THE BANDITS
The party got under way once more, Carlitos again silent and, Janice
thought, Tom Hotchkiss eyeing her and Marty from time to time
suspiciously. The fugitive had discovered that the couple in the back of
the car were not Mexicans, and Hotchkiss was suspicious of all
Americans. Indeed, he was living a very uneasy existence. Being
naturally of a cowardly nature, even the distance he had put between
himself and Polktown did not seem to his mind great enough to insure
safety. The fact that, although they had been four hours on the road
from La Guarda to San Cristoval, they were only five miles from the Rio
Grande, greatly excited him.
Had their errand to San Cristoval and beyond not been so pressing,
Janice and Marty might have conspired with Carlitos to get the swindling
storekeeper back over the Border at some point where an American law
officer could be found.
Janice believed she could do this. She was feeling much more certain of
herself than she had on the train. Two days at the Border had made a
great change in Janice Day. Marty was not the only independent one. The
girl felt that, after all, the world outside her heretofore sheltered
life was not so very difficult.
Thus far she had met nothing but kindness from people whom she had not
expected to be kind. The way to her father seemed to be wide open before
her. She was going to accomplish her mission without an iota of the
trouble she had feared.
However, as this was not the time to make the attempt to bring Hotchkiss
to justice she pulled the veil closer over her face and avoided the
man's eyes when he chanced to look back. She hoped the fellow was just
worried. Of course, being a thief and a swindler, he was suspicious of
everybody. He showed very plainly that he distrusted even Carlitos. The
Mexican, however, seemed in a cheerful mood again. His outbreak against
the "buzzard," Se[~n]or Baldasso Nunez, must have relieved his mind.
They rattled up hill and down dale. Don Abreguardo's handmaid had put a
basket of lunch into the car. At another well they stopped and ate this,
Janice offering some to Carlitos and to his fat and perspiring seat
mate.
"But yes, se[~n]orita," Carlitos said politely. "We do not reach La Gloria
till sunset. Then we eat at Tomas Lopez's hotel. Fine hotel--by
goodness, yes!"
"Why didn't you tell me it was so far?" grumbled Tom Hotchkiss. "I
would have brought something along to eat."
Carlitos shrugged his shoulders. "I forget," he said. "Me, I have plent'
tobac' for roll cigareet; what more any _hombre_ need, I see not!"
They went on, passing through a village now and then. Having turned now
directly from the river, Tom Hotchkiss seemed in a better mood. He
commented frankly upon the miserable habitations and the miserable
people he saw.
"I don't see what they get out of it," he observed. "Filthy rags to
clothe them, nothing to eat but beans, and most of the houses no better
than pig-stys. Why! even the chickens--look at 'em, will you? They ain't
fit to eat, they're so scrawny."
"They are not for eat, se[~n]or," said Carlitos softly. "They are for
fight."
"For fighting, you mean?"
"_S['i]_, se[~n]or. The Mexican may be poor, but never too poor to fight good
game cock on Sunday after mass--by goodness, yes!"
In one of the villages Carlitos slowed down--then stopped. There was a
group of old women squatting in the street before the door of an adobe
dwelling. They swayed from side to side, moaning in unison, while now
and then one would lift up her head and wail aloud.
"What is the matter with them?" demanded Janice.
Carlitos had removed his hat and crossed himself, muttering a prayer.
"It is a funeral, se[~n]orita," he explained. "See! they carry heem to his
grave."
Four men came forth from the house, carrying a packing case on their
shoulders. This makeshift casket had stenciled on its end: "Glass. Use
No Hooks." The intimation that the corpse was so fragile amused Marty.
"Hi tunket!" he murmured. "Don't these folks down here beat ev'rything
you ever saw Janice?"
The old women mourners scuttled out of the way. A band of three
musicians, whose instruments consisted of a cornet, a piccolo, and a
drum, appeared and headed the procession. All the village fell in behind
the band and the pall-bearers, two and two, and when they turned out of
the main street to mount the hill toward the cemetery, Carlitos cranked
up again and the car went on, leaving the funeral cort[`e]ge marching
blithely to the strains of a well-known Mexican air.
The wail of the cornet, the squealing of the piccolo, and the rattle of
the drum accompanied the automobile out of town and a long way into the
country. They began to mount into higher ground the farther they got
from the river. It was almost sunset as Carlitos had prophesied when
they saw La Gloria lying above them on a cheerful mesa.
The town was nearly ringed around by green trees. The main streets were
paved. The plaza, or central square, was gay with shops and there was a
bandstand. Se[~n]or Tomas Lopez's hotel was about on a par with the Pez
hostelry at Fort Hancock.
But after the dusty and nerve-racking ride in the automobile a chance
for quiet, a bath, and relaxation between the clean coarse sheets of a
bed, seemed heavenly to Janice Day. She really did not want to get up
for supper.
Marty, however, kept calling to her and would not be denied. He had
found out that there was beefsteak--of a sort--for supper.
"I never did realize before," he sadly admitted, "how tired a feller
could get of just beans. I never want ma, when I get home again, to have
'em on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings--never! Shucks! I feel like I
was turning into a bean myself. I bet if you planted me I'd sprout into
a beanstalk."
They sat in the window till late in the evening and watched the people
in the square. There was a band and it played some of the popular airs
they were familiar with in the North. But when it essayed the native
music Janice liked it better.
Old and young promenaded, the girls in bright costumes, the young
_caballeros_ in garments quite as gay--sashes, short velvet jackets,
sombreros with cords of silver bullion, and some of them with clattering
silver spurs on their heels. Here and there scuffled an Indian through
the throng in a brightly dyed _serape_. The older women sat on benches
or in the arched doorways, many of them smoking big, black cigars. And
the children were everywhere, but more nearly dressed than they had been
at the Border. Up here on the mesa the nights were chilly.
They got out of La Gloria very early in the morning, for Carlitos
assured them it would be a long day's journey to San Cristoval even if
nothing happened to the automobile.
"An' me, I never know when she goin' to break down," he said with one of
his disarming smiles.
Hotchkiss quarreled with the Mexican before the party got off. "How do I
know where you're takin' me? I can't buy a map of the country--don't
believe they ever _made_ one down here. And who are these folks I'm
a-travelin' with? I thought they were Mex; but I see they are white
folks."
"What am _I_--nigger, huh?" demanded Carlitos, "You not lik-a travel
weeth me, you pay me an' stop here. I no care."
"We won't bite you, Mister," drawled Marty, keeping well in the
background, however. "What are you scared of?"
"What's your name?" growled Hotchkiss suspiciously.
"Down here it's George Washington. What's yours?" returned Marty,
chuckling and backing still further away.
"Just as near Abraham Lincoln as yours is George Washington," snarled
Hotchkiss.
Marty and Janice got into the car, having gone around back of it to
enter from the opposite side. Hotchkiss climbed in beside the Mexican
driver, still muttering about "not knowing where he was bound for."
The road was rougher than it had been the day before and much of the way
it was ascending. So the automobile went slowly. The engine
sputtered--and so did Tom Hotchkiss. Carlitos was sunk in sullen mood
and his comments--usually addressed to the car--were in Spanish, and
scarcely translatable.
Janice became exceedingly weary before the morning was half over. Riding
over plowed ground in a springless cart would have been little worse
than being jounced about in this automobile.
They did not rest even during _siesta_, only stopping long enough for
Carlitos to mend his car with a piece of wire and what Janice supposed
must be much Spanish profanity. The journey was getting on the Mexican's
nerves as it was upon that of his passengers.
At certain places they were stopped by rough-looking men--some of them
armed. Carlitos made his explanations in his own tongue. Tom Hotchkiss
was growing visibly panic-stricken. He had doubtless been afraid of
arrest on the United States side of the Border; but the appearance of
these bands of seemingly masterless vagabonds frightened the runaway
storekeeper from Polktown still more.
It was mid-afternoon and the automobile was limping along through a wild
valley, when above the coughing of the engine Janice heard the
_rat-a-plan_ of hoofbeats. She looked around earnestly, and finally
spied a company of horsemen charging cross-country toward the trail the
automobile was following.
"Oh! who are those?" she cried, leaning forward to place her hand on
Carlitos' shoulder.
He looked up, saw the cavalcade, and jerked the steering wheel a little.
They bumped into a bowlder, the car shot back, and then the engine died
with an awful rattle.
"_Carramba!_" sputtered Carlitos. "We have the accident now--yes, huh?"
"But who are those men?" repeated Janice. "They see us. They are coming
this way."
Carlitos stood up to look. He shrugged his shoulders.
"That is Dario Gomez riding in their lead. He is a great bandit chief,
se[~n]orita. Now we are--what you call?--in for it--by goodness, yes!"