CHAPTER VIIITHE PRISONER
Athens was dark and lonely-looking as the big machine reëntered it. There was the usual light in the store and one in the house occupied by Mrs. Van Zandt and Polly. Scott motioned to Pachuca to draw up in front of the cabin. Mrs. Van Zandt came out as the machine stopped; evidently she was in doubt as to whether or not it was another invasion, for she stopped in the doorway and peered out anxiously.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Van!” cried Scott, cheerfully. “I’ve brought her back.”
Polly jumped out and ran to the astonished woman. “It’s all right,” she reiterated.
“Yes, I see it is; but where did you get that car?”
“It’s Señor Pachuca’s and we’ve got him, too,” replied the girl, in an undertone. “And we’ve brought back some of the things they took.”
“Has Hard come back?” demanded Scott, as Mrs. Van came out to the machine.
“No, and I wish he would. I’m worried about Jimmy Adams. Where are you going to put that chap?” asked Mrs. Van, eyeing Pachuca resentfully.
“I think I’ll ask him to spend the night in Hard’s office,” replied Scott, thoughtfully. “It’s the only place we’ve got that isn’t on the ground floor, and I guess nobody wants to put in the night doing sentry duty.Just bring over a couple of blankets, will you, Mrs. Van?”
Mrs. Van Zandt and Polly went into the house and Scott with his prisoner walked across to the office where they fell in with O’Grady, who grinned pleasantly when the state of affairs was explained to him.
“Come back to spend the night with us? Sure we can make him comfy! Up-stairs, son. You can have the engineer’s office to yourself,” he added, hospitably.
“I don’t like leaving you here, Pachuca,” said Scott, as he threw open the door of Hard’s office. “It’s not my idea of entertaining the aristocracy, but it’s the best I can do for a gentleman of your peculiar habits.”
“What is your idea?” remarked Pachuca, surveying the small room nonchalantly. “Don’t you think it would be more practical to let me go? I can’t do any more harm to-day, you know.”
“That’s just what I don’t know,” replied Scott, quietly. “I know you can’t do any harm to anyone but yourself while you’re locked up here, and I want to turn you over in my mind a little.”
“I’ll make it worth your while to let me drive that car off the place while you’re all asleep,” proposed Pachuca, smiling.
“You’re a persuasive cuss, but we need that car.”
“Going to do a little banditing on our own hook,” put in O’Grady, cheerfully.
“Shut up, Matt! We’ll send you over some supper, Pachuca, and some bedding by and by,” and locking the door behind them, the two men went downstairs.
“You think he can’t slide out?” suggested Matt, doubtfully. “He’s a crafty devil.”
“If he wants to risk breaking a bone or two jumping out of the window, let him try,” said Scott, easily. “How’s Williams?”
“Pretty good. No bones broke and Mrs. Van bandaged him up. He’s sore as the devil about his stuff.”
“We got a good deal of it back. We’ll run the car down to the store and see just what we did get.” And Scott related Polly’s adventure with much enjoyment.
“She’s a mighty game youngster,” declared O’Grady, admiringly. “I didn’t know they raised ’em like that in the East.”
“I’ll swear I didn’t. Lucky for His Nobs she didn’t let a bullet into him by mistake.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s a case of ‘eventually, why not now?’”
A search of the machine revealed the more important part of the loot—the money taken from the safe in the office, Williams’ cash box, and a good many firearms, blankets and small items. Horses, saddles, bridles, canned goods and innumerable other effects had been carried off by the horseback riders, never to be regained, unless, as Scott suggested, Pachuca could be traded off for them. And, of course, the mine would have to be closed down until more workers could be obtained, rather an improbable thing in the present state of the country.
“What beats me is, how did you happen to think of it?” demanded O’Grady of Polly a little later asthey sat around the dining-room table eating a hastily improvised supper.
Polly chuckled. “Well, you see,” she said, modestly, “we’ve been having a lot of auto hold-ups in Chicago this winter and one of them happened to a friend of mine.
“She and a friend were coming home from a party one afternoon, and when she drew up at the house, two young men popped into the car, pointed revolvers at her and told her to drive up the avenue. Well, she drove up the avenue! She said the feel of that cold thing on the back of her neck kept her awake at night for months. Then when they had gone a little way, they stopped, dumped both the women out, and went off with the car.”
“Gosh, Chicago must be a great little place!” remarked Matt, admiringly.
“It just came to me when I saw them putting all those things into the car that if anybody could hide in it and make whoever was driving return the goods it would be—well—rather a nice thing to do. Of course, I took an awful chance. The horseback people might not have taken the trail—but even then the machine would have outdistanced them. I felt sure I could get Pachuca alone.”
“You took a chance you’d no business to take,” growled Scott. “When I told you to stay down in that arroyo, I meant stay.”
“I know you did but I couldn’t,” apologized Polly.
“The only thing you did wrong was not leaving that young reptile in the middle of the road like the thievesdid those women,” pronounced Mrs. Van Zandt, authoritatively.
“I thought of it but I didn’t have the heart,” said Polly. “After all, he’d been kind to me, and he is a gentleman.”
“Gentleman! My God!” Scott’s profanity was innocent with true horror.
“First time I ever heard a hoss-thief called a gentleman,” chuckled Matt.
“Well,” Polly looked a bit crestfallen. “I mean, he’s educated and he comes of good family.”
“I don’t go much on family,” said Mrs. Van, wisely. “I’ve seen some mighty mean skunks hangin’ around stage doors who were as blue-blooded as dogs in a show. Why, even your own family you can’t be too sure about! I had an old auntie who used to say she never went back of second cousins—’twasn’t safe.”
“Well, that’s true, too,” pronounced Matt. “Some don’t feel easy even with seconds.” He gathered up his dishes and followed Mrs. Van into the kitchen with them. Polly ate industriously, while Scott stalked to the window and stood lighting a cigarette.
“Mr. Scott,” she said, after a long pause, “are you worried about Jimmy Adams?”
“Yes, I am,” was the curt reply.
“Isn’t there a doctor in Conejo?”
“Yes, but he’s a dirty scoundrel; I’d hate to have him handle a case like this. We may have to, though, thanks to your gentleman friend.”
“You’re rather a rude person, aren’t you?”
“I reckon so. Anyhow, if he’s a gentleman, I’m afraid I’d never pass muster.”
“Still,” persisted Polly, pleasantly, “you will admit that he is agreeable?”
“Agreeable nothing!” growled Scott. “He’s a disreputable young varmint, and no decent girl ought to speak to him.”
Polly smiled and rising, gathered up her plate and cup and carried them to the hole in the wall. Then she walked over to the window and said confidentially:
“I think it would be fun if you would tell me some of the things he’s done. Not the yarn about the actress and the man higher up—Mr. Hard told me that—but some other really exciting ones.”
“I’m not sufficiently interested in the chap,” replied Scott, gruffly. “Perhaps you’d like to carry him his dinner and ask him to tell you himself.”
“I would,” replied the girl, promptly. “I thought perhaps you were thinking of starving him.”
“No, I don’t care to starve him. I want to swap him off for our horses, if I can. He ain’t worth a dozen or two good horses, but we can try.”
“Well, of course, we have the car to make things square.”
“Yes, we have the car, in case we have to quit in a hurry.”
“Quit? You mean before Bob comes back?” the girl’s face was a bit scared.
“We may get orders to close up the mine. You heard what he said—that the state had seceded? Well, that means civil war, and civil war in Mexico can meana good many things. I’m not sure that I want two women on my hands under the circumstances.”
“What are you talking about, Marc Scott? Is it a Yaqui rising?” Mrs. Van Zandt thrust her head through the hole in the wall.
“I don’t know what it is. Pachuca says there’s a revolution on. I’m hoping to get more news about it when Hard comes back.”
“I don’t take much stock in these Yaqui yarns,” said Matt, coming back with another supply of food.
“Them Indians ain’t half as bad as the greasers like to make out. Of course, they feel like they had a right to raise thunder now and then because they know they ain’t been treated white. But you take it from me, I’ve been knockin’ around Mexico for some time, and nine times out of ten there’s a greaser back of everything that’s laid at a Yaqui’s door.”
“That’s true enough,” nodded Mrs. Van.
“I made up my mind when I read in that El Paso paper that there was going to be a Yaqui rising and that the gov’ment was orderin’ troops into Sonora, that the gov’ment most probably had somethin’ up its sleeve.”
“Most likely,” acceded Scott.
“Well, I don’t expect to understand Mexican politics,” said Polly, “but why, if Mr. Carranza wants to be president again, doesn’t he come out like a little man and say so, instead of trying to stir up things with troops?”
“He can’t be president again. The constitution under which he took office forbids a second term,” repliedScott. “He might be military dictator, however, if he stirred up a revolution and came out on top. That’s what the Sonora people say. But you can’t tell; it may be a square deal and there may be a Yaqui rising.”
“Even then this ain’t the place for women folks,” grumbled O’Grady.
“Nor men neither,” retorted Mrs. Van Zandt. “I’ve been trying to get Mr. Herrick on the ’phone to let him know there was trouble on board, but I couldn’t even get Central.”
“Pachuca would attend to that, of course,” said Scott. “We’ll drive over there in the morning and see if he doesn’t want to come back with us.”
“Am I really going to see that fascinating person?” sighed Polly. “I’m beginning to think he’s just hot air.”
“Mighty little hot air about old Herrick,” chuckled Matt. “All wool and a yard wide, I’d say.”
“Well, he is. That’s more than I’d say about a good many artistic chaps,” remarked Mrs. Van. “Most of ’em I hate—they’re so crooked. The Lord starts ’em weak and the women finish ’em. He sure can play, though. Regular pictures—some of the things he composes. I can see the cows grazing on the hills in some of ’em.”
“How queer of him to stay down here!” said the girl, wonderingly.
“Why?” demanded Scott, warmly. “It seems to me that a country like this has a lot more to offer that kind of man than your cities have. What’s NewYork or Chicago got to give him like these grim old mountains, and the lonesome little canyons with the cows feeding up and down hunting for water holes, and the Mexican folks with their soft voices and fancy manners and all the rest of it?”
“Cows are queer,” continued Mrs. Van, pursuing her own thought cheerfully. “Ever see the old ones get between you and the calves when you rode by ’em? Awful kind of human, they are.”
Scott chuckled. “One summer I was up in New Mexico on a ranch when they were rounding up. They brought in the cattle from all over the place; for days they were getting in strays out of the canyons. Among them were two old bulls. Funny old codgers they were, and as much alike as two peas in a pod—fat, chunky, ragged looking old rascals.
“Well, all during the round-up those old boys stayed together—in the bull pen and out. We named them Tweedledum and Tweedledee. By George, after they’d been turned out on the range again, I was riding down a canyon about a couple of miles from the ranch, and who should I see but those two old pals, hoofing it together as chummy as two old men walking in the park.”
“Well, how’s the chow?” Johnson’s voice came from the doorway. “Not much left, I should say, judging from the happy faces I see around me.”
“Come in, Tommy, I’m just gettin’ something ready for that Mexican, but there’s plenty for you,” said Mrs. Van.
“Where’d you put the feller?”
“In Hard’s office,” said Scott. “Will you cart him his grub, Matt?”
“You said I might. I want to,” protested Polly.
“Certainly.” Scott handed her the key ceremoniously. “You’ve earned the right to have your own way to-night, but Matt goes with you. He’s not above throttling you to make a getaway.”
“It’s a funny world,” mused Polly, as she walked along beside Matt, who carried the tray balanced aloft on one outstretched palm. “Three weeks ago I was going to teas at the Blackstone; now I’m carrying grub to a Mexican bandit with the assistance of a fireman. How awfully well you carry that tray!” she said, admiringly.
“Sure! Learned to do that one winter in Minneapolis when I was out of a job. Handy sort of thing to know.”
“Oh!” gasped the girl. Then to herself: “Why should I think it queer? Cousin Ben put himself through college by waiting on the students at table and we thought he had a lot of pep to do it.”
“You go on up and holler to the guy that we’re coming but don’t you open the door till I get there. He might paste you one.”
Polly complied. She sprang up the stairs with a freedom of motion that won O’Grady’s silent admiration.
“Some action!” he commented. “Takes them stairs as easy as a pussy-cat goes up a tree. Some girl that! Old Scotty’s jealous of the greaser—do himgood—he’s gettin’ to be a regular old settin’ hen. Hope she shakes him up a bit.”
“Señor Pachuca!” called Polly at the top of the stairs. “We’ve brought you some supper. May we come in?”
“Gracias, señorita, but that rests with you,” was the response.
“I’m going to open it. He won’t do anything,” said Polly, decidedly.
The room was dimly lighted. In the open window sat Pachuca—outside lay the open country, moonlit and lovely, the grim coloring of the day now touched with silvery softness. Pachuca leaped to his feet and relieved the girl of the tray which he placed on the desk.
“I am obliged,” he said, with a touch of a sneer. “The services of a major domo and a beautiful waitress are more than I expected.”
“If you ask me, I’d say it was more than you deserve,” replied Matt, tersely. “I’m going out to sit on the stairs. If the lady wants to stop and visit with you she can, but don’t you try no monkey tricks because they won’t go down. I’m heeled.”
Pachuca shrugged his shapely shoulders, seated himself and began to eat.
“I am hungry,” he admitted. “I have had what you call a hard day’s work.”
“I wish,” said the girl, severely, “that you’d tell me why you do such things? You’re a gentleman—not a bandit.”
“Of course I’m not a bandit.” Pachuca’s composureappeared to be deserting him. “You do not seem to understand—you Americans—that Mexico is our country and that we must deal with its political situations independently of you and your affairs.”
“Oh,” innocently, “I didn’t know that political situations demanded blankets and victrola records.”
“You must make allowances for my people. They are poor and ignorant.”
“It isn’t the people we complain about. They only do what you tell them to. Why should you come and tell them to stop working for us?”
“In your country it is only the walking delegate who does that?” grinned Pachuca.
“That’s different. This wasn’t a strike. These men didn’t want to stop work.”
“My dear girl, you seem to have lost sight of the fact that a revolution is taking place. It is their duty to stop working and to fight.”
“It always seems to be their duty to fight and they never get anything out of it!”
“They do get something out of it. They got their land when they overthrew Diaz. With Carranza, they got a new constitution. With Obregon, they will get peace and a good government.”
“Then you are for Obregon?”
“Naturally. But I must have men and horses and munitions. I—Juan Pachuca—cannot fight in the ranks.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Polly, candidly. “My brother fought in the ranks and he’s a college man. He didn’t mind.”
“Oh, well, in America—that is different! You have no ideas as to family. I beg your pardon, what I mean is, that your people are different.”
“Well, I hope we are,” replied Polly, piously. “But I’m afraid some of us aren’t as different as we ought to be.”
“Now we are even,” said the Mexican, showing his white teeth. “And you know why I took your men and horses. They will be made good to you when the country becomes settled.”
“I hope so, but it seems to me you’re going to have so many people to settle with that some of us are going to come out at the little end. Of course, your car will help some.”
Pachuca frowned. “Señorita,” he said, gravely, “I must have the car and I must get away from here to-night. Much depends upon it. Won’t you help me?” He leaned toward her as he spoke, his dark eyes luminous, his voice soft and caressing.
“The tiger kitty is purring,” thought Polly. “It’s a nice kitty but I mustn’t pet it. Señor,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Say rather that you won’t.”
Polly fingered the key which she had taken from Matt. Then she put it in the pocket of her sweater.
“It would be easy,” said Pachuca, persuasively. “You could throw it into the window there when everyone was asleep.”
“It would be easy,” agreed Polly, “but it wouldn’t be nice.”
Pachuca ate for a moment in silence. “I suppose,”he said, finally, “that an American girl never does anything that is not nice?”
“Well, I’d hardly go as far as to say that,” replied Polly, “but I don’t think you’d find many who would be as dishonest as—oh, what’s the use? You know I’d like to do it for you because you were kind to me, and I do not believe you meant to kidnap me——”
“Kidnap you!” wrathfully. “Who said I meant to kidnap you?”
“Oh, nobody, only——”
Pachuca began to laugh; gently at first, then wholeheartedly.
“He is jealous—that good Marc Scott! He told you I wanted to kidnap you—like Villa, eh? Does he think a Spanish gentleman so unattractive that he has to kidnap a young lady in order to make love to her?”
“I don’t know what he thinks and I don’t care,” said Polly, angrily. “And I wouldn’t have come here if I had thought you were going to be foolish. I wanted to show you that I wasn’t ungrateful——”
Pachuca had jumped to his feet and stood between her and the door. His manner was respectful and apologetic.
“Señorita, I beg your pardon! Indeed——”
“It’s not necessary,” said the girl, coldly, trying to pass him.
“No, no, I beg—do not go.” Then, in a lower tone, “I had a double reason for asking your help. I can be of help to you and to your brother.”
Polly paused in some surprise. From the stairway came the sound of energetic whistling—a medley of the“Wearin’ of the Green” and the “Long, Long Trail.” Pachuca continued eagerly.
“Yes, it sounds very extravagant, I know; what my brother-in-law used to call a bit thick. But I can help you—to a treasure.”
“A treasure?” incredulously.
“Exactly. You have heard that I was for a time with Villa?”
Polly nodded.
“Well, in his camp I met some very strange people—among them a fellow named Gasca—what you call a bad lot. He told me one night when he was very drunk—you know, señorita, how some people talk about their affairs when they are drunk?”
Polly’s eyes were beginning to shine with excitement.
“He told me that he and his brother had hidden a treasure over in New Mexico.”
“A treasure! Do you mean pieces-of-eight and Spanish doubloons?”
“Oh, no, I am afraid not. It would be bullion—ore. They took it from one of the Fiske, Doane Co. mines in Chihuahua. That is why your brother would be interested. Perhaps you have heard of the Sant Ynez mine?”
“Bullion!” Polly’s face dropped.
“For me, I would not object to bullion if I could get my hands on it, but I can’t,” said Pachuca, candidly. “Gasca, you understand, had this brother who lived in New Mexico, in a lonely sort of a spot on the border, with an Indian woman that he had stolen from her people. He helped Gasca get the treasure acrossthe border—and they hid it in the canyon where he lived.
“Shortly after that they quarreled and the brother threatened to shoot Gasca if he came near the place. Also, he told the border patrol some things about Gasca so that he was afraid to go over any more. Just after I met Gasca, he had heard, in a roundabout way as my people hear things, that the brother had been killed and the Indian woman had died of a sickness. Gasca wanted me to go over with him to find out if the treasure was still there—he felt sure that it was because he said the brother would be afraid to dispose of it without his help—but I had what you call other fish to fry. Afterward, Gasca himself was shot for disobeying a command of the general. If you will help me to get away I will tell you exactly where that treasure is.”
Polly rose suddenly, the light of determination in her eyes.
“No,” she said, firmly. “I won’t. Mr. O’Grady, will you come and help me with this tray, please?”
“Sure Mike!” In two strides the fireman was in the room, his eyes looking searchingly at both the man and the girl. Pachuca, with a shrug of his shoulders, put his hands in his pockets and strode to the window. The dishes were piled up in silence, the door was locked—the key returning to Polly’s sweater pocket, and the two went back to the dining-room.
“Say, was that guy tryin’ to get fresh with you?” demanded Matt, as they went along. “I set out there on the steps because I thought mebbe you wanted tochat with the crittur, being acquaintances like, but if I’d of thought that he——”
“No, no, he was trying to bribe me to let him go.”
“Let him go? Well, if he ain’t got a nerve! What’d he offer you—a castle in Spain?”
“No,” replied the girl, “a buried treasure in New Mexico.”
“What? Well, say, he must have thought you was green to fall for that stuff. A bright, wide-awake girl like you, too. Was it under an elm tree fifty paces off by moonlight?”
“Why? Couldn’t there be a buried treasure in New Mexico?”
“Well, I suppose there could if there’s been a fool to bury it; but it seems to me I’d of tried something snappier if I’d been him. An oil well, or shares in a gold mine, or somethin’ first class in the bunk line.”
CHAPTER IXAT LIBERTY
Polly and Matt continued their walk in silence until they reached the dining-room. They found Scott sitting as they had left him, smoking and thinking; while, through the hole in the wall, Mrs. Van Zandt could be seen and heard busy with the dishes.
“Well, did His Nobs enjoy his tea?” asked Scott.
“He did that! Kicked into it like a little man,” replied Matt, cheerfully. “Also he made the young lady a real sporting proposition.”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd!” snapped Polly, disgustedly. “Anybody’d suppose you were college boys at thé dansant.” And she went into the kitchen.
“Well, you see what you get, Matt; you would horn in. What do you mean—a sporting proposition?”
“Oh, a rich one. Buried treasure up in New Mexico—secret chart handed down to Juan Pachuca by a maiden aunt—I don’t know what all—just to get the key of the office, but she was too sharp for him.”
“I should hope so. Is that Hard?” Scott went to the window as the sound of hoof-beats was heard. Down the street came a man on horseback. Silhouetted against the moonlight, the tall Bostonian acquired a picturesqueness lacking in daylight. “I’ve got totake Hard out one of these days and teach him how to ride,” remarked Scott, meditatively. “Jolt some of that Boston stiffness out of him.”
“You can’t,” replied the Irishman, placidly. “It’s in his blood. His ancestors brought it over in theMayflowerwith ’em from England. I’ll bet you Paul Revere rode just like Hard does.”
“Shucks, Matt, those English guys can ride—stands to reason they can. Look at the cross-country stuff they do! And on an English saddle at that.”
“Country? The country they ride over’s nothing to what the Irish do. A feller told me——”
“Hello, boys, what’s up? Why the theatre supper?” demanded Hard, entering.
He listened to the particulars which poured upon him. “Well,” he said, finally, “I’m sorry I missed the excitement. ’Twas ever thus. The only time our house ever burned down I was at a matinée of the ‘Black Crook.’ Well, you saved the cash?”
“Miss Polly did,” grinned Scott. “And we’ve got the boy that made the mischief.”
“Jimmy much hurt?”
“Afraid so.”
“I was afraid something like this would happen,” said Hard. “They told me over in Conejo that there was trouble on. They had an all-night session at Hermosillo and the state seceded.”
“That’s what Pachuca says.”
“Morgan’s taken his family up to Douglas.”
“Any news from Bob?”
“Just a letter for Miss Polly.”
“We won’t desert until we have orders, but I’m rather glad to have the car,” continued Scott. “I thought we’d run over and see Herrick in the morning.”
“I say, Scott, that Chinaman of Herrick’s is a doctor. Why not have him take a look at Jimmy’s leg?”
“A Chinaman!” Polly had come in with Hard’s coffee.
“Sure!” cried Scott. “Just the thing. I’d forgotten about him. When a Chink is scientific, he’s as scientific as the devil.”
“He came over to practice medicine; you know how the Mexicans feel about the Chinese? His money went and he had to do what he could. Herrick picked him up somewhere and he’s been there ever since,” said Hard.
“We’ll get him over here for Jimmy. He’s clean at any rate.”
“Listen to this!” Polly had opened her letter. “It’s from Mother,” she explained. “Poor old Bob’s in the hospital—just been operated on for appendicitis! Isn’t that the limit? On a honeymoon!”
“Hard luck,” commented Scott. “How’s he coming on?”
“She says he’s doing splendidly. You see, he’s been dodging that operation for the last ten years, and now it’s got him, poor boy. Mother says they’re worried to death about me.”
“And well they may be,” remarked Mrs. Van Zandt, heartily.
“She says the directors have met but didn’t do anything.”
“That sounds natural,” said Hard. “They’ve been doing that for the last three years.”
“Trying to figure out which costs less; to give up the property, or to pay us our salaries to hold it down,” chuckled Scott.
“She says I am to come home at once,” continued Polly, “but that I am not to try to travel alone. Either Mr. Scott or Mr. Hard is to go with me to the border.”
“I’m glad somebody in your family has got good sense,” said Scott, grimly. “It’s a pity those things aren’t hereditary.”
“Thank you. I think I prefer to have Mr. Hard go.”
Hard bowed solemnly. “Bob coming back?” he asked.
“As soon as they’ll let him,” said Bob’s sister, promptly.
“Yes, he likes a scrap,” remarked Scott. “I hope they keep the papers away from him this next week. Well, it’s lucky for you, Miss Polly, that we’ve got Pachuca’s car. Traveling on these railroads is bad enough at any time, but with a brand new revolution on hand, it’ll be the deuce.”
“I think it’s rather horrid of them not to care whether I go home or not,” Polly told herself, as she undressed for bed. “They might at least pretend they don’t want me to go! I always supposed that the one girl in a mining camp would be dazzlingly popular—but this doesn’t look much like it. And yet—he likesme, I know he does! He liked my bringing the car back; I saw it in his eyes, if he did make fun of me.
“He’s jealous of Don Juan, too. Well, that won’t do him any harm. He’s so determined not to fall in love with me that he’s going to need a little outside interference to make him change his mind. He’s got to change his mind because I—yes, I do care for him—a lot. People may think these things don’t come suddenly outside of books, but they do—oh, they do!” And, worn out by the exertions of the day, Polly curled herself in a knot and prepared to sleep.
Juan Baptisto Pachuca had not availed himself of the shakedown made for him by Mrs. Van Zandt’s blankets. He had put out his light because he wanted to think and he preferred thinking by moonlight. He sat in Hard’s office chair by the window, closed now, for the night was cool, and drummed impatiently upon the arm of it.
Mentally, Pachuca was more than impatient; he was outraged. His plans had been spoiled, his liberty restricted and his dignity impaired. He had been made to look ridiculous. Of all the offenses against him the latter was the most serious. He hated giving up anything he had put his mind on, but he hated a great deal more being made ridiculous.
Nor was it pleasant to be triumphed over by a girl. Juan Pachuca liked girls, especially good-looking ones, but he liked them in their places, not in the larger affairs of life. When they insisted upon mixing themselves up with such affairs, they ceased, in his estimation,to be pretty girls and became merely tiresome members of the other sex.
Had Polly Street given in to his proposals of escape he would have felt in a better temper with her, but he would not have been at all tempted to fall in love with her. He had been in the mood for that once—the night they had come over from Conejo together—but Fate, or the girl herself, or Marc Scott, he had hardly taken the time to decide which, had interfered and that was over.
Pachuca bore Polly no ill will for her part in that affair. That was her province—a love affair. A lady had the privilege of granting or denying her favors; it was not always because she wanted to that she denied them. He knew a good deal about that sort of thing and he was willing to give and take very agreeably in the game of love, without repining if things didn’t seem to be going his way.
This, however, was a question of business and Juan Pachuca considered that any woman who could get ahead of him in a matter of business would have to get up exceedingly early in the morning. He would get out of that room or he would know the reason why. It was highly important that he should. In fact, his plans for the next few days depended absolutely upon his so doing.
Pachuca’s business head, for all his conceit about it, was exceedingly primitive. His had been rather a primitive career from its beginning. Hard’s story of the actress, while not entirely correct, had its foundation in fact. Pachuca had been disgraced; to be disgracedin any manner is bad enough, but to be disgraced for doing something that you know quite well is being done in perfect security by most of the people with whom you are connected is particularly galling.
Aching to thwart the government he hated, Pachuca hastened to ally himself with its particular enemy and to work against it with all the impetuosity of his nature. But Francisco Villa was not an easy man for anyone as heady as Juan Pachuca to get on with. There were quarrels and more quarrels, and finally Pachuca, again disgusted with the world and its people, retired to private life.
He was not, however, built for private life. Some of us are like that. We need the excitement and the stimulus of action to bring out our better points. Also, Pachuca’s friends were not of the sort who cared much for the quiet life. In those few months of association with the great Villa, he had met men of various kinds; men who were honestly trying to do something for Mexico; men who were dishonestly trying to do something for themselves; and men who were in such a truly desperate frame of mind after ten years of revolution, banditry, and general upset, that they scarcely knew what they were doing.
Pachuca, who for all his aristocratic blood, was an exceedingly good mixer, had enjoyed these various and sundry associations and in the quiet of private life he yearned for them. Very much as a celebrated actress feels the lure of the footlights after she has left them for matrimony and the fireside, very much as the superannuatedfire horse is said to react to the alarm, so Pachuca yearned for the agreeable persons with whom he had foregathered since leaving the army.
When there were rumors of another revolution, he began to think of looking up some of these exceedingly live wires, and seeing what could be done for Freedom, Mexico, and Juan Pachuca. It was with the idea of informing himself as to these matters that he had taken the journey which had resulted in his meeting with Polly Street, and the fortnight which she had spent in Athens had been used to accomplish a number of things.
Himself rather a good judge of which way the political cat might be expected to jump at this particular crisis, Pachuca had decided to throw in his lot with the Obregonistas. He knew Obregon, knew his hold on the people, his popularity with the labor party, and it looked to him very much as though that general of fascinating Irish ancestry had a good chance of being Mexico’s next president.
At the same time he realized perfectly that his own reputation with the Obregonistas was not good. Various tales current among Mexicans of political standing, in regard to his relations with Villa, would be very much against him, and services rendered the Carranza government would hardly be likely to stand him in good stead. Pachuca wanted to stand well with the new party if he stood with them at all. He intended that the next president of Mexico should confer upon him an office of distinction, and offices of this sort must be earned, not only in Mexico but anywhere. In thegreat republic near by which Pachuca hoped some day to visit, preferably on a state mission, things were handled in this way also. If he could bring to the revolutionary chiefs of the new party men, arms, and money, he might hope for a warm reception.
During the fortnight referred to he had communicated with one Angel Gonzales, previously mentioned, who had also quarreled with Villa and been rigorously persecuted by him. Gonzales was at the head of a small band which he was quite willing to consolidate with Pachuca’s men, and they had agreed to meet and discuss ways and means. It was toward this rendezvous that Pachuca had been journeying when he stopped to raid the Athens mining camp.
To be stopped at such a time was not to be endured. Pachuca looked around the small room angrily. He looked out of the window. It was a bad drop but not an impossible one. An athlete might manage it, he supposed, but he was not an athlete—he was a gentleman and a soldier. It would be a nasty thing to try it and to break a leg. He had never tried breaking a leg but he remembered having heard the family physician say that a broken leg meant a six weeks’ vacation and he had no mind for a vacation on those terms.
He went to the door—locked, of course, he had heard the girl turn the key, but one might burst it open. He tried, several times, but the door held maddeningly. There was no transom, no other door—nothing but the plastered walls and the window. He turned again to the window, and threw it open. The cool night air came in refreshingly. In the distance, the dark shapesof the mountains stood out forbiddingly in the moonlight. Millions of stars winked and twinkled. Gaunt cacti reared their ungainly shapes—beautiful because of their very ugliness.
Somewhere over in those mountains Angel Gonzales was wending a torturous path to meet him. Angel would swear and rage when he did not come. Then he would probably annex Pachuca’s men and their plunder and go cheerfully on his way. That would be Angel’s idea of the philosophical manner of handling the situation. Juan ground his white teeth in a fury. Again he hung out of the window. The moonlight was so glaring that he was easily visible had anyone been watching, but all the lights in Athens were out and the inhabitants in bed.
Pachuca swung lightly out of the window and with a very cattish agility caught the sill with both hands and lowered himself. He looked down. It was the devil of a drop. Ten chances to one he would turn an ankle at the very least. He made a wry face. One does not do things successfully when one does them in this frame of mind. With an effort surprising in one so slight he drew himself back into the window again. There must be another way. It was positively not on the cards for him to be fooled in this stupid manner. He could see his car standing near the corral and the sight urged him to greater efforts.
He paced angrily up and down the floor. It was a very solid floor. As far as he was concerned it might be regarded as an invincible floor. If he had a pick, perhaps—Pachuca’s eyes brightened, and a roguishlook came into them. He had been thinking as he often did in English, being practically bi-lingual, and the word suggested something to him. Why not pick the lock? He felt eagerly in his pocket for his knife—left, alas, in the pocket of his leather coat in the machine. Still, there might be one somewhere about. In the desk, perhaps. The saints would help a good Spaniard, undoubtedly. Pachuca was not unduly religious, and he could not recall at the moment any saint renowned for picking locks, so he let it go at that and began to hunt. Some sort of tool might be found in the desk.
The desk yielded pencils, pens, erasers, and other harmless implements without number, but nothing even remotely resembling a knife. Pachuca slammed the drawers angrily and resumed his tramping. The night was getting on and he was apparently no nearer freedom than when the girl had left him. He cursed volubly and disgustedly.
“I suppose if I had the shoulders of that abominable Scott I could break the door!” he muttered. “On the other hand,” he mused, grimly, “if I had had his brains I would not be here. It was a foolish business—trying to confiscate American property. It rarely pays.” Pachuca, like the famous Mr. Pecksniff, believed in keeping up appearances even with one’s self. His attempt was confiscation distinctly and not robbery. “It was talking with the American girl that day on the train that put it into my head. She would talk about her brother and his mine. Juan Pachuca, when will you learn to let women alone? Every time a womancomes upon the scene something disagreeable happens—and usually to you.”
He paused by the window and surveyed it distastefully. “If I have to go out by that window, I will—but I do not like it. If I could bribe someone to put up a ladder! But they are all asleep—the lazy fools.”
He glanced at the shakedown which Mrs. Van Zandt had sent over by Miller, the idea of a rope ladder made of sheets having floated idly through his head. Alas, the shakedown consisted of a small hard mattress and a couple of blankets, army blankets at that. Anyone who can make a rope ladder of army blankets, with nothing more solid to fasten them to than a rickety old desk, must be cleverer than even Juan Pachuca considered himself.
With a sigh of surrender he returned to the window. It was the only way; broken bones or no broken bones, it must be attempted. If he were unlucky enough to meet with disaster, he must crawl as far as the car, and once in the car he defied anyone, white, brown or black to stop him. If only they had left him his gun!
Carefully Pachuca balanced himself once more on the window and swung himself out, still clinging to the sill. The drop looked easier than it had before; he felt almost cheerful about it. Give him five minutes alone in the moonlight and he would have his liberty, his car and his triumph over Gringo carelessness. At the same moment, there arose out of the stillness the loud and penetrating bark of an aroused dog.
Yellow, who slept anywhere, being a tramp dog by nature, had elected to pass the night outside Scott’swindow, and the cabin in which Scott was sleeping was across the street and only a few feet away from the window from which Pachuca was trying to escape. Not content with barking, the interfering Yellow started on a gallop for the peculiar looking person hanging out of the window. Almost instantly, a light flashed in Scott’s room and a head was thrust out of the window.
With an exasperated groan Pachuca drew himself back again and waited. Scott’s head was withdrawn, and two seconds later, Scott, himself, clad in pajamas and a bathrobe, dashed out of the cabin and was met by another figure which seemed to spring from nowhere. Pachuca thought the second figure looked like Miller, the man who had brought his blankets, but he was not sure. By this time the dog had stopped barking and was following the two men. Pachuca stood in the window, waiting developments. Scott looked up with evident relief.
“You’re there, are you?” he said.
“So it appears,” disgustedly. “Am I a cat to scramble out of a window?”
“Well, Yellow was barking at something,” replied Scott, with a grin. “Might have been a plain, four-footed one, and it might have been a human puss. If you don’t mind, I reckon I’ll tie him to the front door down here. He’s rough on cats.”
“Suit yourself,amigo, I’m going to sleep,” was the disdainful reply.
Well, that ended going out by the window. Pachuca, having a Latin dislike for fresh air in the sleeping-room,closed the window angrily and threw himself down on the mattress. It was hard and there was no pillow. The blankets he would need to keep him warm. Pachuca, though used to hardships, dearly loved his comfort. He glanced around the room again; an old office coat hanging on a peg in a corner caught his eye. It would do for a pillow. He took it down and rolled it into a wad. As he did so, a clinking sound became audible. He reached into the pocket—a bunch of keys and an old hunting-knife came to light.
Pachuca grinned. Well, Heaven was looking out for its own; it was not in the nature of things that a Pachuca should be trampled in the dust by the proletariat! Patiently, one after another, he tried the keys—ah, the right one at last! He turned it and the door opened. Pachuca chuckled delightedly; it pleased his whimsicality to think that so apparently unsurmountable a difficulty should be solved in so plain and unromantic a fashion.
He returned to the window and saw Scott and Miller standing outside Scott’s cabin; saw Scott go inside and the cabin become dark once more and Miller go on down the street, stopping at the last house near the corral. Pachuca frowned. Was the fellow going in and going to bed like a Christian, or was he going to hang around and keep an eye on the car? This last would be extremely awkward. Miller, however, turned in at the house and disappeared.
Pachuca spent five minutes at the window watching, but he did not reappear. “Ah well, one must risksomething!” he mused, and glanced down at the sleeping Yellow. Cautiously and with the soft step of one who has learned the wisdom of a silent tread, the young man slid down the stairway. The door at the foot of the stairs was open; it opened outward and they had tied the dog back of it.
Juan Pachuca opened the hunting-knife and surveyed it in a business-like fashion. There was a sudden movement of his arm and poor Yellow shivered and crumpled up noiselessly. Quietly, the knife still in his hand, Pachuca slipped behind the building and continued his way toward the corral. He reached the car unhindered and breathed a sigh of relief; the rest would be plain sailing. A peep into the tonneau showed him that the plunder had been removed; but that, of course, he had expected. He jumped into the car and started the engine. At the same moment, a burly figure rushed out of the house near by, caught at the car as it started, clung to the running-board and, leaning over, seized Pachuca by the arm.
It was Miller; Miller, who had indeed gone to bed, but whose bed was near the window of the little cabin, and who had been keeping one eye on the car and had emerged, scantily attired in a nightshirt tucked into a pair of trousers, to put a spoke in the Mexican’s wheel. Pachuca set his teeth! It was too much—to be so near liberty and then to lose it. A desperate look came into his eyes; he paid no attention to the angry demand of his assailant that he stop the car, but, making a sudden lunge, he drove the hunting-knife into the shoulder of the big man.
“Damn you, put up that knife!” choked Miller, seeing the blow coming but not quickly enough to dodge it. With one hand clutching the car and one holding Pachuca, he was too late to reach his gun. By the time he loosed his hold on the Mexican, the knife had reached its mark; a knife none too sharp, but driven by a practiced hand, it pierced the flesh, and with a groan, Miller dropped off the running-board into the road.
Ah, the good car! Pachuca sang with joy as it leaped ahead into the darkness. They would be awake in a moment, the lazy Gringos, but what of it? He would be out of their reach. He laughed as he flew past the house where Polly slept.
“Adieu, pretty American! I kiss your hand—until we meet again!”
Something struck the back of the car with a sharp, tearing sound. Pachuca turned with a grin. A light had sprung up in the house into which he had seen Scott go. With another chuckle, the young Mexican bent over the wheel and whirled down the road toward freedom.