"Better order that ham sandwich," he advised, mocking her lazily with his friendly eyes.
"Oh, I don't know. You're not so much, Cactus Center. I expect to be eating chocolates soon."
Her gay audacity always pleased him. He settled himself for explanations soberly, but back of his gravity lay laughter.
"You've got the wrong hunch on me. I ain't any uneducated sheepherder. Don't run away with that notion. Me, I went through the first year of the High School at Tucson. I know all about amo, amas, amat, and how to make a flying tackle. Course oncet in a while I slip up in grammar. There's heap too much grammar in the world, anyhow. It plumb chokes up a man's language."
"All right, Steve. Show me. I'm from Joplin, Missouri. When are you going to do all this proving?"
"We won't set a date. Some time before I leave."
Yeager walked from the studio to his rooming-place. Ruth Seymour met him on the porch and stopped him. It was the first time he had seen her since their return.
"Is it true—what Mr. Manderson says—that you are going back to Noche Buena?" she flung at him.
"I'm certainly getting on the society page," he laughed. "Manderson has a pretty good reputation. I shouldn't wonder if what he says is true."
The face beneath the crown of soft black hair was colorless except for the trembling lips.
"Why? Why must you go? You've just escaped from there with your life. Are you mad?"
"Look here, Miss Ruth. I've just had a roundup with Miss Ellington about this. I'm going to take a whirl at rescuing our friends. Pasquale can't put over such a raw deal without getting a run for his money from me. I'm going back there because it's up to me to go. There are some things a man can't do. He can't quit when his friends need him."
She was standing in the doorway, her head leaning against the jamb so that the fine curve of the throat line showed a beating pulse. Something in the pose of the slim, graceful figure told him of repressed emotion.
"That is absurd, Mr. Yeager. You can't do anything for them if you go."
"Everybody sizes me up for a buzzard-head," he complained whimsically.
The gravity did not lift from her young, quick eyes.
"If you go they'll kill you," she said in a voice as dry as a whisper.
"Sho! Nothing to that. I'm going down disguised. I'll be safe enough."
"I suppose ... nothing can keep you from going." A sob choked up in her throat as she spoke.
"No. I've got to go."
"You think you have a right to play at dice with your life! Don't your friends count with you at all?"
"It's because they do that I'm going," he answered gently.
Her troubled eyes rested on his. The protest in her heart was still urgent, but she dared go no further. Some instinct of maidenly reticence curbed the passionate rebellion against his decision. If she said more, she might say too much. With a swift, sinuous turn of the slender body she ran into the house and left him standing there.
* * *
Daisy sat at one end of the pergola mending a glove. It was in the pleasant cool of the evening just as dusk was beginning to fall. A light breeze rustled the rose-leaves and played with the tendrils of her soft, wavy hair. The coolness was grateful after the heat of an Arizona day.
The front gate creaked. A man was coming in, a Mexican of the peon class. He moved up the walk toward her with a slight limp. As he drew closer, she observed negligently that he was of early middle age, ragged, and of course dirty. Age and lack of soap had so dyed his serape that the original color was quite gone.
He bowed to her with the native courtesy that belongs to even the peons of his race. A swift patter of Spanish fell from his lips.
Miss Ellington shook her head. "No sabe Español."
The man gushed into a second eruption of liquid vowels, accompanied this time by gestures which indicated that he wanted food.
The young woman nodded, went into the house, and secured from Mrs. Seymour a plate of broken fragments left over from supper. With this and a cup of coffee she returned to the pergola.
"Gracias, señorita." The shining black poll of the man bowed over the donation as he accepted it.
He sat cross-legged among the roses and ate what had been given him. Daisy observed critically that his habit of eating was not at all nice. He discarded the fork she had brought, using only the knife and his fingers. The meat he tore apart and devoured ravenously, cramming it wolfishly into his mouth as fast as he could. A few days before she had fallen into an argument with Steve Yeager about the civilization of the Mexicans. She wished he could see this specimen.
The man spoke, after he had cleaned the plate, licked up the gravy, and gulped down the coffee. His words fell in a slow drawl, not in Spanish, but in English.
"Don't you reckon mebbe I could get a ham sandwich too?"
The actress jumped. "Steve, you fraud!" she screamed, and flew at him.
"Do I win?" he asked, protecting himself as he backed away.
"Of course you do. Why haven't we been using you up stage in the Mexican sets? You're perfect. How did you ever get your hair so slick and black?"
"I've been studying make-ups since I joined the Lunar Company," he told her.
"How about your Spanish? Is it good enough to pass muster?"
"I learned to jabber it when I was a year old before I did English."
"Then you'll do. I defy even Harrison to recognize you."
He gave her his Mexican bow. "Gracias, señorita."
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
THE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT
When Threewit and Farrar reached Noche Buena, Pasquale was absent from camp, but Culvera made them suavely welcome.
"Señor Yeager has recovered and was called away unexpectedly on business," he explained; adding with his lip smile, "He will be desolated to have missed you."
"He is better, then?"
"Indeed, quite his self. He nearly died from gunshot wounds, but unless he suffers a relapse he is entirely out of present danger."
"Shouldn't have thought it would have been safe to travel yet," Farrar returned.
He was uneasy in his mind, sensing something of mocking irony in the manner of the Mexican. It was strange that Yeager, wounded to death as his letter had said, was able in two days to be up and around again.
"We were anxious to have him stop, but he was in a hurry. Personally I did my best to get him to stay." Culvera's smile glittered reminiscently: "The truth is that he thought our climate unhealthy. He was afraid of heart failure."
Threewit scoffed openly. "Absurd. The man is the finest physical specimen I ever saw. If you had ever seen him on the back of an outlaw bronc, you'd know his heart was all right."
The door of the room opened and Harrison came in. He stopped, mouth open with surprise at sight of the Americans.
"Some of Mr. Yeager's anxious friends come down to inquire about his health, Harrison. Did he seem to you healthy last time you saw him?" the Mexican asked maliciously.
Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman—and the object of his invective was Stephen Yeager.
And all the time the man cursed he stamped painfully about the room, a sight to wonder at. His face was so swollen, so bruised and discolored, that he was hardly recognizable. He had managed to creep into another suit of clothes after the doctor had dressed his wounds and sewed up his cuts, but these could not hide the fact that every step was a torment to his pummeled ribs and lacerated flesh. He was game. Another man in his condition would have been in the hospital. Harrison dragged himself about because he would not admit that he was badly hurt.
Culvera turned to the Americans and explained the situation in a few sentences. He was enjoying himself extremely because the vanity of his companion writhed at the position in which he was pla
ced.
"Your friend Yeager was not pleasing to our general and was sentenced to be shot. He escaped in the night. Our companion Harrison, also I believe a compatriot and friend of yours, is a charmer of ladies' hearts, as you will perceive with one glance at his handsome face. Behold, then, an elopement, romance, and moonshine. 'Linda de mi alma, amor mia, come,' he cries. The lady comes. But, alas! for true love, the brutal vaquero follows. They meet, and—I draw a merciful curtain over the result."
Harrison was off again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon Threewit and Farrar.
"I'll see Pasquale gets the right dope on you fellows too. You're a pair of damned fools for coming here, believe me. If the old man can't get Yeager, he'll take his friends instead. Didn't I tell you I'd make you sick of what you did to me, Threewit? Good enough. I've got you both where I want you now. You'll get plenty of hell, take my word for it."
Threewit turned with dignity to the Mexican. "I have nothing to say to this man, Major Culvera. But you are a gentleman. We have been deceived. I ask for an escort as far as the border to see us safely back."
Culvera was full of bland hospitality. "Really I can't permit you to leave before the general returns. He would never forgive me. When friends travel so far, they must be entertained. Not so?"
"Are we prisoners? Is that what you mean?" demanded Farrar bluntly.
The major shook his finger toward him with smiling deprecation. "Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no rash peon makes the mistake of injuring you as an enemy."
"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing, major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It will reach easily to Noche Buena."
"So, señor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen—regrettable ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the mistake in regard to Señors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."
Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference. The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.
"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let us go, of course."
"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.
Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.
"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in fair fight too."
Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when we meet sure as he's a foot high."
"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in that."
The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.
"You've said enough—too much, damn you," he roared.
With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.
"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are guests of General Pasquale. Till he passes judgment they shall be treated with ver' much courtesy."
Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.
"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address, Señor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.
Heavily Harrison rose and passed from the room without looking at any of them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.
The Mexican smiled confidentially at his prisoners. "Between friends, it's ver' devilish unpleasant to do business with such a—what you call—ruffian. But ver' necessar'. Oh, yes! Quite so."
"Depends on one's business, I expect," replied Farrar.
"You have said it, señor. A patriot can't be too particulair. He uses the tools that come to his hands. But pardon! My tongue is like a woman's. It runs away with time."
He called the guard and had the prisoners removed. They were put in the same adobe hut where Yeager had been confined a few days earlier.
Threewit lit a cigar and paced up and down gloomily. "This is a hell of a fix we're in. Before we get out of here the old man will be hollering his head off for that 'Retreat of the Bandits' three-reeler."
The camera man laughed ruefully. "I ain't worrying any about the old man. He's back there safe in little old New York. It's Frank Farrar that's on my mind. How is he going to get out of here?"
The director stopped, took the cigar from his mouth, and looked across questioningly at him.
"You don't really think Pasquale will hurt us, do you?"
"No; not unless the breaks go against us. I don't reckon Pasquale has anything much against Yeager any more than he has against us. Of course, Harrison will do his darndest to make him sore at us. Notice how he tried to put it over that we had come about that bunch of cattle he stole?"
"Sure I did. But it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a ransom. He's nothing but an outlaw, anyhow."
Within the hour they were taken before Pasquale. He was still covered with the dust of travel. His riding-gloves lay on the table where he had tossed them. His soft white hat was on his head. As rapidly as possible he was devouring a chicken dinner.
It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood against the wall under the eye of the guard who had brought them.
The general finished his bottle of wine before he turned savagely upon them.
"You are friends of the Gringo Yeager. Not so?" he accused.
It was too late for a denial now. Threewit admitted the charge.
"So. Maldito! What are you doing here? I've had enough of you Yankees!" he exploded.
Before Threewit had more than begun his explanations he brushed aside the director's words.
"This Yeager is a devil. Did he not crawl up on me unexpect' and strike me here with an axe?" He touched the back of his head, across which a wide bandage ran. "Be sure I will cut his heart out some day. Gabriel Pasquale has said it. And you—you come here to spy what we have. You claim my cattle. Am I a fool that I do not know?"
"We are sorry—"
The Mexican struck the table with his hairy brown fist so that the dishes rang. "Sorry! Jesu Cristo! In good time I shall see to that. If I do not lay hands upon this devil Yeager, his friends will do instead. Am I one to be laughed at by Gringos?"
Threewit spoke as firmly as he could, though the fear of this big, unshaven savage was in his heart. "We are not spies, general. We were brought here by the lie that Yeager lay here dying and had sent for us. In no way have we harmed you. Before you go too far, remember that our Government will not tolerate any foul play. We are not stray sheepherders. Our friends are close to the President. They have his ear and—"
Pasquale leaned forward and snapped his fingers in the face of Threewit. "That for your President and your Government. Pouf! I snap my fingers. I spit on them. Mexico for the Mexicans. To the devil with all foreigners."
He nodded to the guard. "Away with them!"
As they left they could hear him roaring for another bottle.
&nbs
p; * * *
CHAPTER XVII
PEDRO CABENZA
The Patriotic Legion of the Northern States was drinking mescal and gambling for the paper money Pasquale had issued and rolling about in the dust with joyous whoops from each squirming mass. It was a happy Legion, though a dirty one. It let its chief do all the worrying about how it was to be fed and transported. Cheerfully it went its ragged way, eating, drinking, sleeping, card-playing, rolling in the dust of its friendly wrestling. What matter that many members of the Legion were barefoot, that its horses were scarecrows, that gunnysacks and ends of wires from baled hay and bits of frazzled rope all made contribution to the saddles and bridles of the cavalry! Was Pasquale not going to take them straight to Mexico City, where all of them would be made rich at the expense of the accursed Federals who had trodden upon the face of the poor? Caramba! Soon now the devil would have his own.
A burro appeared at one end of the hot and dusty street. Beside the burro limped a man, occasionally beating the animal on the rump with a switch he carried. The Legion took a languid interest. This was some farmer from a hill valley bringing supplies to sell to the patriotic army. Would his wares turn out to be mescal or vegetables or perhaps a leggy steer that he had butchered?
As he drew nearer it was to be seen that a crate hung from one side of the burro. In it were chickens. Balancing this, on the other side, were two gunnysacks. Through a hole in one of these pushed the green face of a cabbage. Interest in the new arrival declined. The chickens would go to the quarters of the officers, and cabbage was an old story.
When the burro was opposite the corral one of the sacks gave way with a rip. From out of the hole poured a stream of apples upon the dusty road. That part of the Legion which was nearest pounced upon the fruit with shouts of laughter. The owner tried to fight the half-grown soldiers from his property. He might as well have tried to sweep back an ocean tide with a broom. In ten seconds every apple had been gleaned from the dust. Within thirty more everything but the cores had gone to feed the Legion.
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