AT LA GUARDA
Janice and Marty, clinging together on the rough platform of Manuel's
wagon for fear of falling off, saw very little of the country through
which they traveled that evening. That the way was rough they knew, and
that sparse trees bordered it on either hand was likewise apparent even
in the dusk. But they saw no habitations and no light save the distant
stars.
The mules rattled on at a jog-trot, while Manuel beguiled the way with
untranslatable songs in the vernacular. If Marty asked him a question
about the way or the distance or the time, all Manuel said was:
"We reech there preety soon, _hombre_--alla right!"
By and by they did espy lights ahead. It was then almost midnight. A
group of horsemen arose suddenly like shadows out of the mesquite and
hailed the driver.
"_Viva M['e]jico!_" squalled Manuel before he could pull his mules to a
standstill.
A sharp demand in Spanish made Janice cower in her place on the reach
and cling more tightly to Marty's hand. They listened to Manuel
chattering a reply in which was included Don Jos['e]'s name. In a moment
they were driving on, undisturbed.
"That chief, huh! _he_ know the good Don Jos['e]," Manuel said to his
passengers.
"Suppose he had _not_ known him?" drawled Marty in the semi-gloom.
They could see that Manuel shrugged his shoulders; but he made no other
reply.
The twinkling lights of La Guarda were now near at hand. They were not
halted but rattled into the sprawling little town and on to a large,
square, low building, the entrance to which was a wide and dimly lighted
archway.
"Hi tunket!" breathed Marty. "It looks like a police station. D'you
s'pose we're going to be pinched, Janice?"
But he grinned as he asked the question and got down nonchalantly
enough, to help his cousin alight.
"Not much like the calaboose at Middletown," he observed.
"You horrid boy!" Janice said. "Are you trying to scare me?"
"Couldn't do it," declared Marty with admiration. "You're a reg'lar
feller, Janice."
"Thank you, dear. I know you mean to compliment me. Now, what is Manuel
doing?"
The teamster had called some question into the empty archway of the
building, repeating it several times. There now appeared a little,
shrewd-looking Spaniard without a spear of hair on either head or face,
and wearing a flapping gown over what was plainly his pajamas.
Manuel and this apparition gabbled in their own tongue for several
minutes; then the teamster gestured toward the bald man, saying to
Marty:
"Se[~n]or Don Abreguardo. He will tak' you in--alla right. _Mi dinero,
se[~n]or._"
This was a request for payment, as Marty very well knew, so the boy
handed over a five-dollar gold piece. Manuel looked at the coin
suspiciously, bit it, rang it on one of the flagstones, weighed it
thoughtfully in his palm, and finally pocketed it and drove off without
further word.
"What do you know about that?" murmured Marty.
Janice had already turned to the old man in the flapping gown. He bowed
very low to her.
"Within," he said clearly, in good English if a little stilted in
diction--"within lies my poor house. We Mexicans have no word for
'home,' se[~n]orita; but _la patria_ means more than country. All I possess
save _la patria_ lies herein. It is yours."
"Why, he is even more polite than Don Jos['e]," whispered the girl as they
followed the Mexican who had evidently got out of bed to attend them.
"Ye-as," Marty said slowly. "But it seems to me they offer too much."
"They are not as cautious as us Yankees," his cousin said, smiling.
"_Now_ you've said a mouthful," announced the boy with emphasis.
The passage through the wall led to a roomy court around which the house
was built. There was the tinkle of water falling into a basin, the fresh
smell of vegetation, and by the light of the stars Janice saw that trees
were growing here.
"It is late, se[~n]orita and se[~n]or. My family have retired. I will assign
you both rooms and in the morning we will become acquainted--eh?" said
the don. "This way, please. You are brother and sister?"
"Cousins," Janice explained.
"Ah--yes. You would not be separate far--eh? This room for you, then,
se[~n]orita. The next on the right for our young se[~n]or--eh?"
Lamps burned in both rooms. They were comfortably furnished and the
stone floor had rugs upon it.
"You will be undisturbed here, I assure you. In the morning, se[~n]orita, a
woman will wait upon you."
He bowed and clattered away in his hard, heel-less slippers.
"Seems like a good sort of a creature, after all," Marty said. "Don
Abreguardo, eh?"
Janice made no reply save to bid him good-night and entered her room.
She had lost that feeling of uncertainty and actual fear that had
oppressed her. The future promised more cheer than she had believed
possible.
Those back in Polktown had been entirely wrong. Her own judgment seemed
to have been the sounder. Here she was, over the Border, miles on the
way to her wounded father!
"And everybody so kind!" she thought as she sank to sleep on the
comfortable couch under the canopy. "Only I wish we might have caused
the arrest of that Tom Hotchkiss."
It seemed to the weary girl as though she closed her eyes and opened
them immediately upon the broad sunshine and the tinkling fountain in
the court of Don Abreguardo's dwelling. She heard Marty's voice and that
of their host outside.
Janice arose and found herself well rested after her repose. She drew
the lattices at the window and their clatter aroused something else.
Just inside her closed door, leaning against the wall, was something she
had not before noticed. It looked like a bag of old clothes covered by a
purple _serape_. This began to move, quite startling the girl for an
instant.
The _serape_ was put aside languidly and a bare brown arm appeared.
Janice retreated to the other side of the canopied bed and watched. A
girl's head was revealed--lank, black hair, a very dark face with high
cheek bones, bead-black eyes, and huge silver rings hanging in the lobes
of her ears, fairly touching her bared shoulders.
"What do you want here?" gasped Janice.
"I am the one sent, se[~n]orita!" ejaculated the girl in English. "I help
you, se[~n]orita. It is an honor." And, having risen quickly and as
gracefully as a panther, she bowed.
"Oh! you are the maid?"
"_S['i], se[~n]orita!_"
Janice decided she must be an Indian--one of pure blood. There was a
look about her different from that of the Mexican girls she had seen.
"What is your name?" asked the girl from the North, giving herself up to
the ministrations of the maid, who seemed quite skillful.
"Luz, se[~n]orita, is what I am called. It is the little name for Lucita,
se[~n]orita."
"You have worked long for Don Abreguardo?"
"I was born in the house, se[~n]orita," said the girl, with a flash of her
white teeth.
"Is there a large family?" Janice asked doubtfully. "I am a stranger,
you know."
"His mother lives--the ancient Donna Abreguardo. He now has his second
wife, has the good don. By his first he has two daughters and a son.
Young Don Ricardo is married and is at the Hacienda del Norte. The two
se[~n]oritas are of the marriageable age--oh, yes! But in these troubled
times who has thought for marriage?"
"And this is all his family?"
"There are the children. Three. Of the good don's second marriage. He
has his quiver full, as my people say," and the Indian maid chuckled.
She seemed so intelligent that Janice would have continued the
conversation had she not heard Marty moving so impatiently about the
courtyard.
"Come on, Janice!" he said as she appeared. "There's breakfast
waiting--and it ain't _all_ beans. I'm as hungry as a shark."
A table was laid, with covered dishes on it, near the fountain. The
courtyard was a clean, comfortable place. The style of living familiar
to the Abreguardos was of course entirely new to Janice and her cousin.
"Luz" waited upon the guests.
Don Abreguardo came bustling into the court before they had finished the
repast. Now that he was dressed, he proved to be a very dapper figure of
an old gentleman, his bald poll hidden by a cap.
"This is a fine day--by goodness, yes!" he announced. "Have you attended
the se[~n]orita with diligence, Luz?"
"As I would the Donna Isabella herself," declared the Indian handmaid.
"You may bring my coffee here. We will talk."
It seemed it was a coffee-making machine he desired. He was very
particular about his coffee, was Don Abreguardo--liked it black and
thick and drank it without sugar or cream.
While the coffee dripped he said, bowing to Janice:
"I have read the letter from my very good friend, Don Jos['e] Pez, which
you so kindly gave me last night, se[~n]orita. He tells me you have need of
haste in making your way to Los Companos District?"
"It is true, sir," Janice said eagerly. "My father was wounded quite
three weeks ago. So we heard. Since then we have not learned a thing
about him."
"He is at one mine beyond San Cristoval?"
"The Alderdice. He has been chief man there for more than three years."
"_S['i], s['i]!_ I understand," said Se[~n]or Abreguardo. "There has been trouble
in that vicinity, it is true. But it seems things always quiet
down--even the worst."
After this more or less comforting assurance the old man sat thinking
for a minute or two with lips pursed. Now and then he took sips of his
first cup of coffee.
"Were your haste not what it is, se[~n]orita," he said at length, "I would
urge you to remain--you and your young _compadre_--until I might send
for certain news of your father. But you are anxious in your mind--by
goodness, yes!"
"Oh! indeed I am," cried Janice.
"Then we must forego the pleasure of your presence here at my poor
dwelling," the se[~n]or said politely. "There is a way of going soon, I
believe, to San Cristoval. Carlitos Ortez goes in his gas-car--his _tin
Leezie_, he call it. You know?" and their host grinned suddenly.
"Cricky! an automobile?" gasped Marty. "Just the caper!"
"_S['i], s['i]!_" said Se[~n]or Abreguardo. "Carlitos, he swear by the _tin
Leezie_. He will take you to San Cristoval if his car, it do not
br-r-eak down--by goodness, yes!
"I hear," the man went on, nodding and still sipping coffee, "last
evening before you arrive, se[~n]orita, Carlitos have engage to transport
another traveler up country. He may take three passengers in his car as
easily as one--and you will pay him twenty American dollars apiece."
"Whew!" murmured the frugal Marty. "Couldn't we buy his flivver for that
and run it ourselves?"
The se[~n]or's eyes twinkled. "He would charge you double--I assure you,"
he said. "Carlitos is no lover of _los Americanos_. But he will do as
_I_ say. Besides," added the man very sensibly, "you would not know the
road, and no American unattended could easily pass the bands of rovers
now infesting this district."
"Sounds nice, don't it?" whispered Marty to Janice. "What say?"
"Oh, Marty! I _must_ go on," said the girl.
"Sure! All right, we take you," said Marty to Se[~n]or Abreguardo.
"You will pay Carlitos Ortez half of the money before you start--pay it
into _my_ hands," explained the don. "And the end of your journey--San
Cristoval, for he cannot go beyond that point--you will pay him the
remainder and give him a paper assuring me that he has performed his
part of the contract. You are thus safeguarded, and I shall have done my
duty by Don Jos['e]'s friends," concluded Se[~n]or Abreguardo, bowing over his
coffee cup.