ATHENS
In the northern part of Mexico, in the state of Sonora, lies the little
mining town of Athens, ironically named by someone whose sense of beauty
was offended by the yellow stretches of desert sand, broken by hills,
dotted here and there by cactus and mesquite, and frowned upon by gaunt
and angular mountains.
Athens, when the mining industry was running full time, was a busy if not
a beautiful spot. Its row of shacks housed workers, male and a few female,
to a generous number, while its busy little train of cars--for Athens
owned a tiny spur of railroad connecting with the neighboring town of
Conejo and operated for reasons germane to the coal industry--gave it, if
you were very temperamental, something of the air of a metropolis seen
through a diminishing glass.
The plant and offices which boasted two stories, and the general
merchandise store which was long and rambling, were larger than the
shacks; otherwise Athens was a true democracy. The company house in which
the superintendent, the manager and the chief engineer "bached" only
differed from the others by an added cleanliness, for Mrs. Van Zandt, the
energetic woman who ran the boarding-house, gave an eye to its welfare.
The little houses were arranged in one long street and that street was
Athens.
Several days after the invasion of Athens suggested itself to Miss Polly
Street in far-off Chicago, a prominent citizen strode from the offices in
the direction of the boarding-house. He moved with decision, for he was
hungry, and Mrs. Van Zandt was fastidious as to hours. The office force
ate its supper at six, and the fact that Marc Scott was the assistant
superintendent and, in the absence of the superintendent on affairs
matrimonial, in charge altogether, was no reason in the eyes of Mrs. Van
Zandt why he should be late to his meals.
Scott paused outside the boarding-house to look into the distance where an
accustomed but always interesting sight met his eyes. Away in the
distance, between two foothills, appeared the tiny thread of smoke which
marked the approach of the little train from Conejo. It was fascinating to
watch it; at first so indistinct, then plainer, and finally to see the
little engine puffing its way along, dragging the small cars. There would
be no one on it but the train gang and nothing more exciting than the
mail, but its bi-weekly arrival never lost interest for Marc Scott.
"Johnson's late to-night," he muttered, and pushed open the door which led
immediately to the dining-room. Three men had just begun eating. There was
Henry Hard, the chief engineer; Jimmy Adams, the bookkeeper, and Jack
Williams, who ran the company store; they, with young Street, Scott, the
doctor--who a month ago had taken an ailing wife back to Cincinnati--and
the train gang, formed the little group of Americans who had held the
mining camp together.
While their location had been freer from trouble than many parts of
Mexico, both in regard to bandit and federal persecution, they had borne a
part in the general unrest. Once the town had been attacked by Indians;
another time, lying in the path of one of Villa's hurried retreats, it had
endured a week-end visit from that gentleman, after which horses and
canned goods had been scarce for a while.
The worst trouble they had had, however, had been with labor. They worked
the mine with Mexicans, and the Mexicans were an uncertain quantity.
Athens was too far from the border to admit of hiring labor from the other
side and allowing it to go back and forth, and the men they got were a
discouraged lot, ready to abandon the job for anything that came up, from
joining the newest bandit to enlisting in the army. Fighting seemed their
_metier_ and most of them preferred it to the monotony of working a mine.
A few who were married and had hungry families stayed longer than the rest
but it was always a problem.
Just now the mine was running three days a week and no one knew when
orders would come to shut down entirely. There were the usual rumors
afloat in regard to the coming election in July and a good many people who
had seen other elections in Mexico expected trouble. The Athens people
were looking to Street's return for news from headquarters, but already
several days had gone by since the wedding and they had heard nothing.
The men looked up and nodded as Scott entered and Mrs. Van Zandt, peering
in from the kitchen through a square hole which served as a means of
communication, brought him his coffee. Mrs. Van Zandt had a weak spot in
her heart for Marc Scott--most women and children had. One did not at
first see why. He was not good looking, except that he was well made and
well kept; not particularly pleasing in his manner, being given to an
abruptness of speech which most people found disconcerting; and he liked
his own way more than is conducive to social harmony.
He was, however, straight as a die; was afraid of few things and no
persons; and if he liked you, he had an especial manner for you which took
the edge off his gruffness so that you wondered why you had ever thought
him disagreeable. His hair and skin were as brown as each other, which was
saying a good deal; his eyes were gray; his teeth white and strong; and he
had the healthy look of a man who lives in the open, bathes a good deal
and does not overeat.
"Late as usual," remarked Mrs. Van Zandt, pessimistically, as she set the
coffee down beside him. "The less a man has to do in this world, the
harder it seems to be for him to get to his meals on time."
"Ain't it the truth?" remarked Adams, with feeling. He was a short, chubby
youngster, with a twinkling blue eye. "If it was me, I could whistle for
my supper, but seeing it's him, he gets fed up, the beggar!"
"Too bad about you!" sniffed Mrs. Van Zandt. "I thought you'd cut out that
second cup of coffee?"
"I'm aiming to cut it out during the heated term," was the cheerful reply.
"There's something about your coffee, Mrs. Van, that's like some
folks--refuses to be cut."
"Humph!" Mrs. Van was not inaccessible to flattery. "Dolores," this to a
black-haired girl whose face appeared at the hole. "You can cut the pies
like I told you--in fours. If that girl stays with me another month I'll
make something out of her; but, Lord, why should I think she'll stay? They
never do. Mexicans must be born with an itch for travel."
"I notice," suggested Hard, "that in the haunts of civilization they are
cutting pies in sixes." Hard was a Bostonian--tall, spare, and muscular.
He came of a fine old Massachusetts family, and his gray eyes, surrounded
by a dozen kindly little wrinkles, his clean-cut mouth, wide but firm and
thin lipped, showed marks of breeding absent in the other men.
"Hush, don't tell her!" growled Adams. "A woman just naturally can't help
trying to follow the styles, and I can use more pie than a sixth, let me
tell you."
Mrs. Van, having attended to the distribution of the pie, sat down at the
foot of the table for a bit of conversation. She was a good-looking woman
with dark hair and eyes, and features which, though they were hard, were
not disagreeable. Her figure was restrained with much care from its
inclination to over fleshiness. Mrs. Van scorned the sort of woman who let
herself get fat and fought the enemy daily. I could not possibly tell you
her age, for no one but herself knew it. It might be thirty-five and on
the other hand it might easily be ten or fifteen years more.
She had led a roving life, beginning somewhere in the Middle West,
carrying on for a time in the East, where it involved a bit of stage life
to which she loved to refer. There had been a short spasm of matrimony,
not entirely satisfactory, the late Van Zandt having had his full share of
his sex's weaknesses, and a final career of keeping a boarding-house in
New York. After that she had drifted West and finally into Mexico. She had
been a veritable godsend to the Athens mining company which had undergone
the agonies of native cooking until the digestions of the American portion
of the working force were in a condition resembling half extinct craters.
"What I'm wonderin' is if Bob Street and his girl got married or not and
when they're coming home," she remarked as she sat down. One of Mrs. Van's
little peculiarities, saved probably from the wreck of her theatrical
career, was a tendency toward calling people by their first names when
they were not there to protect themselves and sometimes even when they
were.
"If they've got any sense at all they'll wait," said Scott, placidly.
"This is no time to be bringin' more women into the country."
"That's so," agreed Williams, a confirmed bachelor. "It was good luck the
Doc took his wife and kids off when he did. There'll be trouble here when
them elections is held."
"Pick up your skirts and run, Mrs. Van!" suggested Adams. "You may be
cooking for a Mexicano yet."
"If I do he'll know it," was the prompt reply. "I ain't the runnin' kind.
Anybody who's staved off the landlord in New York as many times as I have
ain't going to worry about Mexicans. What I think those young folks ought
to do is to go East for their honeymoon."
"They can't," replied Adams, with a grin. "It wouldn't look sporting for
the Supe to leave his underlings without protection in such a crisis."
"I like Bob Street as well as any young chap I know," said Mrs. Van Zandt,
meditatively, "but I don't know as I'd want him standin' between me and
Angel Gonzales--if Angel was much mad." Angel Gonzales was a local bandit;
a man of many crimes and much history. "But, of course, it wouldn't look
well for the Sup'rintendent to run away."
"Street's not the running kind, either; don't fool yourself about that,"
remarked Scott, quietly.
"He's a good kid. I don't care if he is a rich man's son," said Adams with
sincerity. "If my Dad had money I wouldn't be keeping books, you bet."
"No, son, you'd be playing the ponies up at Juarez," responded Hard,
cheerfully.
"Not ponies, Henry dear, roulette," replied Jimmy, pleasantly. "Me and
Mrs. Van are going to get spliced just as soon as the Ouija board tells
her the winning system."
"It's all very well for you to make fun of things you don't know any more
about than a baby, Jim Adams." Mrs. Van's scorn was intense. "If you'd
read that article I showed you in the magazine about the man that talked
to his mother-in-law by the Ouija----"
"Mother-in-law? Great guns, is that the best the thing can do?"
The reply was cut short by the entrance of the train gang, hot and hungry,
clamoring for food.
"How's Conejo?"
"Sand-storm. Windy as a parson. Say, you fellows eat up all the pie?"
Conversation was suspended while the demands of hunger were satisfied, and
Scott distributed the mail which the late comers had brought.
"From Bob?" Hard looked up from his Boston paper as Scott grunted over his
letter. Scott nodded and then as the others looked their curiosity, he
read the brief note aloud.
"DEAR SCOTTY:
"Have just had a summons from the directors to go East at once; guess
they're uneasy about something they've heard and want first-hand
information. Emma and I are starting for Chicago to-morrow. Open all mail
and wire anything important.
"BOB."
"Just what I said they'd ought to do," breathed Mrs. Van, happily. "Well,
that girl's got a good husband--I'll say she has."
"Directors would be a heap more uneasy if they knew what we know,"
remarked Williams, sententiously. "Hear anything more about the Chihuahua
troops bein' ordered in, Johnson?"
"Nope," replied the engineer, his mouth full of pie. "Everybody crawled
into their holes in Conejo. Didn't you never see a sand-storm, Jack?"
"I wish I'd known he was going to Chicago. I'd have asked him to look in
on my girl," said Jimmy, folding up his letter. "I don't like the way she
writes--all jazz and picture shows. Some cuss is trying to cut me out with
her."
"More likely she's heard about you and the little Mexican over to Conejo,"
remarked the fireman, unsympathetically.
"If you'd had her address she sure would have," replied Adams, promptly.
"That Mexican girl----"
"Yes, we remember her. She was a looker but she used too much powder--they
all do." Hard's voice was judicial. "She always reminded me of a chocolate
cake caught out in a snow-storm."
"Hush up!" Mrs. Van's voice was tragic. "Do you want Dolores to get mad
and quit? They've got their feelings same as we have. I guess I've got to
catch a deaf and dumb one if I want to keep her on this place!"
Marc Scott sat in his place, a pile of letters before him, when the others
had gone, and Mrs. Van was helping Dolores with the dishes.
"Say, Mrs. Van, when you get through with those dishes come outside a
minute; I want to talk to you," he said as he threw open the door.
The shack boasted no veranda, but there were three small steps. Scott
seated himself on the top one and rolled a cigarette. The air was chilly.
The sun had sunk behind the mountains and outlined their rugged shapes
with golden lines against the purple. Everything was very still--there was
not a sound except for the faint strains of the victrola, which Jimmy
Adams always played for an hour after supper. A few figures moved about in
and out of the other cabins; not many--for the working force was light
these days. A light in the store showed that Williams was keeping open
house as usual.
The door opened and Mrs. Van came out and sat beside him on the step.
"Well?" she said, quietly, "what's the matter?"
"I'm in the deuce of a mess," replied Scott.
"You mean Indians?"
"Worse than that--it's a woman, Mrs. Van."
"A woman!" Mrs. Van was plainly shocked. "My land, Marc Scott, you ain't
been foolin' with that heathen in the kitchen?"
Scott chuckled. "Listen, Mrs. Van, I oughtn't to string you like that--it
is a woman, though. You heard me read that letter of Bob's?"
"Yes."
"He said to read the mail."
"Well, haven't you?"
"Yes, and the first one I tumbled into feet foremost was a confidential
one from his sister. She says she's coming down here. She thinks he's
here."
"What? You mean here? Athens?"
"That's what she says. The letter's been lying over at Conejo since
Tuesday and the chances are she's there by this time."
"But----"
"Oh, that ain't the worst. It was a confidential letter. She said----"
Scott paused in embarrassment.
"I'm not telling you this for fun, Mrs. Van Zandt, but because I don't
know what to do. You're a lady----"
"Oh, go on, what's the matter with you? I guess if you know it it ain't
going to hurt me. Has she run off with somebody, or has her Pa lost his
money, or what?"
"I'll show you." Scott fished out Polly's letter apologetically. "I
stopped reading it directly I saw it was confidential," he continued, "but
I got this much at one swallow."
"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."
"That's all I read," concluded Scott, penitently. "Joyce Henderson is the
fellow she's engaged to--Bob told me that. I had to look at the end to see
if she said when she was coming, and by George, if she started when she
said she was going to, she ought to be in Conejo right now."
"Now!!"
"What we're going to do with her, I don't know, do you?"
"She and the wedding couple have just crossed each other!"
"Looks like it. Look here, Mrs. Van, what am I going to do? If I don't
look her up, God knows what'll happen to her over in Conejo, unless she
has sense enough to go to the Morgans. If I do, she's going to raise merry
heck because I read that letter about the fellow jilting her. Now I
thought maybe if you'd let on that you read it--a girl wouldn't mind
another woman's knowing a thing like that as much as she would a man."
Mrs. Van Zandt surveyed Scott pityingly.
"It always seems so queer to me that a man can have so much muscle and so
little horse sense," she said at length.
"But----"
"There ain't any use my explaining; you wouldn't get me," she went on,
impatiently. "But here's something even you can understand. I'd look nice
opening the boss's mail, wouldn't I? Now you've read the worst of it you
might as well dip into it far enough to find out just when she's coming.
Somebody'll have to drive over to Conejo for her as long as the machine's
busted."
"I've read all I'm going to," said Scott, doggedly. "You can do the
finding out."
Mrs. Van Zandt grunted, arranged a pair of eyeglasses which sat uneasily
on a nose ill adapted to them, and glanced at the letter. She gave a sigh
of relief.
"She says she's going straight to the Morgans' when she gets to Conejo.
Bob's told her about them. Prob'ly Morgan'll run her over in his car. She
ain't very definite about time; don't seem to know just how long she'll be
detained at the border."
"Unless they're all fools up there she'll be detained some time," said
Scott, disgustedly. "Well, I'll go and get the Morgans on the wire and see
if they've seen anything of her," and he strode away toward the office.
Mrs. Van Zandt sat watching him as he swung down the street. The sun's
gilding had faded from the mountains and it was growing dark. Here and
there a star peeped out as though to commiserate Athens upon its
loneliness.
"It is lonely," Mrs. Van said to herself. "I don't know as I ever felt it
so much before. I hope it don't mean that we're going to have trouble.
Sometimes I think I must be psychic--I seem to sense things so. Wish that
girl had stayed at home, but, Lord, I'd of done the same thing at her age.
That's a youngster's first idea when things go wrong--to run away. As
though you could run away from things!"
The lady shook her head pessimistically and drew her sweater more closely
about her as the air grew chillier. A short plump figure with a shawl
wrapped around its head came out from the back of the house and melted
into the darkness.
"Is that you, Dolores?"
"Si. The deeshes all feenish," said Dolores, promptly.
"Did you wash out the dish towels?"
"Si. All done. I go to bed." Dolores disappeared.
"You're a liar," breathed Mrs. Van, softly. "You ain't goin' to bed,
you're goin' to set and spoon with that good-looking cousin of yours.
Well, go to it. You're only young once and this country'd drive a woman to
most anything." Her eyes twinkled humorously. When Mrs. Van's eyes
twinkled you forgot that her face was hard.
"My, but they're hittin' it up on Broadway about this time! Let's
see--it'll be about eleven--the theatres just lettin' out, crowds going up
and down and pouring into restaurants. Say, ain't it queer the difference
in people's lives? There's them sitting on plush and eating lobster, and
here's me looking into emptiness and half expecting to see a Yaqui
grinning at me from behind a bush! Hullo, you back?"
Scott, accompanied by Hard, came down the street again. Both seemed
disturbed.
"Well," remarked the former, grimly. "She's started."
"Started?" Mrs. Van rose. "What do you mean by that?"
"I got Jack Morgan's mother on the 'phone," said Scott. "Seems she'd been
trying to get us. The girl got into Conejo about six--just after our train
pulled out--tried to get us on the 'phone and couldn't; so she got a
machine and is on the way over."
"Got a machine!" Mrs. Van gasped. "Are the Morgans crazy?"
"Jack and his wife have gone over to Mescal with their car and there's
nobody home but the old lady and the youngsters. Old lady Morgan's deaf
and hollers over the wire so I couldn't get much of what she said,"
continued Scott, ruefully. "I made up my mind that she'd got old Mendoza
to bring her over in his Ford. Guess it's up to me to harness up and go
over to meet them."
"I should say so. That girl must be scared to death if nothing worse has
happened to her."
"Nothing worse will happen to her with Mendoza--unless he runs her into an
arroyo. Mendoza's principles are better than his eyesight. But, believe
me, she deserves to be scared. It might put a little sense into her."
"Shall I drive over with you?" queried Hard.
"No, but you might help Mrs. Van move our things down to Jimmy's. I
thought we'd put her in our shack, Mrs. Van, and you could come up and
stay with her." And Scott swung off into the direction of the corral.
The other two proceeded to the company house, as the superintendent's
quarters were called.
"Well," said the lady, as they began to pack the two men's belongings, "I
expected to get this house ready for a bride and groom but I must say I
wasn't looking for a lone woman. And yet if I'd had my wits about me I
might have known. Only last night Dolores and me were running the Ouija
and it says--look out for trouble--just as plain as that!"
"I shouldn't call her anything as bad as that," said Hard, crossing to
where the photograph of Polly Street hung over the fireplace.
The picture showed a small girl, probably about ten or eleven; a fat
little girl with chubby legs only half covered with socks, and with
dimples in the knees; a little girl with very wide open eyes and a plump
face, a firmly shaped mouth and a serious expression; a little girl with
frizzly hair and freckles that the photographer had failed to retouch, in
a costume consisting of a short skirt, middy, and tam-o'-shanter.
"I wouldn't call her a trouble maker," said Hard, laughing, "unless she's
changed a lot in ten years."