The Mystery of The Barranca

by Herman Whitaker

  CHAPTER IV

  Although he had always doubted the phenomenon, Billy's hair stood onend, and when, in the face of Seyd's shouts in Spanish to stop, theburros still came on he felt his cap move.

  "Billy!" Seyd's command rang out sharply. "Dismount and lie down. It'sour only chance."

  In that tense moment, however, Mr. William Thornton, assayer andmetallurgist, had done an amount of thinking that would have requiredmany minutes of his leisure. He was already on the ground, and as he laythere, arms wrapped over the back of his head as a protection againstthe sharp hoofs that would presently grind his face in the dust,uncomfortable expectation gave birth to inspiration. As Seyd also bracedhimself for the shock there came the scratch of a match, and Billy's redhead flashed out in relief against the belly of the leading burro as itupreared in fright at the blaze. In the same moment a second blunt headshoved itself like a wedge between the first burro and the wall, and asthe gray body shot off sideways into the chasm Seyd saw first the otherssliding in a desperate effort to stop, and behind them the mule whipsswinging to drive them on. As under a flashlight it all flamed out andvanished.

  In the short time required for Billy to strike a second match Seyd'smind registered an astonishing number of impressions. A hoarse yell,a sudden scurry of departing hoofs, and Billy's hysterical profanityformed merely the background of a sequence that flashed back over theevents of the day. The scraps of muleteers' talk the night before, therunaway, and other minor delays, the drivers' refusal to camp on therim, their insistence that he and Billy should take the lead, all fusedin a belief which he expressed as the second match flaring up showed thetrail empty of life between themselves and the next turn.

  "It's a frame-up! They knew of the slide. They had it fixed to run usoff in the dark."

  "But where are they now?" Billy gazed down into the dark void. "Surelythey didn't all go over."

  "No such luck. The burros bolted back on them, and they just legged itout of the way. Listen!" A scurry of hoofs sounded on the level above."There they go, and it's up to us to keep them going. Back your mule upand turn. If we don't give them the run of their lives we'll deserve allthey tried to give us."

  And run they did. Overtaking the burros just as they began to slow down,Seyd slipped ahead, struck a match close to the tail of the last, andso precipitated the cavalcade once more upon the sweating drivers.Whereafter, they took turns and kept the frightened beasts on abreathless trot up the heartbreaking grades. Under the flare of a matchthey sometimes caught a glimpse of the muleteers shuffling ahead on atired run. Occasionally their sobbing breath rose over the scrape of thehoofs. But first one riding, then the other, they hustled them onwithout mercy till the train opened at last upon the plateau above.

  "Now, then! Run them down!" Seyd shouted; but as he swung his mule outto go by the burros he almost ran into a horseman who had just reinedhis beast to one side of the trail.

  "It is you, senor?"

  Here on the top the light of the stars helped out the weak moon, and,though the man's face was in shadow, Seyd recognized the upright,graceful figure. "Come to see if the job is done." He thought it whileanswering aloud, "As you perceive, senor."

  "Not until long after you left did I hear of the break in the trail, andI have ridden hard--used up one horse and half killed this poor beast.But no matter so long as I am in time."

  "Hypocrite!" Seyd thought again. A little nonplussed, however, by thetone of assurance, he gave his thought lighter expression. "You wouldnot have been if these fellows had had their way."

  "_Caramba_, senor! Why?"

  If his surprise were assumed it was certainly remarkably well done.While Seyd was telling of their narrow escape he sat his horse, silentbut attentive. With the last word he burst into a fury of action.Uttering a Spanish oath, he drove in the spurs and rode his rearinghorse straight at the mule-drivers, who had turned on Billy with drawnknives, lashing them with his heavy quirt over face, head, shoulders.Five minutes later his whip was still cutting the air with a shrillwhistle, and, richly as the fellows deserved it, Seyd and Billyshuddered at the pitiless flogging. Strangest to them of all, the menendured this without attempt at flight or resistance. They stood, theirarms shielding their faces, whimpering like beaten hounds.

  It was their abject submissiveness that injected a touch of doubt intoBilly's comment. "It looks, after all, as though they had done itthemselves."

  Seyd shrugged. "Perhaps; in any case we have no proof."

  "Now, blind swine, that will serve for a while!" Sebastien's cold voicebroke in. "Off with you and build a fire, then stake out the mules."Seyd's suspicion gave a little more before his quiet assurance. "Youwill have to stay here till morning, senors, for it is many miles alongthe rim to the other trail. Unfortunately, it was your supply mule thatwent into the canon, so you must needs go hungry. However, we have aproverb, 'A warm fire helps the empty belly,' and to-morrow you will beable to recover your goods."

  Neither did his expression, as presently revealed by the fire, offerevidence for doubt. As he stood looking down at the blaze Seyd wasvividly reminded of the Aztec god, for its cold stone face was not moreinscrutable than this quiet brown mask. Its inscrutability provoked himto ask a sudden question.

  "Did I not see you at the hotel last night?"

  But the sudden challenge produced only an indifferent shrug. "Perhaps. Iwas there."

  He did look up at Billy's vigorous comment on his answer as translatedby Seyd: "Then why didn't he show himself this morning? Goodness knowswe left late enough."

  He even asked, "What does he say?" And the sense having been softened intranslation to an expression of mild wonder at his non-appearance, hequietly replied, "I do not doubt that the senor's departure was fraughtwith enormous significance for the country at large, but not beinginformed of it, there was no reason for me to cut my sleep."

  Though the smile which marked his appreciation of the blush that drownedout Billy's freckles when Seyd translated was so slight as to be almostimperceptible, it yet increased his anger. "The dago!" he growled. "I'dpunch his head for five cents Mex. The gall of him! Standing therepoking fun at us after we have just missed death at the hands of hisbrigands. And you really think that he planned it all?"

  "Looks like it. He chose the men, the trail. Was seen last night at thehotel. Appears now at the psychological moment. Any jury would--"

  "--Pronounce me guilty. They would be mistaken, sir."

  Utterly confounded at the interruption which was delivered in fluentEnglish--so surprised, indeed, that Billy glanced around to make surethat nobody else had spoken--they stared at him across the fire in redconfusion. When Seyd at last found his tongue he could only stammer theobvious question, "You speak English?"

  "As you perceive, sir." As he returned Seyd his phrase of a few minutesbefore not even a twinkle betrayed his knowledge of their ridiculoussituation.

  Nor was one needed to increase Billy's anger. "Then why don't you speakit?" he roughly blurted.

  Ignoring the question, the man went on addressing Seyd. "In accordancewith the foolish custom that aims to make poor foreigners out of goodMexicans I received my education at a boarding-school in the city ofManchester, England."

  _Manchester, England!_ Center of the Lancashire cotton trade, innershrine of commerce! Commercial essence exuded from the very name; itsmelled to heaven of tin and rosin. Imagination faltered, nay, refusedeven to attempt to establish a relation between its prosiness and thisromantic figure with a face cast in the image of the stone gods! Aboveall, a Manchester boarding-school! Seyd almost gasped. For to hisknowledge of "fags" and "bullies," "form rows," "cribs and crams," andeducation by external application, gained by the perusal of _Tom Brown'sSchool Days_, he had added the later, savagely impish realism ofKipling's _Stalky_.

  And he knew what a living hell the life must have been to a high-strungMexican youth. "Well!" he breathed at last. "I don't envy you theexperience. I'm told that the English schoolboy isn't particularlysensitive
or nice in his--his treatment of--"

  "--Half-castes. Don't avoid the word. We Mexicans are proud of our Aztecblood. They did not love me, but I tell you, senor, that their dislikefor me was as milk to fire compared with mine for them, and they left mealone after a couple had felt my knife. How I hated them--the conceitedlackeys of masters as much as the bullocks of boys and their ox-likefathers. How they lectured me, the lackeys, for my 'cowardice' in usinga knife--the cowardice of one small boy pitted against a hundred impishdevils. But they were never able to blind me with their fustian ideals.Even then I could see through their sham morality, hypocriticalhumanity, insufferable conceit.

  "'England is the workshop of the world!' They dinned it into us. Infurtherance of the ideal they fouled the air with coal smoke, herdedtheir men and women from the open farms into slums and brothels, and asthey have done by their own so would they like to do for the world--makeit one huge factory set in a slum." He had spoken all through with greatheat. Glancing for the first time at Billy, he finished, more quietly,"That is why I do not speak English--because I hate both them and theirtongue."

  Now Billy's conception of John Bull and his island had been principallyformed on the perfervid "tail-twisting" of the common-school histories,and Seyd, whose views had been corrected by wider reading, had to smileat his emphatic indorsement. "I'm with you. No English, please, inmine."

  Even Sebastien smiled. "No, you are American--from our viewpoint, muchworse. Just as sordid as the stupid English, you are quicker-witted,therefore more to be feared, and you stand forever at our gates, readyto force your commerce and ideas upon us. But much as we hate you, loathas we are to have you come among us, I would still have you to believethat this business was accidental. I, at least, did not plan yourdeath."

  "Then you do not speak for them?" Seyd glanced at the muleteers, nowcrouching over a second small fire they had built for themselves.

  "_Quien sabe?_" Sebastien shrugged his shoulders. "They would thinklittle of it. But what can you do? You have no proof. And I will see toit that they play you no more tricks."

  Walking over, he kicked first one, then the other, in the small of theback. "Up, swine!" And while they stood shivering before them he gavethem their orders--first to recover the baggage, then to convey thesenors in safety to their mine. "Fail me in one thing," he concluded,with a frightful threat, "and I will pluck out your eyes and turn youout on the road."

  Turning his back on them, he walked over to the horses, and had mountedbefore Seyd realized his intent. "You are not going?" he asked.

  "Yes, it is only five leagues back to the hacienda where I left my ownhorse."

  "First let me thank you."

  Not seeing the touch of the spur that had caused the beast to rearsuddenly, he imagined it shied at his outstretched hand. While curbingits plungings the other answered: "It is nothing. You owe me nothing. Icame to repair a mistake and arrived too late. _Adios!_" And swingingthe fighting beast out of the firelight into the dusk he galloped off,leaving Seyd standing with hand outstretched.

  Returning to the fire, he passed close to the muleteers, whose faces,looking after him, expressed a curious mixture of dislike, suspicion,fear. Observing it, Billy laughed. "Our friend's football practice overthere rather inclines me to favor his theories. I've seen a fewwalking-delegates in my time that I'd like to place under him. I'll betyou there are no labor troubles in his cosmos. Fancy a system thattrains men to put your enemies away without so much as a wink. I call itideal."

  "Yes." Seyd laughed. "I have so much respect for it that I propose tokeep watch and watch on the off chance of an attempt on our throats. Ifyou'll just settle down for a snooze I'll take the first trick."

  His laughter, however, covered feeling that had been deeply stirred bythe events of the day. After Billy had curled up close to the fire hisglance went over to the muleteers, who lay, heads muffled in theirscarlet serapes, beside their own fire. Their very quiet stimulatedthoughts which passed back through the medievalism of the "conquest" andthe savagery of the Aztecs to the dim time that saw the erection of thetemple they had passed that day. Stimulated by the distant roar ofwaters, the complaint of the wind in the trees, and the voices of nightthat rose out of the valley's black void, his fancies grew and possessedhim until he saw his own civilization as a flash in the dark space ofthe ages. So absorbed was he that Billy's interruption came as asurprise.

  "I've slept four hours. Time for your snooze."