the one word "Mexico!" in scare heads
caught his eye. Setting forth the international complications that were
likely to come from the lynching of a Mexican in Arizona, it held his
interest. He not only read it to the bottom of the column, but followed
over to the next page, upon which heavy ink lines had been scored around
a local article.
As the heading caught his eye he started, looked again, then bent over
the paper and read to the end. For a few seconds thereafter he sat
thinking. A stealthy glance showed Peters at the key clicking off the
call for the special. Quietly folding the paper, he slid it beneath his
coat.