TWO EXPLOSIONS
Marty had no desire to have his identity revealed to his cousin in any
such belittling manner as this. He had dreamed of Janice getting into
some difficulty, and his stepping forward to defend and protect her. But
this situation covered him with confusion.
The large woman with the black eyes and the foreign speech possessed
muscle, too, as he quickly discovered. He could not twist himself out of
her grasp on the dark platform.
"I have the thief," repeated Madam. "Soh!"
"Oh! are you sure?" gasped Janice.
"You haf lost your money, eh?" demanded her companion. "Well, then, _I_
haf secured the thief--soh!"
A trainman came along with a lantern. Its light, suddenly cast upon the
little group, revealed Marty's face more clearly.
"What's the matter here?" asked the trainman, his curiosity aroused. But
Janice moved closer to the boy twisting in Madam's grasp. She peered
into his face and her own countenance paled.
"It--it _can't_ be!" she gasped. "You--you--_Marty Day_!"
She made a dive for the silly-looking mustache. Marty squealed
energetically:
"You behave! Stop it, Janice! Ouch! that hurts! Don't you know the
blamed thing's stuck on with shoemaker's wax?"
"Marty Day!" repeated the girl, "how did you come here?"
"You know heem--yes?" gasped the black-eyed woman.
"Why, he's my cousin! He's followed me all the way from home! How ever
he did it----"
Then she stopped suddenly, putting her hand to her bosom again.
"But I _have_ lost it--the packet," she cried.
"Your money----Ach!" ejaculated Madam.
"What's that?" asked the trainman. "You lost something?"
"I bet you have," exclaimed Marty. "No girl can take care of money
right. Where'd you have it?"
Janice motioned to her bosom. The trainman lowered his lantern and cast
its radiance in a wider circle on the platform.
"What's this here?" demanded the boy, and sprang immediately to secure
what his sharp eyes had observed lying at the feet of the black-eyed
woman.
[Illustration: "Marty Day!" repeated the girl. "How did you come
here?"]
"Oh! that must be it," Janice said, trying to seize it from her cousin's
hand.
"Aw, let's make sure," growled Marty, at once taking the lead in
affairs. "Nice way to carry money, I must say--wrapped in a
handkerchief! Hi tunket! what d'you know about _this_?"
He had unfolded the handkerchief and revealed--newspaper. That was all.
The black-eyed woman stepped back with a sudden intake of breath. She
glared at Janice.
"Huh! Somebody flimflammed you?" demanded Marty, staring, too, at his
cousin.
"No-o," the girl admitted faintly. "I--I did it myself."
"You did what?" asked the interested trainman.
"I wrapped that paper up and hid it in my blouse. My money is safe."
"It is!" cried Marty. "Sure? Where you got it hid?"
"Never mind; it's safe," said Janice tartly.
The trainman chuckled as he went his way.
"Marty!" began the girl when Madam broke in:
"You are well engaged, I see," she said sharply. "I will bid you goot
evening," and she moved majestically toward the car.
"Who is she?" demanded Marty, following Madam with suspicious eye.
"I don't know," confessed his cousin.
"Say! are you sure you got your money safe?"
"Yes."
"Where?" he questioned insistently.
"It's none of your business, Marty Day," snapped Janice, "but if you
_must_ know, it's pinned inside my stocking--so now!"
"Sure," chuckled Marty. "I might have guessed. Most popular national
bank there is. Say! we'd better get aboard. Train's goin' to start
again."
"You come with me, Marty; I want to know what this means," Janice said,
seizing his hand as they hurried to board the train. "How did you get
down here? Who told you you might come? Mercy! I can't understand it at
all. And that silly mustache----"
"Cricky! I wish I could get the blame thing off," said the boy, touching
his lip tenderly. "You mighty near tore my face apart when you grabbed
at it."
"It's the most ridiculous thing. Oh! I wonder where Madam went to?" For
the black-eyed woman was not in her usual seat. Indeed, her hand-baggage
was no longer there, nor could Janice see her anywhere in the car. "I
believe she is offended," said the girl.
"Huh? What about?" Marty queried.
"Why, because of that foolish trick of mine--the packet of newspapers.
She thought I had my money pinned to my underwaist all the time."
The boy's eyes twinkled shrewdly. "Huh! maybe," he said. "But you don't
know a thing about her. 'Tisn't very smart to make acquaintances on the
cars, I calculate."
"Goodness! hear the boy!" gasped Janice. "Sit down here. I want to know
all about it---- Why, Marty!"
"Huh? What's sprung a leak now?"
"It must have been you who gave me that lunch!"
"Oh! on the train coming down from the Landing? Sure," Marty answered.
"I knew you'd never think of getting anything decent to eat yourself."
"You blessed angel boy!"
"Oh! I'm a Sarah Finn, I am--as Walky Dexter calls 'em."
"Calls _what_?"
"Angels," said the boy, grinning. "There's one breed called something
that sounds like Sarah Finn."
"Seraphim!"
"That's the ticket. Well?" for his cousin suddenly seized his arm and
shook him.
"Tell me all about it--at once!"
"Why--er--that lunch I got off'n the cook aboard the _Constance
Colfax_."
"Marty! don't tease. I don't care about the lunch now--it was eaten so
long ago."
"Hi tunket! and you haven't eat nothing like it since," declared the
boy warmly. "You been fair wallowin' in luxury."
"Marty!"
"Yes, you have," he pursued. "I don't see how you come to have any money
left at all--eatin' your three squares a day in the dining car. Not me!
I get lunches at the stop-over places, I do."
"But I saw you in the dining car," Janice said, with sudden conviction.
"Yep. Once. And you can bet that I didn't pay for my supper that time. I
was treated."
"But you're not telling me a thing I want to know," cried the girl. "Did
Uncle Jason send you? Never!"
"I'll break it to you easy," grinned Marty. "I did just what you did."
"What do you mean?"
"I ran away; that's what I did."
"Didn't you leave word for your father and mother? _I_ did."
"I telegraphed," said Marty proudly, taking full credit for that act.
"Told 'em you were all right and that I had my eye on you."
"Well! Of all things!"
"Yep. 'Tis kinder strange, isn't it?" said Marty, blowing a sigh. "Don't
scarcely seem real to me."
"But your mother--and Uncle Jason! They will be worried to death about
you, Marty."
"Huh! How about you?" demanded her cousin.
"But you are only a boy."
"And you're only a girl," he retorted.
"Marty, I _had_ to come," she told him gravely.
"Of course you did. I know it. Frank and Nelse, and the rest of 'em,
couldn't see it; but _I_ saw it. I was wise to you right away, so I
watched."
He went on to relate his experiences in getting away from Polktown,
chuckling over his own wit.
"But your mother and father will never forgive me," she sighed.
"What they got to forgive you for?" demanded Marty.
"If it hadn't been for me you never would have run away. And I don't
really see what good it has done, your having done so, anyway. You can't
help me find daddy."
"Why not?" snapped the boy. "What d'you think I came 'way off here for?
Just to sit around and suck my thumb? Huh! I guess I can do as much
toward finding Uncle Brocky as ever you will, Janice Day."
"I am afraid," the girl sighed, "that you don't realize what a task
there is before me."
"Before _us_," growled Marty.
Janice smiled faintly without otherwise acknowledging the correction.
"Say! what have you done toward learning how to get across that river
and up there to San Cristoval?" the boy suddenly asked.
"Why--_that_ is too far ahead. I shall have to be guided by
circumstances."
"Ye-as! That's what the feller said when they were goin' to hang him.
But I've been lookin' ahead and I've been askin' questions."
"Of whom, Marty?" his cousin cried.
"Folks. I got acquainted with a good many back there in the smoker."
"I thought you intimated it was dangerous to make such acquaintances?"
suggested Janice.
"'Tis--for girls," announced her cousin stoutly.
"And why not for boys, I'd like to know?"
"'Cause nothin' can hurt boys. They're tough," grinned Marty. "Now, this
big woman you been hobnobbing with----"
"Oh! I wonder what can have become of Madam?"
"Maybe she had reason for cutting her tow-rope," said the slangy boy,
"just as soon's she saw you had somebody to take care of you. Oh, yes!
Did you notice just where I picked up that package of newspapers that
you lost?"
"Oh, Marty!"
"Almost under the feet of Miz' Madam, as you call her," went on the boy.
"She was right. You _were_ robbed. Somebody took that packet out of your
blouse all right, all right!"
"Why, Marty! how very terribly you talk!"
"Ye-as. Maybe I do. But she certainly was kind o' crusty when she left
us there on the platform."
"Oh! I wouldn't have offended her," grieved Janice. "I don't believe she
was a bad woman at all, Marty Day."
"I don't know anything about her," declared Marty. "But you'd better be
mighty careful with folks you meet. Now, the men I've been talkin' with
are regular fellers, they are. And they've told me a lot about what
we'll haf to do when we get to that Rio Grande River."
"Marty, dear! It may be dangerous. I can't let you run into peril for
me."
"No. But I will for Uncle Brocky--if I have to. And _you_ won't stop
me," he declared. "'Sides, it isn't goin' to be so dangerous as you
think if we go about it right."
"How do you know?"
"Why, up North there we thought that the Border was like a barbed-wire
fence that you had to climb through ev'ry time you went from the United
States into Mexico an' back again, and it was lucky if you didn't ketch
your pants on the barbed wire an' get 'em tore, too!" and the boy was
grinning broadly again.
"But 'tisn't nothing like that. You'd think from what you read in the
newspapers that the towns on the northern side of the Border was spang
full of Americans--white folks that talk English, you know--while every
town over the Border and in shootin' distance of it, as you might say,
was all populated with nothin' but greasers."
"Well?" Janice asked faintly.
"Why, 'tisn't nothing like that. Lots of Texas towns along the Border
ain't got anybody in 'em but Mexican folks, and Mexican-Spanish is the
official language. Yes, _sir_!" said Marty, proud of his acquired
acknowledge.
"The officers of the town are Mexs like everybody else. They're
peaceable enough and law-abiding enough and they go back and forth over
the river and into Mexico just as they please.
"Now, what we want to do is to pick out one of these little squash-towns
along the bank of the Rio Grande, drive over to it in an automobile from
the railroad, and make a dicker with some greaser to ferry us across the
river to some town on the other side."
"And then what, Marty?" asked Janice, made all but breathless by the
manner in which her cousin seemed to have grasped the situation.
"Why, then we'll get another automobile, or a carriage, or something,
and steer a course for this San Cristoval place. It's on a branch
railroad, but the railroad ain't running, so they tell me. We can't hoof
it there, for it's too far from the Border; but there must be roads of
some kind and we'll find something to ride in--or----"
"Why, Marty!" gasped Janice, stopping him. "Your being here--on this
very train with me--certainly _was_ an explosion. But _this_ is a
greater one. Don't say any more. I can't stand any more excitement
to-night," and she was more than a little in earnest although she
smiled.
"Here comes the porter to make up the berths. You'll have to go. And
we'll talk it over in the morning, early. And _do_ get rid of that
mustache, for we'll be at Fort Hancock to-morrow and that is where I
have about decided to leave the train."
"Sure," said the very confident Marty. "That's just the place I'd picked
out myself to drop off at. All right, Janice. See you in the morning.
Er----"
"Well, what?" asked his cousin.
"Hadn't you better let me take that money of yours for safe keeping?"
"No, Marty," she said demurely. "We won't put all our eggs in one
basket. You know, even _you_ might be robbed. Good-night, dear boy!"