SOMETHING VERY EXCITING
Janice did not see the black-eyed woman who had been so much in her
company across the continent again that night; and in the morning she
found that the berth under her own had remained empty. Upon asking the
porter she learned that Madam had left the train at Sweetwater.
"And never said good-bye to me!" Janice thought with some compunctions
of conscience. "Is it possible that she was offended because of those
pieces of newspaper I carried in my bosom? It did look as though I
doubted her honesty."
For the girl could not believe, as Marty had suggested, that the odd,
foreign-talking woman had had designs upon her money.
"You never can tell about those foreigners," Marty said gruffly at
breakfast time. He had managed to remove the mustache and his lip was
sore.
Marty had all the narrow-minded prejudices against foreigners of the
inexperienced.
"You're going to have a fine time down here among these Mexicans," his
cousin told him.
"Watch 'em. That's _my_ motto," cried Marty. "And, say! ain't some o'
the greasers funny-lookin' creatures?"
At every little, hot station they passed (for there was a startling
difference in the temperature compared with the frosty nights and
mornings they had left behind in Vermont) there were several of the
broad-brimmed, high-crowned hats typically _M['e]jico_, as well as the
shawl-draped figures of hatless women, and dozens of dirty,
little-clothed children.
"Why! it looks like a foreign country already," Janice sighed.
But Marty was only eager. His eyes fairly snapped and he almost forgot
to eat the very nice breakfast that Janice had ordered, he was so deeply
interested in all that was outside the car windows.
Yet the outlook for the most part was rather dreary between stations,
while the stations themselves were "as ugly as a mud fence" to quote
Marty.
"But everything is new," said the boy. "I ain't missin' anything."
The conductor vis['e]d their tickets for a stop-over at Fort Hancock and
agreed to "pull her down" for that station although it was not a
stopping point for through trains.
"You'll have to go on up to El Paso on a local," he drawled; "and
you'll have to mix up with greasers an' such."
"How do you know we shall want to go on to El Paso at all?" asked
Janice, smiling.
"Why, ma'am, nobody ever stays in these river towns any longer'n they
kin he'p. And outside of the soldiers stationed hereabout there's only
seventy-five folks or so, in the place--only two of _them_ white."
"Oh!" Janice involuntarily gasped.
"Ol Jos['e] Pez keeps the store and hotel. He's not such a robber as
_some_; he's too lazy--and too proud, I reckon. You got folks at the
post?"
"We expect to meet Lieutenant Cowan," Janice said.
The cousins were the only passengers to leave the train, and they were
quite unexpected. The natives, who _en masse_ always met the trains
scheduled to stop at the station, refused to believe that the "limited"
had stopped. They preferred to believe that the appearance of the two
young strangers was an hallucination; better such a mystery in their
placid lives than the unexpected reality.
Several little children came to stare at Janice and Marty standing on
the platform before the corrugated iron station, in which there was not
even an agent. _One_ of these infants was dressed. He wore a torn hat
evidently having belonged originally to someone with a much larger head
than he possessed. He had to lift up its brim with both hands to peer
at the strangers.
"They are _so_ dirty," murmured Janice.
"Gee!" sighed Marty, his freckled face brightening. "Ain't it immense?"
His cousin stared at him in an amazement that gradually changed to
something like admiration. She suddenly realized that, if she could have
chosen her escort, nobody would have so well suited as Marty Day under
these distressing circumstances. He might not be very wise, but he was
immensely enthusiastic.
He was staring now beyond the line of haphazard shacks and adobe
buildings that bordered the one street, into the jungle of mesquite and
cactus growing in the dry waste of sand that almost surrounded the
settlement--and he could smile!
While on the train they had passed many irrigated grapefruit orchards
bordered by lordly date palms; but the tangle of mesquite and cactus was
always just over the ocatilla fences. They had likewise seen a
sprawling, low-roofed ranchhouse here and there from the train windows,
but there was nothing like that comfort suggested here.
Most of the buildings in sight were one-room dwellings of adobe, with an
open shed at the back built of four corner posts supporting a thatch
roof, on which peppers were still sunning, late as was the season. Here
and there between these forlorn huts grew an oleander or an umbrella
chinaberry; and there were vines on some of the walls, masking their
ugliness. But for the most part the village was a dreary and distressing
looking collection of habitations.
Janice and Marty moved along the street of the town. There was no walk,
and the roadway was deep in dust. Marty carried Janice's bag and strode
along as though "monarch of all he surveyed." To tell the truth, the
girl was closer to tears than she had been since leaving Polktown.
Their objective point was a large frame building, roofed with corrugated
iron and with a veranda in front, at the end of the street. The sides of
this more important looking building were trellised with vines. There
was, too, the promise of cleanliness and coolness about the place.
Across the front they read the sign:
JOS['E] PEZ, MERCHANDISE
A solemn old man, burned almost black by the sun and with the skin of
his face as wrinkled as an alligator's hide, rose from a comfortable
chair on the porch to greet them. He wore a long white goatee and
military mustache. He had an air of immense dignity.
"_Buenos d['i]as, se[~n]orita! Buenos d['i]as, se[~n]or!_" and he bowed politely.
"Are--are you Mr. Pez?" asked Janice timidly.
The old man bowed low again. "Don Jos['e] Almoreda Tonias Sauceda Pez--at
your service, se[~n]orita."
"We wish to find Lieutenant Cowan. He is stationed here."
"No longer, se[~n]orita," said the old fellow, shaking his head in vigorous
denial. "He is gone with his troop a month now. I do not know his
present station. At the telegraph office the operator may be able to
tell you. To my sorrow I cannot. Lieutenant Cowan is my friend."
"And my father's friend. My father is Mr. Broxton Day," Janice hastened
to tell him.
"Se[~n]or Broxton Day?" repeated the don. "I am sorrowful, se[~n]orita. I do
not know heem. But we have a--how do you call it in Eenglish?--Ah! a
mutual friend in Lieutenant Cowan. Come in. My poor house and all that I
possess is at your service."
"You--do you conduct a hotel here, Se[~n]or Pez?" suggested Janice.
"Surely! Surely!" declared the old man with another sweeping gesture.
"We must get rooms here then, Marty," she said to her cousin; "and
perhaps the gentleman can tell us how we may get across the river and to
San Cristoval."
"You let _me_ do the talking," Marty said rather gruffly. "I'll make
the bargain. I've found out that a dollar Mex ain't worth but fifty
cents."
He said this in a low voice; but the don was already summoning somebody
whom he called "Rosita" from the interior of the house. The house was
divided in the middle, one half of the lower floor being given up to the
exigencies of trade. On the other side of the hall that ran through to
the rear were the hotel rooms.
Rosita appeared. She was a woman shaped like a pyramid. Even her head,
on which the black coarse hair was bobbed high, finished in a peak--the
unmistakable mark of the ancient Aztec blood in her veins. Her shoulders
sloped away from her three chins and it seemed as though the greatest
circumference of her body must be at her ankles, for her skirt flared.
Rosita had guessed at her waist-line and had tied a string there, for
her dress was a one-piece garment and she had no actual knowledge of
where her waistband should be placed.
But in spite of her strange shape and dark complexion, Rosita was still
very pretty of countenance and had wonderfully white teeth and great,
violet eyes. She was still in her early thirties. A toddling little one
clung to her skirt.
"Take the _ni[~n]ito_ hence, Rosita, and show the se[~n]orita to the best room
above. Her _caballero_----?" Se[~n]or Pez looked at Marty doubtfully and
the boy struck in:
"That's all right, old feller. It don't matter where I camp. We'll talk
about that pretty soon. You go ahead and see the room, Janice, and wash
up. Maybe they can give you dinner."
"Surely! Surely!" said the don, shooing the _ni[~n]ito_ out of the way as
though it were a chicken.
Rosita mounted to the upper floor in the lead. Janice followed with a
queer feeling of emptiness at her heart--the first symptom of
homesickness.
But the mountainous Rosita seemed as kindly intentioned as the old don.
She opened the door with a flourish on a broad, almost bare room, with
an iron bed, a washstand and bureau of maple, a rocking chair, and with
curtains at the two windows.
On the floor was a straw matting and over its dry surface Janice heard a
certain rustling--a continual rhythmic movement. As she stared about the
floor, hesitating to enter, Rosita said:
"It is be-a-u-tiful room--yes, huh?"
"But--but what is that noise?" asked the girl from the North, her mind
filled with thoughts of tarantulas and centipedes.
"Huh? Nottin'. _That?_ Jes' fleas--sand fleas. They hop, hop, hop. No
mind them. You hongree--yes, huh? I go get you nice dinner--yes, huh?"
She departed, quite filling the stairway as she descended to the lower
floor.
"My goodness!" thought Janice, with a sudden hysterical desire to laugh.
"I should hate to have the house catch fire and wait my turn to go
downstairs after Rosita!"
It took no conflagration to hasten her preparations for descent on this
occasion. She met Marty at the foot of the staircase. The boy's face was
actually pallid, and against this background his freckles seemed twice
their usual size.
"What is it? What has happened?" demanded Janice, seizing his arm.
Marty drew her farther from the foot of the staircase to where she could
see through a narrow doorway into the store.
"See there!" the boy hissed.
"See what? Oh, Marty! you frighten me."
"'Tain't nothin' to be frightened of," he assured her. "See that feller
with the red vest?"
"I see the red waistcoat--yes," admitted Janice, peering into the gloomy
store.
"Hi tunket! D'you know who's inside that red vest?" sputtered Marty.
"No-o."
"Tom Hotchkiss!" said her cousin. "What d'you know about that?"