TOM HOTCHKISS REAPPEARS
Janice went quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped out. Already the
night was old. The footsteps of Dawn were on the eastern hills. On the
mesa, however, the encroaching forest made the shadows black. She could
barely see the "headquarters" train of General Palo.
A man stumbled by and Janice caught at his arm. It was one of her
father's men who had remained to guard the mine.
"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, without betraying all the
fear she felt.
She knew that more than half of the government troops had followed the
retreating rebels into the hills and had not returned to the military
base. The present confusion of the soldiers that remained portended
something desperate she knew.
"A night attack?" she asked.
"It may be, se[~n]orita," whispered the man. "A person has just been
brought in--captured by our pickets."
"Oh!"
"An _Americano_, se[~n]orita. He say Dario Gomez, that bandit unhung,
se[~n]orita, is about to attack. He has gathered a gre't force and will
attack General De Soto Palo. _S['i]! s['i]!_"
"Dario Gomez?" repeated Janice. "Why, I----Who is this American who has
been captured?"
"A deserter. A prisoner. I know not. _Qui['e]n sabe?_"
"But what does he look like?" insisted Janice.
"Oh, se[~n]orita! He is a fat man and wears a red vest across his
stomach--so," and the man gestured.
"Tom Hotchkiss!" murmured Janice.
"I come back to warn Se[~n]or B-Day if there be need," promised the guard
and was gone.
Janice heard a horse charging past her from the direction of the
general's car. In the dim light she thought she recognized the young
aide-de-camp who had been so much in evidence the day before. He rode
off into the north, away from the mine, and Janice believed he had gone
to recall that part of the government troops now absent.
Did General Palo consider the promised attack of the banditti serious?
When Janice had been in Dario Gomez's company he had had but forty
followers!
She re-entered the shed and closed the door. Her father and Marty were
sleeping quietly. Should she arouse them?
The girl was already becoming used to war's alarms. She determined to
watch alone. By no possibility could she have closed her eyes now in
slumber.
While her father and Marty slept peacefully, Janice Day sat by a dim and
rather smoky lantern and watched. Confused sounds of marching and
countermarching soldiery reached her ears; but from a distance.
Suddenly the uproar increased--then more rifle shots in the distance.
Her father roused up, half asleep yet.
"What's that?" he demanded.
A sharp rap came upon the door. Janice arose hastily.
"Lie down, father," she said reassuringly. "I will go."
"The Se[~n]or General De Soto Palo order you all to the train. We make
stand there, se[~n]orita," said the man who had knocked. "The bandits are
at hand."
"What's that?" demanded Mr. Day again, wide awake.
Marty rolled off his couch and appeared in the light of the smoky
lantern, the snub-nosed revolver in his hand. "Hey! I'm in this!" he
croaked, but half awake. "What's doing?"
Swiftly Janice told them what little she had learned while she crammed
things into her bag. The man at the door urged haste.
"That Gomez--he is near," sputtered the messenger.
"Why, we know that feller," Marty drawled. "I don't think he'd do
anything to us, would he, Janice?"
"Never trust appearances with these Mexican banditti," said Mr. Day
gravely. "I've shared the contents of his tobacco pouch with one and
then had him try to cut my throat the next day. They are light-hearted,
light-fingered and--lightest of all in their morals. I wonder that you
two got away from Gomez as you did."
"And Tom Hotchkiss got away from him, too, did he?" growled Marty.
"Well, that's too bad."
"Come, se[~n]or!" urged the messenger in the doorway.
They hurried to the headquarters car. It was growing lighter in the
east. The rifle fire on the southern edge of the mesa was becoming
sharper. General De Soto Palo had not led his troops in person against
the attack of the banditti. Indeed, it was evident that he had been
aroused from his peaceful slumbers at the beginning of the excitement;
even now he had not removed his nightcap. He was not half so
fierce-appearing in this headgear as he had been in his plumed hat.
But Tom Hotchkiss, cowering in a corner, seemed to think that the
general was quite fierce enough.
"You want to remember I'm an American," he was saying whiningly.
"Something's got to be done for me. I can't be treated this way, you
know."
"Se[~n]or B-Day!" exploded the little general. "Do you know this man?"
"Day!"
Tom Hotchkiss almost shrieked it and would have sprung forward to peer
into Mr. Broxton Day's face had not two of the barefooted soldiers held
him back by the ungentle means of their bayonets.
"Yes. It is Thomas Hotchkiss," Mr. Day said, eyeing the fat man without
favor.
"You're Brocky Day!" exclaimed the prisoner with sudden relief. "Well,
you tell these fellers----"
The general raised his hand for silence. The soldiers suddenly pinned
Mr. Hotchkiss into his corner with points that evidently hurt.
"Ouch!"
"You know this man, Se[~n]or Day?"
"Yes, General."
"Is he to be trusted to speak the truth?"
"Never," said Mr. Day firmly, "unless the truth serves him better than
lying."
"Ah!"
"I understand he claims to have escaped from Gomez?"
"_S['i]_, se[~n]or."
"It may be so," said Mr. Day. "My daughter and nephew say they were in
Gomez's power day before yesterday and they have reason to believe that
this Hotchkiss was captured by the bandit."
"And how strong was Gomez's party when the se[~n]orita saw eet?"
"Forty!"
"Ah! But this man say he have thousands of troops--that an attack in
force is intended on the mesa."
"It sounds as though there was some fighting going on out there,"
admitted Mr. Day. "But it may just be my own troops wasting ammunition.
They have plenty--and are like children."
Mr. Day gave Tom Hotchkiss a long and penetrating stare.
"I'm free to confess, _mi general_," he said finally, "I don't know
whether to believe this fellow or not. He's a criminal, wanted by the
American officers. That is sure. It has always been my opinion that if a
man is crooked in one environment he is very apt to be so in another."
Before the doughty little commander could make reply the rattle of rifle
shots increased. It grew nearer. Janice clung to her father's arm.
The door of the office-car was flung open and the Madam suddenly
appeared. She wore a wonderfully figured satin boudoir gown and a cap to
match; and she was plainly very much frightened.
"General! General!" she cried. "The cook has left! Is there really
danger?"
General De Soto Palo muttered something in Spanish that was probably not
polite. His wife saw and recognized Janice.
"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "We are the only two females here! Return with
me. I see the general is disturbed. Come, my dear. We are such goot
friends--yes?"
Before Janice could reply there sounded the sharp _plop_ of a bullet and
a hole appeared in the window-pane directly above the general's desk.
The bits of shattered glass showered over the little man in the
nightcap; but he did not move or show any alarm.
Tom Hotchkiss squealed and tried to lie down in his corner. The two
barefoot soldiers prodded him to a standing posture again.
This had been a baggage car in its day, and the windows were few and
high. The impact of other bullets in the wooden walls was plainly heard.
The rifle fire was advancing and it was not all ammunition wasted by the
government troops.
"My angel," said the general softly, "take the se[~n]orita into the other
car. Lie down below the level of the window sills--both. That will be
safer."
Madam seized Janice's hand and drew her out through the vestibule. Mr.
Day made a motion to Marty.
"Just go along and see that nothing happens to them, my boy," he said.
The Pullman car was fitted with thin steel shutters over the
plate-glass windows and they had been closed the night before; but
evidently General De Soto Palo did not altogether trust these shutters
to keep out stray bullets.
The sharp ping of the lead as it sunk in the woodwork or the more
resonant ring of those bullets glancing from the shutters became more
and more frequent. The explosion of the guns sounded nearer. It was
plain that the government troops were retreating from the southern edge
of the mesa where the attack had opened. Dario Gomez and his followers
seemed to be pressing on.
"Well, Marty, you wanted to see a battle," his cousin said to the boy.
"Are you satisfied now?"
"Huh! I'm not seein' this one, am I?" he challenged. "Hi! what's that?"
he added briskly.
The distant shriek of a steam whistle came faintly to her ears. Janice
and the general's wife looked at each other. Marty drawled:
"Sounds like the old _Constance Colfax_ comin' into the dock, don't it,
Janice? But I reckon they don't have steamboats up in these hills, do
they?"