Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: THE PONY PUT HER TWO FOREFEET OVER THE EDGE
OF THE DESCENT.]
Across the Mesa
By
JARVIS HALL
AUTHOR OF "THROUGH MOCKING BIRD GAP"
Frontispiece by
HENRY PITZ
THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1922
COPYRIGHT
1922 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY
Across the Mesa
Made in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Why Not? 7
II Athens 14
III En Route 30
IV Juan Pachuca 48
V Polly Arrives 65
VI Local Activities 80
VII Miss Chicago 97
VIII The Prisoner 109
IX At Liberty 126
X The Discovery 142
XI Casa Grande 159
XII A Night Ride 179
XIII The Wagon 188
XIV The Trail 208
XV Angel 222
XVI Tom Does a Marathon 238
XVII At Soria's 251
XVIII Back to Athens 276
XIX Polly Makes a New Acquaintance 283
XX Treasure Trove 303
ACROSS THE MESA
CHAPTER I
WHY NOT?
Polly Street drove her little electric down Michigan Boulevard, with
bitterness in her heart.
It was a cold wet day in the early spring of 1920, and Chicago was doing
her best to show her utter indifference to anyone's opinion as to what
spring weather ought to be. It was the sort of day when, if you had any
ambition left after a dreary winter, you began to plot desperate things.
Polly hated driving the electric--her soul yearned for a gas car. Mrs.
Street, however, did not like a gas car without a man to drive it; the son
of the family was in Athens, Mexico, at a coal mine; and Mr. Street, Sr.,
considered that his income did not run to a chauffeur at the present scale
of wage. Therefore, Polly tried to forget her prejudice and to imagine
that the neat little car was a real machine.
Second among her grievances was the fact that this was Bob's wedding day
and she, his adored and adoring sister, was not with him. Bob had been
engaged for some months to a girl in Douglas, Arizona. The date of the
wedding had been set twice and each time difficulties in Mexico had made
it seem unwise either that Bob should leave Athens, where he held the
position of superintendent of one of Fiske, Doane & Co.'s mines, or that
the bride should venture into the disturbed region.
This time they expected, as Bob wrote, to "pull it off on schedule." Polly
had hoped either to go to Douglas for the wedding or to have the bride and
groom in Chicago; but Father had been unable to get away, Mother hadn't
been well, and the trip had been given up. Then the young couple planned
to go immediately to Athens without the formality of a honeymoon. To quote
Bob again: "People go on honeymoons to be lonesome, and if anybody can
find a better place to be lonesome in than Athens, let him trot it out."
The third grievance held an element of publicity particularly galling to a
young lady who was known to her friends not only as a daring horsewoman, a
crack swimmer and a golf champion, but as a bit of a belle besides. She
and Joyce Henderson had agreed a week ago to break their engagement. The
engagement had been a mistake--both young people admitted it frankly to
each other. The irritating part of it was that Joyce was admitting it to
the world.
Instead of taking the matter seriously and considering himself, outwardly
at least, as the victim of an unhappy love affair, Joyce had escorted
another girl, who shall be nameless, for she does not enter this story
except as an element of conflict, to the Mandarin Ball. Now the Mandarin
Ball is not the frivolous affair that its name suggests, but a perennial
of deep importance, a function to which young men are in the habit of
taking their wives, their fiancees, or the girls they rather hope may be
their fiancees. It is one of the few social affairs left of the old
order.
Thus you can see that it was a pointed action on Joyce's part; an
indication that he regarded himself as a free man, and after the habit of
free men was about to put on new chains. It was humiliating, to say the
least. During the war the engagement had seemed quite natural, quite a
part of things. All the young people were engaged--except those who were
married.
"That, at least, I had sense enough not to do!" raged Polly, as she
narrowly missed a pedestrian's heel.
It is hard for older people to realize how important it is at twenty-three
to be doing exactly what others are doing; the absolute anguish of being
the only man in the A. E. F. without a wife or sweetheart, or the only
girl at home without a soldier husband or lover. A bit of such
understanding would make clear not only the number of divorces and broken
engagements which resulted from the war and had their share in the
production of the unrest of the times, but would also elucidate a good
many other happenings to youth.
So much for Polly Street and Joyce Henderson, who were fortunate enough to
find out before marriage that they were unsuited for each other. Polly,
however, preferred to look upon the dark side. Joyce had behaved like a
cad.
"And the worst of it is that everybody will say it serves me right," she
went on to herself, "just because I've flirted a bit here and there. It's
not my fault if people never turn out as I expect them to. I guess I'm
like Grandfather Street was in his religion. He thought the Baptists were
wonderful until he joined them and then the Presbyterians looked more
interesting to him. After he'd been with them a while he couldn't see how
anybody could be a Presbyterian, so he joined the Unitarians. People
thought he was a turncoat, but he wasn't--he was just a sort of religious
Mormon. One church wasn't enough for him.
"Oh dear, I wish I'd gone to Douglas alone! Bob would understand. I
believe I'll go to Athens. Why not? It's safe enough or Emma's parents
wouldn't let her go. Of course it's a bit soon after their wedding, but
I'll be tactful and keep out of their way."
The light of determination was in Polly's dark eyes. They were big lovely
eyes that looked at you wistfully from under arched brows. They seldom
laughed or twinkled and the nose that kept them company was equally
sedate, being purely aquiline, but a mouth with dimpled corners upset the
scheme entirely, while ripples of golden brown hair completed the picture
of a healthy, happy youngster--not radiantly beautiful but what people
like to call "winsome," which is after all as good a word as most.
She parked the electric on the Lake Front and crossed the Boulevard. The
policeman on the crossing nodded to her and she smiled at him. Polly had
what her father called a "stand in" with the force. It was unnecessary,
for she was a good driver when her feelings were not agitated, but there
was something about policemen that appealed to her. They were so big and
pink and forceful that you felt rather important when they nodded to
you--a bit after the fashion of a man who is recognized by the head
waiter.
She was still smiling when she entered the building in which was located a
club to which she belonged. It was a serious-minded club of clever women,
and most people had been amused when Polly Street joined it. Nobody
expected serious-minded things of Polly, though here and there someone was
willing to admit that she was "clever enough in her way."
Finding the writing-room empty, Polly sat down to write a letter. Several
times in her career she had decided upon courses of procedure which had
seemed to her eminently practical, only to be talked out of them by her
family. This time she would take no such chances. She would write to Bob,
and Bob, being much like her, understood her--as well at any rate as any
brother understands a sister. Then she would go over to the bank and get
some money on her Liberty Bonds. Polly was as usual broke, Mr. Street
being a man who provided credit liberally for his family but who had
learned from experience that money was safer in his own hands.
A trip to the ticket office to make reservations and the thing would be
done. A vague remembrance that Mexico was a place which demanded passports
upon entrance came into her mind but was dismissed airily. Father would
attend to that. The fact that Mexico was a troublous region where an
American girl might meet with a good many disagreeable adventures was as
airily dismissed. All that anyone needed to go anywhere, according to
Polly's simple code, was common sense and money. The first she had, the
second she intended to get, so why worry?
As she sat at the writing-table a slightly martial air came over Polly.
Bob must be made to understand the situation. Because a man took it upon
himself to dwell in or on a coal mine, Polly was never quite sure of the
phrase, in the remote Southwest, he was not absolved from all family
duties. The fact that he had married the handsomest girl in Arizona and
was indulging in a honeymoon need not prevent an oppressed sister from
demanding sympathy. She wrote rapidly.
"DEAR BOB:
"I know it's awfully nervy of me to drop in on you and Emma right at the
beginning of your honeymoon, but I am coming just the same. Joyce
Henderson has behaved atrociously to me. I'll explain when I see you. You
needn't show this to Emma; you can read her scraps of it."
Polly paused. A mental picture of Emma, demure and pretty, came before
her. Bob Street was a lucky man to have found a girl like Emma. A dreamy
look succeeded the martial one. Visions of a flower-bedecked hacienda--was
that what they called them, it didn't sound exactly right--surrounded by
peons dozing in the sun succeeded the dimpled vision of Emma. Polly drew
her ideas of Mexico entirely from the movies, Bob's short letters being
quite lacking in atmosphere. She saw herself leaning over a balcony,
listening to the strains of a mandolin, played by a tall, slim youth, who
resembled a composite photograph of several of her favorite movie idols.
Poor Joyce Henderson, how unimportant he seemed by the side of that
radiant vision! Polly scribbled furiously.