THE RED VEST AGAIN
Carlitos Ortez was one of those snaky-looking, black-haired peons, with
a wisp of jetty mustache, who serve as the type of Mexican villains in
lurid melodrama--and he had the heart of a child!
Janice might have been afraid of the quick-motioned, nervous little man
had she been of a less observant nature. But she saw his eyes--deep
brown, placid like a forest pool. The eyes served to make Carlitos
almost handsome.
The automobile came to the archway of Se[~n]or Abreguardo's house in an
hour. Janice and Marty did not meet any of the man's family. The Indian
maiden, Lucita, told Janice that the ladies of the household seldom
stirred from their apartments until after _siesta_.
But the don himself stood bareheaded in the sun to see them start.
Carlitos had put Janice and Marty into the back of the car.
"That other _hombre_--I peek him up later. He sit weeth me," he
explained.
When they got under way with a good deal of rattle and banging, Marty,
jouncing against his cousin as the car went over a stone in the road,
sniffed.
"'Tin Lizzie!' He said it!" the boy growled. "This jitney's about
one-candle power, isn't it? D'you s'pose there're any springs--ugh--on
the contraption at all?"
"Let's not fuss," said Janice. "Think how much worse it would be if we
had to ride horses--or mules. All of those I have seen have been half
wild."
"Hi tunket! this flivver's wild enough, I should think," Marty declared,
as the car skidded around a corner.
La Guarda was not a large town, and they were not long in getting to the
edge of it. Under the shade of a low-roofed tavern a man was
standing--quite a bulky man.
"There ees my other passenger," said Carlitos over his shoulder. "He of
_los Americanos_, too. I theenk he go up country to buy horses. He horse
trader. Sell beeg horse last night to Don Abreguardo."
Janice had seized Marty's hand and squeezed it hard. She was not
listening to Carlitos, but staring at the man on the veranda of the
tavern.
He wore one of the high-crowned, wide-brimmed hats of the country; but
he was not otherwise dressed like the Mexicans. His waistcoat made a
vivid splotch of color as he stood in the shade.
"Cricky!" gasped Marty. "Tom Hotchkiss! red vest, an' all!"
"Oh, it _is_, Marty!" agreed his cousin.
"And we can't do a thing to him!" groaned the boy. "He's gettin' farther
away from the Border; afraid of being nabbed, I s'pose."
"I hope he will not recognize us."
"We'll be dummies. Keep that veil thing over your face, Janice, then he
won't know you from one of these greaser girls. An' he'll take me for a
Mexican, too."
"Thank you!" murmured Janice tartly, and Marty grinned teasingly.
There was no time for further planning. The automobile halted, panting,
at the tavern and the man wearing the red vest came out with his bag.
Close to, he was not to be mistaken for anybody but Tom Hotchkiss, the
absconding Polktown storekeeper. He was a man of girth, with short legs.
His head was set low upon a pair of heavy shoulders. Indeed, he
possessed little visible neck--scarcely enough on which to put a collar.
Tom Hotchkiss was of the apoplectic build to suffer in a warm climate;
and the sun, even at this time of year, seemed almost tropical to these
New Englanders. He had discarded none of his ordinary dress save his
hat, and that looked incongruous enough with his brown cutaway coat, the
red vest, gray trousers, and spats.
"He certainly _is_ a hot member to look at," muttered Marty Day, as the
man approached the car.
Hotchkiss stared curiously at the other passengers; but Janice hid her
face with her veil and the broad brim of Marty's hat quite sheltered his
freckled countenance from casual observation.
"Friends of Don Abreguardo, se[~n]or," explained Carlitos. "They go weeth
us."
He cranked up again, and the automobile began to shake and quiver "like
an elephant with the palsy," to quote the disgusted Marty.
"Say!" he whispered, "this isn't much like your Kremlin--believe me!"
They started. A dog got up from his bed in the dust of the road, yapped
at them languidly, and lay down again in his form. The car skidded
around another corner and they were immediately in the open country.
Climbing a long hill the automobile seemed a dozen times on the point of
being stalled; but no--she kept pluckily on to the summit.
On the down-grade beyond this rise the car went so fast--thumping and
crashing over outcropping roots and other obstructions--that Janice
cried out in alarm.
"If we don't meet nothin' we're all right--eh?" shouted Carlitos above
the roar of the car. "The brake, she done bust."
"Huh!" muttered Marty. "One thing sure, we can go as fast as this old
'tin Lizzie' can."
This did not sound altogether reassuring to Janice. She unlatched the
door on her side of the tonneau, ready to jump out if it looked as
though the reckless driver was about to bring them to disaster.
The man in the red vest hung on to the side, and, short as his neck was,
the two passengers in the tonneau could see that roll of fat above the
collar of his shirt turning pale!
"Tom's getting white around the gills," whispered Marty to his cousin,
chuckling. "He frightens easy. I wonder if we could scare him into
giving up that _cash_ and helping dad?"
"But--but he surely ha-hasn't all that mo-money with him," was jounced
out of Janice's lips in a staccato whisper.
"He ain't forgot where he put it nor how to get hold of it again, you
bet!" growled Marty. "Hi tunket! this sun ought to sweat it out of him.
Ain't it hot?"
"And dusty," sighed Janice. "Oh, thank goodness! here's the bottom of
the hill."
Carlitos grinned back at them--the smile of a wolf, but with his kind
eyes twinkling.
"How you do, eh? The se[~n]orita not like such traveling--by goodness, no?"
he said. "But if we travel not fast on the--what you call?--down-grade,
we not travel far, perhaps, yes?"
Janice covered her countenance and made no reply, for the startled face
of Hotchkiss was likewise turned back.
"You don't have to go so fast on _my_ account," he snarled. "I got all
the time there is."
"Cricky!" whispered Marty. "I'd like to hear him say that after the
judge and jury get through with him. He ought to get _life_ for what
he's done."
"Sh!" begged Janice. "It will do no good to quarrel with him here."
They rattled on through a pleasant valley, with here and there a bunch
of cattle or horses grazing. Occasionally a _vaquero_ dashed past and
waved his hand in greeting to Carlitos Ortez. The latter seemed to fall
into a gloomy mood and for two hours did not speak.
Then he stopped the car beside a well at the edge of the chaparral and
there in the shade the passengers alighted, while Carlitos filled his
radiator and tinkered with parts of the machine that seemed to need
attention.
Janice and Marty managed to keep away from Tom Hotchkiss and spoke only
in low tones. Perhaps the man with the red vest believed his
fellow-passengers to be Mexicans, like Carlitos.
"Who owns all this land?" Hotchkiss asked.
Carlitos jerked his head out from under the car where he had been
fumbling, and scowled.
"By the right of God, se[~n]or, _I_ own part of it. All of _M['e]jico_ is
ours--the people's. We own. But the reech and the strong have taken
away our lands--by goodness, yes!"
"Well, you haven't got anything on folks everywhere," declared
Hotchkiss. "The strong and the shrewd get it all--you bet!"
"This," and Carlitos swept a gesture including all the valley, "is the
_ranchero_ of Se[~n]or Baldasso Nunez. He is a buzzard."
"Yes?"
"His father was a buzzard before him--the old se[~n]or. Look you!" cried
Carlitos with growing excitement. "My grandfather was a boy in the old
se[~n]or's time. He is past eighty now and still working for the present
Se[~n]or Baldasso."
"A long while to keep one job," said Hotchkiss.
"Listen, se[~n]or! At sixteen my grandfather was a big, fine, strong
man--like _me_. He wish to marry a certain girl--she is my grandmother.
Well! It is so that the old se[~n]or hear about my grandfather's wish--by
goodness, yes! He send to my grandfather and offer a hundred pesos so he
may pay the priest for to marry him and my grandfather accept, se[~n]or."
"That was mighty neighborly of the se[~n]or," observed the Yankee
storekeeper.
"Yes-s?" hissed Carlitos. "One hundred pesos, mind--and the Church take
all of that. Between the church and the landowners we are ground to
powder!
"Mind you, se[~n]or, it was for becoming man and wife, and for the raising
of seven sons and daughters and, now, of over thirty of _my_ generation.
My grandfather and all the men and boys living of his race, save me and
a brother who is with the raiders, are still working for Se[~n]or Baldasso
to pay off that hundred pesos!
"What you think of that, se[~n]or, huh?"
"Aw--that don't seem sensible," said Hotchkiss. "Haven't you paid the
original debt?"
"_S['i]_, se[~n]or! that is the truth. Always are we kep' in debt to Se[~n]or
Baldasso. _Me_, I get out--turn outlaw you say--buy this 'tin
Leezie'--mak' money plenty. But none of it go to that Se[~n]or Baldasso--by
goodness, no!"
"So you aren't helping pay off the family debt?" drawled Hotchkiss.
"No, se[~n]or. Sometime I hope to," said Carlitos grimly.
"Yes?"
"At once. All of a piece. You understand?"
"You mean you're going to make money enough to close the account with
the old man?"
"Not money," and Carlitos smiled his wolf-like smile again. "I hope to
help hang Se[~n]or Baldasso at the door of his own _hacienda_--by goodness,
yes!"
Marty exploded a mighty "Cricky!" Then he asked: "Is _that_ why you
Mexicans are fighting all the time?"
"To get back our land--our own. To govern ourselves. _S['i]_, se[~n]or,"
Carlitos declared eagerly. "We long for a deliverer--a devoted leader
who will free us from taskmasters both native and foreign. But we desire
no foreign intervention--by goodness, no! Hands off, gringos. I weesh
that Rio Grande," he concluded, pointing into the northeastern distance,
"were ten thousand miles wide."
"Heh!" ejaculated Tom Hotchkiss, peering in the direction Carlitos
pointed. "Is _that_ the river--just over there?"
"It is five miles away, se[~n]or."
"But I thought you were taking me away from the river all this time?"
sputtered the other. "Why! that's the Border, isn't it?"
"But yes, se[~n]or. We have to follow the road. I cannot drive the tin
Leezie through the chaparral."
"I don't like it," muttered the man. "I thought we were already a long
way from the States."
Marty nudged his cousin. "Scart as he can be, Janice," he whispered.
"'By goodness, yes!' I believe if we had the time, we could march old
Red Vest back over the Border and clap him into jail!"