Marty Day, who was neither a prophet nor a person of much moment in his native town, was, of all Janice's friends, the only one who really believed the girl would put her desire into action.
To tell the truth, even Cross Moore, who had bought Janice's automobile and who held the original bill of sale of the car, upon the possession of which he had insisted, scarcely believed the girl would get out of town without being halted by her uncle.
Nelson Haley did not suppose for a "single solitary moment" that Janice meant what she said when she bade him good-bye in his study. The next day he went to school without an idea that Janice was already on her way to the Border. He missed Marty Day, but did not think there was anything significant in the boy's absence.
School was over for the day and Nelson was leaving the building, bidding good-day to Bennie Thread, the janitor, when Walky Dexter drove through the side street, urging Josephus in a most disgraceful way.
"Git up, there, ye pernicious pest!" Walkyshouted to his old horse, thrashing him with the wornout whip he carried and which never, by any possibility, could hurt the rawboned animal. "Gidap!Jefers-pelters, Schoolmaster! is thet you?" he suddenly demanded, seeing Nelson. Josephus stopped immediately. He well knew Walky's conversational tone. "Hev ye heard about it?" sputtered the expressman.
"Heard what?" asked Nelson calmly. "Sure you are not overexerting yourself? Your face is very red, Walky. Perspiration at this time of year——"
"Oh, you go fish!" exclaimed Walky. "Mr. Haley! I got suthin' ter tell ye. I kin see well enough ye ain't wise to it."
"Walky," said the young schoolmaster solemnly, "there are really a lot of things in this life that I am not wise to, as you call it, and I doubt if I shall ever understand them all."
"Oh! is that so?" retorted Walky Dexter. "Wal, I'll perceed ter wise ye up to one thing right now. Ain't ye missed Marty to-day?"
"Marty Day?"
"Yep. That's the young scalawag."
"He has been absent from school—yes."
"Oh! he has? D'ye know where he's gone to?"
"Why, no."
"And neither does nobody else," declared the expressman excitedly. "Unless he's gone off withJanice—an' she never said a thing abouthim, I understand."
The expressman's word's amazed Nelson quite as much as Walky could have wished.
"Whatareyou talking about? What do you mean by saying Janice has gone away?"
"Jefers-pelters!" ejaculated Walky. "Ain't you hearn a thing about it?"
"No."
"Wal then, you better lift a laig an' git up to the ol' Day house," Walky observed. "If ye ever seen a stir-about ye'll see one there. I dunno but ol' Jase'll hev a fit an' step in it. And as for Miz' Day, she's jest erbout dissolved in tears by now, as the feller said. An', believe me! if shedoesdissolve there'll purt' nigh be a deluge on this hillside, an' no mistake!"
Before he had finished and clucked to the sleeping Josephus, Nelson Haley had reached the corner of Hillside Avenue and was striding up the ascent to the Day house. He saw several people come to their front doors, and he knew they would have hailed him had he given them a chance. Everybody seemed to be aware of this startling happening but himself.
He went into the kitchen of the Day house without knocking. His gaze fell upon the ample Mrs. Day weaving to and fro in her rocking chair, her apron to her eyes, while Uncle Jason was sitting dejectedly in his chair upon the other side of thestove, with his dead pipe clutched fast between his teeth.
"Mr. Haley!" the man exclaimed. "Have a cheer."
"Oh! oh!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira, shaking like a mold of jelly.
"I don't want a chair!" ejaculated Nelson, placing his bag on the uncleared dining table. "I've just heard of it. What does it mean?"
"She's gone," Uncle Jason said gloomily.
"They'vegone," sobbed Aunt 'Mira.
"We dunnothat—not for sure. We don't know they're gone together. Janice didn't say a thing about Marty in her letter," and he pointed to an open letter on the table. "Read it, Mr. Haley," he added.
The schoolmaster seized the note Janice had left on her pin-cushion and read:
"Dear Uncle and Aunt:"You must not blame me or think too hard of me. I have justgotto go. Daddy needs me. I am sure I can find him. I could not stay idly in Polktown and wait any longer. I will telegraph you when I reach the Border. Don't blame me.I just have to go!Love.
"Dear Uncle and Aunt:
"You must not blame me or think too hard of me. I have justgotto go. Daddy needs me. I am sure I can find him. I could not stay idly in Polktown and wait any longer. I will telegraph you when I reach the Border. Don't blame me.I just have to go!Love.
Janice."
"I might have known it! I might have known it!" muttered the schoolmaster.
"Ye might have knownwhat?" demanded Mr. Day.
"That she meant what she said. She told me last evening she was going, and I didn't believe her."
"Oh, Mr. Haley!" cried Aunt 'Mira. "And ye didn't tell us in time——"
"In time for what?" exploded her husband. "Hi Guy! I'd like to seeanyman stopanyfemale when she's sot on doin' a thing."
"But she's gone alone clear down there to Mexico and——"
"Where's Marty?" demanded Nelson.
"Oh! she don't say nothin' about him," sobbed the woman. "His bed ain't been slep' in, an——"
"If Marty has disappeared, too," the schoolmaster said with decision, "you can be sure he is with her."
"Do ye believe so?" asked Mr. Day doubtfully. "Seems to me she wouldn't have encouraged the boy to go off that-a-way."
"Of course not," Nelson agreed. "But I have an idea that, of all of us, Marty was the wisest. You'll learn he suspected Janice of planning to go away and he has gone with her, or followed her."
"That boy!" ejaculated his mother.
"If he has——" began Uncle Jason; but Nelson continued:
"I have considerable confidence in Marty. At least, he is a courageous young rascal. I fancy hehas followed Janice, unknown to her, and with the desire of helping her."
"But he is only a bo-o-oy," wailed his mother again.
"Say!" Uncle Jason said suddenly, "he's a good deal of a man, come to think on't. I b'lieve you air right, Mr. Haley."
"That does not, however," said Nelson, shaking his head, "change the fact that Janice, even with such an escort as Marty, should not go down there. I am greatly worried."
"Wal, don't you thinkwebe?" demanded Uncle Jason.
"Yes. I know how you must feel. But think howIfeel, Mr. Day," the schoolmaster said gently. "I believe I should have thrown up everything when she told me she was determined to go, and have accompanied her instead of letting Marty do it."
"I snum!" ejaculated Mr. Day, "don't I feel jest the same way? Janice is ado somethinggal, sure enough. We'd oughter knowed she wouldn't sit quiet to home here when Broxton was in sech trouble."
"But she's only a gal!" repeated his wife.
"She's a diff'rent gal from most," declared Mr. Day.
"And poor Marty! How'd he ever get money enough to go with her?" mourned the good woman.
"His bankbook's gone," said Mr. Day. "He'sproberly took ev'ry cent he could rake an' scrape. Youwouldgive him that bankbook to keep, Almiry."
"Oh! oh!" sobbed Mrs. Day.
"But—but how did Janice get money enough to take such a long journey?" asked Nelson hesitatingly.
"Sold her ortermobile," stated Uncle Jason gruffly.
"No!"
"Yes, she did. I been over to Cross Moore's an' put it right up to him. You know what he is. He'd buy a cripple's wooden laig if he could see his way ter makin' a profit on it. He got the car at a cheap price, I calculate, and agreed to say nothing about it till arter Janice had gone. Oh! I ain't worried about Janice's means. It's what may happen to her down there."
"She can't get beyond the Border," Nelson declared.
"We don't know. You know how detarmined Janice is. I snum! we'doughterknow her detarmination now."
"It don't matter. Nothin' don't matter," Mrs. Day groaned. "She's gone—an' Marty's gone. An' what ever will become of 'em 'way down there among them murderin' Mexicaners——"
"Well, well, Almiry! They ain't got there yet," put in Mr. Day.
Nelson Haley had never felt so helpless in all hislife. Not even when charged with stealing a collection of gold coins that had been intrusted to the care of the School Committee, had the young man felt any more uncertain as to his future course. What should he do? Indeed, what could he do now that Janice had really departed from Polktown?
Whether it would have been quite the proper thing or not for him to have accompanied the girl on her long journey, did not now enter into the situation. Janice was gone and he was here—and he felt himself to be a rather useless sort of fellow. He now thought very seriously of the last words Janice had spoken to him the day before:
"If it wereyouwho were wounded and alone down there in Mexico do you suppose any power on earth would keep me from going to you?"
The schoolmaster's heart thrilled again at the thought.She meant it—of course she did! Janice, he should have known, always meant what she said.
But now, in the light of her courageous action in leaving alone for the Border, the memory of her words impressed the young man more deeply. She would have dared any danger, she intimated, had it been Nelson who she believed needed her; why should he have doubted for a moment that she was brave enough to seek her wounded father?
"I'm a selfish, ignorant fool!" Nelson railed in secret. "I do not deserve to be loved by such a girl. I don't half appreciate her. What a helpless, ineffectual thing I am! And what now can I do to aid or encourage her? Nothing! I have lost my chance.Whatcan she think of me?"
He thus took himself to task that evening in his study. The whole town rang with the story of Janice's departure and with the belief that Marty Day had either accompanied his cousin or followed her in a boyish attempt to assist in her mission.
"She ain't like other gals," Mrs. Beaseley mourned at the supper table. "Dohave another helpin' of col' meat, Mr. Haley—an' try this pertater salad. It's by a new receipt.
"I count her quite able ter take keer of herself ord'narily, Mr. Haley. What worriesmeis her eatin'," added the widow, passing the plate of hot biscuits to her boarder.
"If folks don't eat right, as my sainted Charles often said, they ain't got the chance't of a rabbit when anythin' happens 'em. No, sir!Doeat that quarter o' layer cake, Mr. Haley. 'Tis the las' piece an' I do despise to make a fresh cake while there's any of the old left.
"The eatin' on them trains an' in them railroad stations, they tell me, is somethin' drefful. Ihopeyou'll make out a supper, Mr. Haley."
Hopewell Drugg, in a worried state of mind, came across the street to consult Nelson. He did not know what his wife would do or say when she learned that Janice had left town.
"I sincerely hope Miss Janice will find her father and bring him back to Polktown soon," the storekeeper said.
"Do you believe shecan?" asked the schoolmaster, rather startled.
"Why not?" was Hopewell's response. "She has never yet, to my knowledge, failed in anything she has set out to do."
This statement furnished Nelson with another positive shock. Not for a moment had he considered that Janice would accomplish what she had set about doing. It seemed impossible to his mind that a mere girl could get into Mexico and return again with her wounded father. Yet here was Hopewell Drugg implicitly believing in her ultimate success!
Mrs. Scattergood buzzed like a very cross bumblebee. She seemed only too glad that Janice had done something to shock Polktown.
"Wal! what could you expect from a gal that's allus had her own way an' been allowed to go ahead an' boss things the way Janice Day has? I don't approve of these new-fashioned gals. What diff'rent could ye expec'?"
"That's a fac'," agreed Marm Parraday, who chanced to be the recipient of this opinion. "Ye could expec' Janice Day to dojustwhat she done—an' I tell 'em all so. She ain't no namby-pamby, Susie-Sozzles sort of a gal—no, ma'am!
"Lem says he doesn't see how she found the pluck to do it. But it didn't s'prisemenone, Miz' Scattergood. A gal that's done what Janice Day has for, and in, Polktown is jest as able to do things down there in Mexico."
"Why, haow you talk!" gasped Mrs. Scattergood, finding to her amazement that the hotel-keeper's wife did not at all agree with her opinion of Janice. "She's nothin' but a gal. Inaourday——"
"Ye-as, I know," admitted Marm Parraday. "When we was gals women's rights and women's doin's warn't much hearn tell on. Still, Miz' Scattergood, I wasn't so meek as I know on. But mebbe, women was mostly chattels—like horses an'—an' chickens. But if that was so, that day's gone by, thanks be! An' it's gone by in Polktown a deal because of this same Janice Day. Oh, yes! I know what she's done here, an' all about it. Mebbe she didn'tknowshe was a-doin' of it. But if Polktown ever erects a statue to the one person more than another that 'woke it up, it'll hafter be the figger of jest a gal, with a strapful o' schoolbooks in one hand, the other hand held out friendly-like, and that queer, sweetenin' little smile of Janice on its face."
Yes, Janice and what she had done was the single topic of conversation all over town that night. Those who knew her best did not call her mission a "silly, child's trick." Oh, no, indeed!
Down the hill below Hopewell Drugg's store andbelow the widow's home where Nelson lodged, in the nearest house indeed to Pine Cove on that street, and to Lottie's echo, Mr. Cross Moore sat with his invalid wife. The usual orphan from the county asylum who was just then doing penance for her sins in acting as Mrs. Moore's maid, had gone to bed. The woman in her wheel-chair watched Mr. Moore from under frowning brows.
"I expect you think, Cross Moore, that you've done a smart trick—a-buyin' that car so't Janice Day could get out o' town. The neighbors air all talkin' about it."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry, Mother," the man said quietly. "Janice is all right. She'll make good. She's quite a smart gal, is Janice."
"Ha!" snapped the invalid. "That may be. I guess it's so. She pulled the wool overyoureyes, I don't doubt. That ol' contraption she sold you ain't wuth ha'f what ye paid for it, Cross Moore."
Janice Day was tired. She had to admit that. But she would not stop over in Chicago even twenty-four hours to rest.
There is scarcely any way of traveling that so eats up the reserve forces of even a perfectly well person as an unaccustomed ride on the rail. No matter how comfortable seats and berths may be, the confinement, the continual jar of the train, and the utter change from the habits of the usual daily life quite bear down the spirit of the traveler.
Especially is the person traveling alone affected. Janice really was glad she had the companionship of Madam on her journey beyond Chicago. Although the thoughts of the black-eyed woman seemed to run strongly to robbery, she was not lacking in information and could talk amusingly of her travels.
She seemed familiar with Europe as well as with much of America. Her knowledge of the Latin-American countries, however, exceeded that of the United States. Just what nationality she was Janice could not guess, although she believed there was some Hebraic blood in Madam's veins.
However, the woman so succeeded in impressing Janice regarding the care of her remaining banknotes that before their train left Chicago the girl took the precaution to secrete her money in a different place upon her person. At the same time, she folded up a piece of newspaper into a packet and pinned it to the place in her corsage where the notes had been.
"It does no harm to do this—and say nothing about it," thought Janice demurely.
Madam made her change in transportation with some skill, and had again secured the berth under that assigned to Janice. They sat together by day, conversing or reading, and always took their meals together in the dining car.
Had Janice known that behind her in the same train, rode her Cousin Marty, she would have been both amazed and troubled.
Marty held to his ticket on this train; but he had seen a chance to sell his berth, and, frugal Yankee that he was, he had done this.
"Hi tunket!" the boy told himself, "that ticket seller thought mebbe he put one over on me when he made me buy a berth reservation clean through. But tomymind those berths ain't a bit more comfortable than a seat in a day coach." For there was a day coach attached to this train.
He said this after he had overheard a man in the smoking compartment complaining about his inability to obtain the reservation of a berth at Chicago. There was nothing timid about Marty Day. He immediately marched up to the man and drove a bargain with him worthy of Uncle Jason himself.
"Every little bit helps," remarked Marty, as he folded the bills the man gave him and tucked them with the rest of his little wad down into the bottom of his inside vest pocket, pinning the money there for safety.
Marty was not disturbed in the least about losing his funds, whether Janice was or not. And he continued to be fully as frugal in his expenditures as he had been at first.
At Chicago Marty had had a very close call—or thought he had. In the crowd in the station he almost ran into Janice. She was with the black-eyed woman and that was probably why his cousin had not noticed him. But it had been near!
He did not know just how Janice would take his surveillance, and the boy had decided it would be better for him to remain in the background unless something extraordinary happened and not reveal himself to her until they reached the Border.
So, to make his identification by his cousin doubly impossible, as he thought, Marty used the hour's wait at Chicago to supply himself with a disguise!
It is not on record that any boy ever lived who did not, at some stage of his career, dream of putting on some simple disguise and appearing before his friends and family as "the mysterious stranger." Marty was not exempt from the usual kinds of boyish folly. He bought and affixed to his upper lip a small black mustache.
The sturdy, freckled-faced boy with the stubby mustache stuck upon his lip, made a very amusing appearance. Under close scrutiny the falsity of his hirsute adornment was easily detected, of course.
The gentleman who had boarded the train at Chicago too late to obtain a berth was vastly amused by Marty's assumption of maturity. Marty's voice was beginning to change and that alone would have revealed his youth in spite of a full growth of whiskers.
"You're pretty young to be traveling alone," this gentleman remarked to Marty after the deal for the berth had been consummated. "Although I see you have all your wits about you, young man."
"Oh, I dunno," drawled the boy from Polktown, trying to stroke the mustache with a knowing air.
"I can see the mustache," grinned Marty's fellow-traveler. "But it isn't a very good fit and it certainly does not match your hair. That down on your cheek, young fellow, is a dead give away. I'd take off the mustache if I were you."
Marty flushed like a boiling lobster. "I—I can't," he stuttered.
"Why not?"
Marty confessed—partially. He told about his cousin in the other car and how he had come on this long journey very secretly to watch over and protect Janice.
Despite the evident ignorance of the boy there was something about his actions that impressed this man with the really fine qualities of Marty's character. He asked the boy:
"Have you telegraphed back to your father to reassure him of your safety—ahem—and your cousin's?"
"No," Marty said. "That runs into money, don't it? I—I was going to write."
"Send a night letter," advised the man. "That will not be very expensive. And it will relieve your folks' minds."
So Marty did this, sending the message from a station where the train lingered for a few minutes. The result of the receipt of this dispatch in Polktown was to start a series of quite unforeseen events; but Marty had no idea of this when he wrote:
"I got my eye on Janice. She is all right so far."
"I got my eye on Janice. She is all right so far."
As far as he knew the boy told the truth in that phrase. Several times each day Marty managed to get a glimpse of his cousin. On almost every such occasion she was in the company of the tall, black-eyed,foreign-looking woman who had been with Janice when Marty had run against them in the Chicago railway station.
"Those two's havin' it nice an' soft," Marty thought as he observed them through the window of the dining car when the long train stopped at a station and the boy got out to stretch his legs.
"Come in and have dinner with me, Martin," said the gentleman to whom he had sold his berth reservation, seeing the boy apparently gazing hungrily in at the diners.
"Cricky! I don't believe I'd dare. She'd see me," said the boy.
"But I thought you considered yourself well disguised," suggested the other, laughing.
"Say! You don't know what sharp eyes Janice has got. And you saw yourself that this mustache was false."
"Oh! but at a distance——"
"Hi tunket! I'll go you," stammered the boy. "But let's sit back of Janice."
This was agreed to and the much-amused gentleman ushered his young friend to a seat in the dining car, wherein Marty faced the black-eyed Madam while Janice Day's back was toward him.
Since her mind had gradually become relieved of its disturbance occasioned by the mysterious lunch which had come into her possession, Janice's only serious thoughts were of her father and the taskthat awaited her at the Border. She allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the uncertainties of her venture as little as possible. Worrying would not help. She knew that to be an undoubted truth. So she gave herself up to such amusements of travel as there were and to the informative conversation of the black-eyed woman with whom she had become such "goot friends."
Janice Day was quite a sophisticated young woman despite the fact that all her life had been spent in two very quiet communities. The girl was acquainted through broad reading with both the good and evil fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Innocence does not mean ignorance in this day and generation, and the modern trend of thought and education can be heartily thanked for this change from the old standards, if for nothing else.
Janice was really amused by Madam's so-often expressed fears of being robbed. The girl said nothing to her about the change she had made in carrying her surplus money; and she continued to keep the packet of newspaper pinned to her corsage.
As they lingeringly ate their dinner on this particular evening in the dining car the black-eyed woman suddenly betrayed anxiety:
"My dear!" she cried under her breath. "I do believe there is that boy again!"
"What boy, Madam?" Janice asked curiously, but without alarm.
"I have warned you of him before—yes," hissed Madam tragically. "He iss the same, I am sure! He tried to rob you in Chicago!"
"Oh, Madam!" Janice said, tempted to laugh, "I think you must be mistaken."
"Oh, no, I am not, my dear," the woman said very earnestly indeed. "And he iss yet on our train, I see him watching you of a frequency—yes! You will not be warned——"
"Where is he?" Janice asked, turning slowly to look back, for Madam's black eyes were fixed in that direction.
"There! At the table facing this way. With the man in the pepper-and-salt suit, my dear."
Janice flashed a glance at the "disguised" Marty, flushing as she did so. Her gaze lingered on the boy only an instant, and without dreaming of his presence on the train how should she recognize her cousin?
"Why! he isn't exactly a boy, is he?" she said to the Madam. "He wears a pronounced mustache."
"Yes? Perhaps it is not the same, then," sighed the woman. "But his interest in you, my dear, is marked."
"Perhaps it is inyouhe is interested," said Janice, smiling. "You have made a conquest, Madam."
"Ach! of that so-little man? It would be my fate!" cried the majestic creature. "It iss always little men that fall in love with me—soh!"
It was apparent, however, that Madam kept a watchful eye on the "so-little man" for she spoke of Marty's surveillance frequently thereafter. Janice failed to view this person who so troubled her companion, near enough to really see clearly any one feature. At a distance the mustache disguised Marty Day's expression of countenance.
All was not destined to go smoothly with Marty, however, during the entire journey to the Border. They crossed Texas by the T. & P. route and near Sweetwater there was an accident. A train had been ditched ahead of that on which Janice and Marty rode and, the track being torn up for some distance and the right of way blocked, the train was halted a long time in the evening at a way station.
It was merely a cluster of houses and stores, a shack for a station, a freight house and corral with cattle-chutes, and a long platform on which the uneasy passengers might stroll to relieve the tedium of the wait.
Of this last privilege Janice and Madam availed themselves. Marty, too, feeling for the nonce both lonely and homesick, was in the crowd on the long platform. He heartily wished he could reveal himself to Janice so as to have somebody "homey" to talk to. Polktown suddenly seemed a long, long way off to the boy.
"Hi tunket!" he murmured to himself. "Thesestars down here in Texas seem to have got all twisted. They've gone an' switched the Big Dipper on me, I do believe."
And while he chanced to have his head back looking aloft he ran right into Janice and her companion. The Madam screamed and seized the boy by the arm.
"It iss the same—er—young man!" she hissed. "I tell you he iss always at our heels—yes.Nowwill you belief me? Feel! is your money safe?"
Janice clapped her hand to her bosom; the packet she had thought so securely pinned there was gone.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Ihavelost it! It is——"
"It has been stolen! You have been robbed! This boy has it!" the black-eyed woman declared with conviction. "What have I told you right along? But I have the thief. No, sir! you may not wr-r-riggle out of my so-strong grasp!"
Marty had no desire to have his identity revealed to his cousin in any such belittling manner as this. He had dreamed of Janice getting into some difficulty, and his stepping forward to defend and protect her. But this situation covered him with confusion.
The large woman with the black eyes and the foreign speech possessed muscle, too, as he quickly discovered. He could not twist himself out of her grasp on the dark platform.
"I have the thief," repeated Madam. "Soh!"
"Oh! are you sure?" gasped Janice.
"You haf lost your money, eh?" demanded her companion. "Well, then,Ihaf secured the thief—soh!"
A trainman came along with a lantern. Its light, suddenly cast upon the little group, revealed Marty's face more clearly.
"What's the matter here?" asked the trainman, his curiosity aroused. But Janice moved closer to the boy twisting in Madam's grasp. She peered into his face and her own countenance paled.
"It—itcan'tbe!" she gasped. "You—you—Marty Day!"
She made a dive for the silly-looking mustache. Marty squealed energetically:
"You behave! Stop it, Janice! Ouch! that hurts! Don't you know the blamed thing's stuck on with shoemaker's wax?"
"Marty Day!" repeated the girl, "how did you come here?"
"You know heem—yes?" gasped the black-eyed woman.
"Why, he's my cousin! He's followed me all the way from home! How ever he did it——"
Then she stopped suddenly, putting her hand to her bosom again.
"But Ihavelost it—the packet," she cried.
"Your money——Ach!" ejaculated Madam.
"What's that?" asked the trainman. "You lost something?"
"I bet you have," exclaimed Marty. "No girl can take care of money right. Where'd you have it?"
Janice motioned to her bosom. The trainman lowered his lantern and cast its radiance in a wider circle on the platform.
"What's this here?" demanded the boy, and sprang immediately to secure what his sharp eyes had observed lying at the feet of the black-eyed woman.
"Marty Day!" repeated the girl. "How did you come here?"
"Marty Day!" repeated the girl. "How did you come here?"
"Oh! that must be it," Janice said, trying to seize it from her cousin's hand.
"Aw, let's make sure," growled Marty, at once taking the lead in affairs. "Nice way to carry money, I must say—wrapped in a handkerchief! Hi tunket! what d'you know aboutthis?"
He had unfolded the handkerchief and revealed—newspaper. That was all. The black-eyed woman stepped back with a sudden intake of breath. She glared at Janice.
"Huh! Somebody flimflammed you?" demanded Marty, staring, too, at his cousin.
"No-o," the girl admitted faintly. "I—I did it myself."
"You did what?" asked the interested trainman.
"I wrapped that paper up and hid it in my blouse. My money is safe."
"It is!" cried Marty. "Sure? Where you got it hid?"
"Never mind; it's safe," said Janice tartly.
The trainman chuckled as he went his way.
"Marty!" began the girl when Madam broke in:
"You are well engaged, I see," she said sharply. "I will bid you goot evening," and she moved majestically toward the car.
"Who is she?" demanded Marty, following Madam with suspicious eye.
"I don't know," confessed his cousin.
"Say! are you sure you got your money safe?"
"Yes."
"Where?" he questioned insistently.
"It's none of your business, Marty Day," snapped Janice, "but if youmustknow, it's pinned inside my stocking—so now!"
"Sure," chuckled Marty. "I might have guessed. Most popular national bank there is. Say! we'd better get aboard. Train's goin' to start again."
"You come with me, Marty; I want to know what this means," Janice said, seizing his hand as they hurried to board the train. "How did you get down here? Who told you you might come? Mercy! I can't understand it at all. And that silly mustache——"
"Cricky! I wish I could get the blame thing off," said the boy, touching his lip tenderly. "You mighty near tore my face apart when you grabbed at it."
"It's the most ridiculous thing. Oh! I wonder where Madam went to?" For the black-eyed woman was not in her usual seat. Indeed, her hand-baggage was no longer there, nor could Janice see her anywhere in the car. "I believe she is offended," said the girl.
"Huh? What about?" Marty queried.
"Why, because of that foolish trick of mine—the packet of newspapers. She thought I had my money pinned to my underwaist all the time."
The boy's eyes twinkled shrewdly. "Huh! maybe," he said. "But you don't know a thing about her. 'Tisn't very smart to make acquaintances on the cars, I calculate."
"Goodness! hear the boy!" gasped Janice. "Sit down here. I want to know all about it—— Why, Marty!"
"Huh? What's sprung a leak now?"
"It must have been you who gave me that lunch!"
"Oh! on the train coming down from the Landing? Sure," Marty answered. "I knew you'd never think of getting anything decent to eat yourself."
"You blessed angel boy!"
"Oh! I'm a Sarah Finn, I am—as Walky Dexter calls 'em."
"Callswhat?"
"Angels," said the boy, grinning. "There's one breed called something that sounds like Sarah Finn."
"Seraphim!"
"That's the ticket. Well?" for his cousin suddenly seized his arm and shook him.
"Tell me all about it—at once!"
"Why—er—that lunch I got off'n the cook aboard theConstance Colfax."
"Marty! don't tease. I don't care about the lunch now—it was eaten so long ago."
"Hi tunket! and you haven't eat nothing like itsince," declared the boy warmly. "You been fair wallowin' in luxury."
"Marty!"
"Yes, you have," he pursued. "I don't see how you come to have any money left at all—eatin' your three squares a day in the dining car. Not me! I get lunches at the stop-over places, I do."
"But I saw you in the dining car," Janice said, with sudden conviction.
"Yep. Once. And you can bet that I didn't pay for my supper that time. I was treated."
"But you're not telling me a thing I want to know," cried the girl. "Did Uncle Jason send you? Never!"
"I'll break it to you easy," grinned Marty. "I did just what you did."
"What do you mean?"
"I ran away; that's what I did."
"Didn't you leave word for your father and mother?Idid."
"I telegraphed," said Marty proudly, taking full credit for that act. "Told 'em you were all right and that I had my eye on you."
"Well! Of all things!"
"Yep. 'Tis kinder strange, isn't it?" said Marty, blowing a sigh. "Don't scarcely seem real to me."
"But your mother—and Uncle Jason! They will be worried to death about you, Marty."
"Huh! How about you?" demanded her cousin.
"But you are only a boy."
"And you're only a girl," he retorted.
"Marty, Ihadto come," she told him gravely.
"Of course you did. I know it. Frank and Nelse, and the rest of 'em, couldn't see it; butIsaw it. I was wise to you right away, so I watched."
He went on to relate his experiences in getting away from Polktown, chuckling over his own wit.
"But your mother and father will never forgive me," she sighed.
"What they got to forgive you for?" demanded Marty.
"If it hadn't been for me you never would have run away. And I don't really see what good it has done, your having done so, anyway. You can't help me find daddy."
"Why not?" snapped the boy. "What d'you think I came 'way off here for? Just to sit around and suck my thumb? Huh! I guess I can do as much toward finding Uncle Brocky as ever you will, Janice Day."
"I am afraid," the girl sighed, "that you don't realize what a task there is before me."
"Beforeus," growled Marty.
Janice smiled faintly without otherwise acknowledging the correction.
"Say! what have you done toward learning howto get across that river and up there to San Cristoval?" the boy suddenly asked.
"Why—thatis too far ahead. I shall have to be guided by circumstances."
"Ye-as! That's what the feller said when they were goin' to hang him. But I've been lookin' ahead and I've been askin' questions."
"Of whom, Marty?" his cousin cried.
"Folks. I got acquainted with a good many back there in the smoker."
"I thought you intimated it was dangerous to make such acquaintances?" suggested Janice.
"'Tis—for girls," announced her cousin stoutly.
"And why not for boys, I'd like to know?"
"'Cause nothin' can hurt boys. They're tough," grinned Marty. "Now, this big woman you been hobnobbing with——"
"Oh! I wonder what can have become of Madam?"
"Maybe she had reason for cutting her tow-rope," said the slangy boy, "just as soon's she saw you had somebody to take care of you. Oh, yes! Did you notice just where I picked up that package of newspapers that you lost?"
"Oh, Marty!"
"Almost under the feet of Miz' Madam, as you call her," went on the boy. "She was right. Youwererobbed. Somebody took that packet out of your blouse all right, all right!"
"Why, Marty! how very terribly you talk!"
"Ye-as. Maybe I do. But she certainly was kind o' crusty when she left us there on the platform."
"Oh! I wouldn't have offended her," grieved Janice. "I don't believe she was a bad woman at all, Marty Day."
"I don't know anything about her," declared Marty. "But you'd better be mighty careful with folks you meet. Now, the men I've been talkin' with are regular fellers, they are. And they've told me a lot about what we'll haf to do when we get to that Rio Grande River."
"Marty, dear! It may be dangerous. I can't let you run into peril for me."
"No. But I will for Uncle Brocky—if I have to. Andyouwon't stop me," he declared. "'Sides, it isn't goin' to be so dangerous as you think if we go about it right."
"How do you know?"
"Why, up North there we thought that the Border was like a barbed-wire fence that you had to climb through ev'ry time you went from the United States into Mexico an' back again, and it was lucky if you didn't ketch your pants on the barbed wire an' get 'em tore, too!" and the boy was grinning broadly again.
"But 'tisn't nothing like that. You'd think from what you read in the newspapers that the towns onthe northern side of the Border was spang full of Americans—white folks that talk English, you know—while every town over the Border and in shootin' distance of it, as you might say, was all populated with nothin' but greasers."
"Well?" Janice asked faintly.
"Why, 'tisn't nothing like that. Lots of Texas towns along the Border ain't got anybody in 'em but Mexican folks, and Mexican-Spanish is the official language. Yes,sir!" said Marty, proud of his acquired acknowledge.
"The officers of the town are Mexs like everybody else. They're peaceable enough and law-abiding enough and they go back and forth over the river and into Mexico just as they please.
"Now, what we want to do is to pick out one of these little squash-towns along the bank of the Rio Grande, drive over to it in an automobile from the railroad, and make a dicker with some greaser to ferry us across the river to some town on the other side."
"And then what, Marty?" asked Janice, made all but breathless by the manner in which her cousin seemed to have grasped the situation.
"Why, then we'll get another automobile, or a carriage, or something, and steer a course for this San Cristoval place. It's on a branch railroad, but the railroad ain't running, so they tell me. We can't hoof it there, for it's too far from the Border; butthere must be roads of some kind and we'll find something to ride in—or——"
"Why, Marty!" gasped Janice, stopping him. "Your being here—on this very train with me—certainlywasan explosion. Butthisis a greater one. Don't say any more. I can't stand any more excitement to-night," and she was more than a little in earnest although she smiled.
"Here comes the porter to make up the berths. You'll have to go. And we'll talk it over in the morning, early. Anddoget rid of that mustache, for we'll be at Fort Hancock to-morrow and that is where I have about decided to leave the train."
"Sure," said the very confident Marty. "That's just the place I'd picked out myself to drop off at. All right, Janice. See you in the morning. Er——"
"Well, what?" asked his cousin.
"Hadn't you better let me take that money of yours for safe keeping?"
"No, Marty," she said demurely. "We won't put all our eggs in one basket. You know, evenyoumight be robbed. Good-night, dear boy!"
Janice did not see the black-eyed woman who had been so much in her company across the continent again that night; and in the morning she found that the berth under her own had remained empty. Upon asking the porter she learned that Madam had left the train at Sweetwater.
"And never said good-bye to me!" Janice thought with some compunctions of conscience. "Is it possible that she was offended because of those pieces of newspaper I carried in my bosom? It did look as though I doubted her honesty."
For the girl could not believe, as Marty had suggested, that the odd, foreign-talking woman had had designs upon her money.
"You never can tell about those foreigners," Marty said gruffly at breakfast time. He had managed to remove the mustache and his lip was sore.
Marty had all the narrow-minded prejudices against foreigners of the inexperienced.
"You're going to have a fine time down here among these Mexicans," his cousin told him.
"Watch 'em. That'smymotto," cried Marty. "And, say! ain't some o' the greasers funny-lookin' creatures?"
At every little, hot station they passed (for there was a startling difference in the temperature compared with the frosty nights and mornings they had left behind in Vermont) there were several of the broad-brimmed, high-crowned hats typicallyMéjico, as well as the shawl-draped figures of hatless women, and dozens of dirty, little-clothed children.
"Why! it looks like a foreign country already," Janice sighed.
But Marty was only eager. His eyes fairly snapped and he almost forgot to eat the very nice breakfast that Janice had ordered, he was so deeply interested in all that was outside the car windows.
Yet the outlook for the most part was rather dreary between stations, while the stations themselves were "as ugly as a mud fence" to quote Marty.
"But everything is new," said the boy. "I ain't missin' anything."
The conductor viséd their tickets for a stop-over at Fort Hancock and agreed to "pull her down" for that station although it was not a stopping point for through trains.
"You'll have to go on up to El Paso on a local,"he drawled; "and you'll have to mix up with greasers an' such."
"How do you know we shall want to go on to El Paso at all?" asked Janice, smiling.
"Why, ma'am, nobody ever stays in these river towns any longer'n they kin he'p. And outside of the soldiers stationed hereabout there's only seventy-five folks or so, in the place—only two ofthemwhite."
"Oh!" Janice involuntarily gasped.
"Ol José Pez keeps the store and hotel. He's not such a robber assome; he's too lazy—and too proud, I reckon. You got folks at the post?"
"We expect to meet Lieutenant Cowan," Janice said.
The cousins were the only passengers to leave the train, and they were quite unexpected. The natives, whoen massealways met the trains scheduled to stop at the station, refused to believe that the "limited" had stopped. They preferred to believe that the appearance of the two young strangers was an hallucination; better such a mystery in their placid lives than the unexpected reality.
Several little children came to stare at Janice and Marty standing on the platform before the corrugated iron station, in which there was not even an agent.Oneof these infants was dressed. He wore a torn hat evidently having belonged originally to someone with a much larger head than he possessed. He had to lift up its brim with both hands to peer at the strangers.
"They aresodirty," murmured Janice.
"Gee!" sighed Marty, his freckled face brightening. "Ain't it immense?"
His cousin stared at him in an amazement that gradually changed to something like admiration. She suddenly realized that, if she could have chosen her escort, nobody would have so well suited as Marty Day under these distressing circumstances. He might not be very wise, but he was immensely enthusiastic.
He was staring now beyond the line of haphazard shacks and adobe buildings that bordered the one street, into the jungle of mesquite and cactus growing in the dry waste of sand that almost surrounded the settlement—and he could smile!
While on the train they had passed many irrigated grapefruit orchards bordered by lordly date palms; but the tangle of mesquite and cactus was always just over the ocatilla fences. They had likewise seen a sprawling, low-roofed ranchhouse here and there from the train windows, but there was nothing like that comfort suggested here.
Most of the buildings in sight were one-room dwellings of adobe, with an open shed at the back built of four corner posts supporting a thatch roof, on which peppers were still sunning, late as was the season. Here and there between these forlorn hutsgrew an oleander or an umbrella chinaberry; and there were vines on some of the walls, masking their ugliness. But for the most part the village was a dreary and distressing looking collection of habitations.
Janice and Marty moved along the street of the town. There was no walk, and the roadway was deep in dust. Marty carried Janice's bag and strode along as though "monarch of all he surveyed." To tell the truth, the girl was closer to tears than she had been since leaving Polktown.
Their objective point was a large frame building, roofed with corrugated iron and with a veranda in front, at the end of the street. The sides of this more important looking building were trellised with vines. There was, too, the promise of cleanliness and coolness about the place. Across the front they read the sign: