by Jack London
IN YEDDO BAY
Somewhere along Theater Street he had lost it. He remembered beinghustled somewhat roughly on the bridge over one of the canals thatcross that busy thoroughfare. Possibly some slant-eyed, light-fingeredpickpocket was even then enjoying the fifty-odd yen his purse hadcontained. And then again, he thought, he might have lost it himself,just lost it carelessly.
Hopelessly, and for the twentieth time, he searched in all his pocketsfor the missing purse. It was not there. His hand lingered in hisempty hip-pocket, and he woefully regarded the voluble and vociferousrestaurant-keeper, who insanely clamored: "Twenty-five sen! You pay now!Twenty-five sen!"
"But my purse!" the boy said. "I tell you I've lost it somewhere."
Whereupon the restaurant-keeper lifted his arms indignantly andshrieked: "Twenty-five sen! Twenty-five sen! You pay now!"
Quite a crowd had collected, and it was growing embarrassing for AlfDavis.
It was so ridiculous and petty, Alf thought. Such a disturbance aboutnothing! And, decidedly, he must be doing something. Thoughts of divingwildly through that forest of legs, and of striking out at whomsoeveropposed him, flashed through his mind; but, as though divining hispurpose, one of the waiters, a short and chunky chap with anevil-looking cast in one eye, seized him by the arm.
"You pay now! You pay now! Twenty-five sen!" yelled the proprietor,hoarse with rage.
Alf was red in the face, too, from mortification; but he resolutely setout on another exploration. He had given up the purse, pinning his lasthope on stray coins. In the little change-pocket of his coat he founda ten-sen piece and five-copper sen; and remembering having recentlymissed a ten-sen piece, he cut the seam of the pocket and resurrectedthe coin from the depths of the lining. Twenty-five sen he held in hishand, the sum required to pay for the supper he had eaten. He turnedthem over to the proprietor, who counted them, grew suddenly calm, andbowed obsequiously--in fact, the whole crowd bowed obsequiously andmelted away.
Alf Davis was a young sailor, just turned sixteen, on board the _AnnieMine_, an American sailing-schooner, which had run into Yokohama toship its season's catch of skins to London. And in this, his second tripashore, he was beginning to snatch his first puzzling glimpses of theOriental mind. He laughed when the bowing and kotowing was over, andturned on his heel to confront another problem. How was he to get aboardship? It was eleven o'clock at night, and there would be no ship's boatsashore, while the outlook for hiring a native boatman, with nothing butempty pockets to draw upon, was not particularly inviting.
Keeping a sharp lookout for shipmates, he went down to the pier. AtYokohama there are no long lines of wharves. The shipping lies out atanchor, enabling a few hundred of the short-legged people to make alivelihood by carrying passengers to and from the shore.
A dozen sampan men and boys hailed Alf and offered their services. Heselected the most favorable-looking one, an old and beneficent-appearingman with a withered leg. Alf stepped into his sampan and sat down.It was quite dark and he could not see what the old fellow was doing,though he evidently was doing nothing about shoving off and gettingunder way. At last he limped over and peered into Alf's face.
"Ten sen," he said.
"Yes, I know, ten sen," Alf answered carelessly. "But hurry up. Americanschooner."
"Ten sen. You pay now," the old fellow insisted.
Alf felt himself grow hot all over at the hateful words "pay now." "Youtake me to American schooner; then I pay," he said.
But the man stood up patiently before him, held out his hand, and said,"Ten sen. You pay now."
Alf tried to explain. He had no money. He had lost his purse. But hewould pay. As soon as he got aboard the American schooner, then he wouldpay. No; he would not even go aboard the American schooner. He wouldcall to his shipmates, and they would give the sampan man the ten senfirst. After that he would go aboard. So it was all right, of course.
To all of which the beneficent-appearing old man replied: "You pay now.Ten sen." And, to make matters worse, the other sampan men squatted onthe pier steps, listening.
Alf, chagrined and angry, stood up to step ashore. But the old fellowlaid a detaining hand on his sleeve. "You give shirt now. I take you'Merican schooner," he proposed.
Then it was that all of Alf's American independence flamed up in hisbreast. The Anglo-Saxon has a born dislike of being imposed upon, andto Alf this was sheer robbery! Ten sen was equivalent to six Americancents, while his shirt, which was of good quality and was new, had costhim two dollars.
He turned his back on the man without a word, and went out to the end ofthe pier, the crowd, laughing with great gusto, following at his heels.The majority of them were heavy-set, muscular fellows, and the Julynight being one of sweltering heat, they were clad in the least possibleraiment. The water-people of any race are rough and turbulent, and itstruck Alf that to be out at midnight on a pier-end with such a crowd ofwharfmen, in a big Japanese city, was not as safe as it might be.
One burly fellow, with a shock of black hair and ferocious eyes, cameup. The rest shoved in after him to take part in the discussion.
"Give me shoes," the man said. "Give me shoes now. I take you 'Mericanschooner."
Alf shook his head, whereat the crowd clamored that he accept theproposal. Now the Anglo-Saxon is so constituted that to browbeat orbully him is the last way under the sun of getting him to do any certainthing. He will dare willingly, but he will not permit himself to bedriven. So this attempt of the boatmen to force Alf only aroused all thedogged stubbornness of his race. The same qualities were in him that arein men who lead forlorn hopes; and there, under the stars, on the lonelypier, encircled by the jostling and shouldering gang, he resolved thathe would die rather than submit to the indignity of being robbed of asingle stitch of clothing. Not value, but principle, was at stake.
Then somebody thrust roughly against him from behind. He whirled aboutwith flashing eyes, and the circle involuntarily gave ground. But thecrowd was growing more boisterous. Each and every article of clothing hehad on was demanded by one or another, and these demands were shoutedsimultaneously at the tops of very healthy lungs.
Alf had long since ceased to say anything, but he knew that thesituation was getting dangerous, and that the only thing left to himwas to get away. His face was set doggedly, his eyes glinted like pointsof steel, and his body was firmly and confidently poised. This air ofdetermination sufficiently impressed the boatmen to make them give waybefore him when he started to walk toward the shore-end of the pier. Butthey trooped along beside him and behind him, shouting and laughing morenoisily than ever. One of the youngsters, about Alf's size and build,impudently snatched his cap from his head; but before he could put it onhis own head, Alf struck out from the shoulder, and sent the fellowrolling on the stones.
The cap flew out of his hand and disappeared among the many legs. Alfdid some quick thinking; his sailor pride would not permit him to leavethe cap in their hands. He followed in the direction it had sped, andsoon found it under the bare foot of a stalwart fellow, who kept hisweight stolidly upon it. Alf tried to get the cap out by a sudden jerk,but failed. He shoved against the man's leg, but the man only grunted.It was challenge direct, and Alf accepted it. Like a flash one leg wasbehind the man and Alf had thrust strongly with his shoulder against thefellow's chest. Nothing could save the man from the fierce vigorousnessof the trick, and he was hurled over and backward.
Next, the cap was on Alf's head and his fists were up before him. Thenhe whirled about to prevent attack from behind, and all those in thatquarter fled precipitately. This was what he wanted. None remainedbetween him and the shore end. The pier was narrow. Facing them andthreatening with his fist those who attempted to pass him on eitherside, he continued his retreat. It was exciting work, walking backwardand at the same time checking that surging mass of men. But thedark-skinned peoples, the world over, have learned to respect the whiteman's fist; and it was the battles fought by many sailors, more than hisown warlike front, that gave Alf
the victory.
Where the pier adjoins the shore was the station of the harbor police,and Alf backed into the electric-lighted office, very much to theamusement of the dapper lieutenant in charge. The sampan men, grownquiet and orderly, clustered like flies by the open door, through whichthey could see and hear what passed.
Alf explained his difficulty in few words, and demanded, as theprivilege of a stranger in a strange land, that the lieutenant put himaboard in the police-boat. The lieutenant, in turn, who knew all the"rules and regulations" by heart, explained that the harbor police werenot ferrymen, and that the police-boats had other functions to performthan that of transporting belated and penniless sailor-men to theirships. He also said he knew the sampan men to be natural-born robbers,but that so long as they robbed within the law he was powerless. Itwas their right to collect fares in advance, and who was he to commandthem to take a passenger and collect fare at the journey's end? Alfacknowledged the justice of his remarks, but suggested that while hecould not command he might persuade. The lieutenant was willing tooblige, and went to the door, from where he delivered a speech to thecrowd. But they, too, knew their rights, and, when the officer hadfinished, shouted in chorus their abominable "Ten sen! You pay now!You pay now!"
"You see, I can do nothing," said the lieutenant, who, by the way, spokeperfect English. "But I have warned them not to harm or molest you, soyou will be safe, at least. The night is warm and half over. Lie downsomewhere and go to sleep. I would permit you to sleep here in theoffice, were it not against the rules and regulations."
Alf thanked him for his kindness and courtesy; but the sampan men hadaroused all his pride of race and doggedness, and the problem could notbe solved that way. To sleep out the night on the stones was anacknowledgment of defeat.
"The sampan men refuse to take me out?"
The lieutenant nodded.
"And you refuse to take me out?"
Again the lieutenant nodded.
"Well, then, it's not in the rules and regulations that you can preventmy taking myself out?"
The lieutenant was perplexed. "There is no boat," he said.
"That's not the question," Alf proclaimed hotly. "If I take myself out,everybody's satisfied and no harm done?"
"Yes; what you say is true," persisted the puzzled lieutenant. "But youcannot take yourself out."
"You just watch me," was the retort.
Down went Alf's cap on the office floor. Right and left he kicked offhis low-cut shoes. Trousers and shirt followed.
"Remember," he said in ringing tones, "I, as a citizen of the UnitedStates, shall hold you, the city of Yokohama, and the government ofJapan responsible for those clothes. Good night."
He plunged through the doorway, scattering the astounded boatmen toeither side, and ran out on the pier. But they quickly recovered and ranafter him, shouting with glee at the new phase the situation had takenon. It was a night long remembered among the water-folk of Yokohamatown. Straight to the end Alf ran, and, without pause, dived off cleanlyand neatly into the water. He struck out with a lusty, single-overhandstroke till curiosity prompted him to halt for a moment. Out of thedarkness, from where the pier should be, voices were calling to him.
He turned on his back, floated, and listened.
"All right! All right!" he could distinguish from the babel. "No paynow; pay bime by! Come back! Come back now; pay bime by!"
"No, thank you," he called back. "No pay at all. Good night."
Then he faced about in order to locate the _Annie Mine_. She wasfully a mile away, and in the darkness it was no easy task to get herbearings. First, he settled upon a blaze of lights which he knew nothingbut a man-of-war could make. That must be the United States war-ship_Lancaster_. Somewhere to the left and beyond should be the_Annie Mine._ But to the left he made out three lights closetogether. That could not be the schooner. For the moment he wasconfused. He rolled over on his back and shut his eyes, striving toconstruct a mental picture of the harbor as he had seen it in daytime.With a snort of satisfaction he rolled back again. The three lightsevidently belonged to the big English tramp steamer. Therefore theschooner must lie somewhere between the three lights and the_Lancaster_. He gazed long and steadily, and there, very dim andlow, but at the point he expected, burned a single light--theanchor-light of the _Annie Mine_.
And it was a fine swim under the starshine. The air was warm as thewater, and the water as warm as tepid milk. The good salt taste of itwas in his mouth, the tingling of it along his limbs; and the steadybeat of his heart, heavy and strong, made him glad for living.
But beyond being glorious the swim was uneventful. On the right hand hepassed the many-lighted _Lancaster_, on the left hand the Englishtramp, and ere long the _Annie Mine_ loomed large above him. Hegrasped the hanging rope-ladder and drew himself noiselessly on deck.There was no one in sight. He saw a light in the galley, and knew thatthe captain's son, who kept the lonely anchor-watch, was making coffee.Alf went forward to the forecastle. The men were snoring in their bunks,and in that confined space the heat seemed to him insufferable. So heput on a thin cotton shirt and a pair of dungaree trousers, tuckedblanket and pillow under his arm, and went up on deck and out on thefore-castle-head.
Hardly had he begun to doze when he was roused by a boat comingalongside and hailing the anchor-watch. It was the police-boat, and toAlf it was given to enjoy the excited conversation that ensued. Yes, thecaptain's son recognized the clothes. They belonged to Alf Davis, one ofthe seamen. What had happened? No; Alf Davis had not come aboard. Hewas ashore. He was not ashore? Then he must be drowned. Here both thelieutenant and the captain's son talked at the same time, and Alf couldmake out nothing. Then he heard them come forward and rouse out thecrew. The crew grumbled sleepily and said that Alf Davis was not in theforecastle; whereupon the captain's son waxed indignant at the Yokohamapolice and their ways, and the lieutenant quoted rules and regulationsin despairing accents.
Alf rose up from the forecastle-head and extended his hand, saying:
"I guess I'll take those clothes. Thank you for bringing them aboard sopromptly."
"I don't see why he couldn't have brought you aboard inside of them,"said the captain's son.
And the police lieutenant said nothing, though he turned the clothesover somewhat sheepishly to their rightful owner.
The next day, when Alf started to go ashore, he found himself surroundedby shouting and gesticulating, though very respectful, sampan men, allextraordinarily anxious to have him for a passenger. Nor did the onehe selected say, "You pay now," when he entered his boat. "When Alfprepared to step out on to the pier, he offered the man the customaryten sen. But the man drew himself up and shook his head.
"You all right," he said. "You no pay. You never no pay. You bully boyand all right."
And for the rest of the _Annie Mine's_ stay in port, the sampan menrefused money at Alf Davis's hand. Out of admiration for his pluck andindependence, they had given him the freedom of the harbor.
WHOSE BUSINESS IS TO LIVE
Stanton Davies and Jim Wemple ceased from their talk to listen to anincrease of uproar in the street. A volley of stones thrummed and boomedthe wire mosquito nettings that protected the windows. It was a hotnight, and the sweat of the heat stood on their faces as they listened.Arose the incoherent clamor of the mob, punctuated by individual criesin Mexican-Spanish. Least terrible among the obscene threats were:"Death to the Gringos!" "Kill the American pigs!" "Drown the Americandogs in the sea!"
Stanton Davies and Jim Wemple shrugged their shoulders patiently to eachother, and resumed their conversation, talking louder in order to makethemselves heard above the uproar.
"The question is _how_," Wemple said. "It's forty-seven miles toPanuco, by river----"
"And the land's impossible, with Zaragoza's and Villa's men on the lootand maybe fraternizing," Davies agreed.
Wemple nodded and continued: "And she's at the East Coast Magnolia, twomiles beyond, if she isn't back at the hunting camp. We've got
to gether----"
"We've played pretty square in this matter, Wemple," Davies said. "Andwe might as well speak up and acknowledge what each of us knows theother knows. You want her. I want her."
Wemple lighted a cigarette and nodded.
"And now's the time when it's up to us to make a show as if we didn'twant her and that all we want is just to save her and get her downhere."
"And a truce until we do save her--I get you," Wempel affirmed.
"A truce until we get her safe and sound back here in Tampico, or aboarda battleship. After that? ..."
Both men shrugged shoulders and beamed on each other as their hands metin ratification.
Fresh volleys of stones thrummed against the wire-screened windows; aboy's voice rose shrilly above the clamor, proclaiming death to theGringos; and the house reverberated to the heavy crash of some batteringram against the street-door downstairs. Both men, snatching up automaticrifles, ran down to where their fire could command the threatened door.
"If they break in we've got to let them have it," Wemple said.
Davies nodded quiet agreement, then inconsistently burst out with alurid string of oaths.
"To think of it!" he explained his wrath. "One out of three of thosecurs outside has worked for you or me--lean-bellied, barefooted,poverty-stricken, glad for ten centavos a day if they could only getwork. And we've given them steady jobs and a hundred and fifty centavosa a day, and here they are yelling for our blood."
"Only the half breeds," Davies corrected.
"You know what I mean," Wemple replied. "The only peons we've lost arethose that have been run off or shot."
The attack on the door ceasing, they returned upstairs. Half a dozenscattered shots from farther along the street seemed to draw away themob, for the neighborhood became comparatively quiet.
A whistle came to them through the open windows, and a man's voicecalling:
"Wemple! Open the door! It's Habert! Want to talk to you!"
Wemple went down, returning in several minutes with a tidily-paunched,well-built, gray-haired American of fifty. He shook hands with Daviesand flung himself into a chair, breathing heavily. He did not relinquishhis clutch on the Colt's 44 automatic pistol, although he immediatelyaddressed himself to the task of fishing a filled clip of cartridgesfrom the pocket of his linen coat. He had arrived hatless andbreathless, and the blood from a stone-cut on the cheek oozed down hisface. He, too, in a fit of anger, springing to his feet when he hadchanged clips in his pistol, burst out with mouth-filling profanity.
"They had an American flag in the dirt, stamping and spitting on it. Andthey told me to spit on it."
Wemple and Davies regarded him with silent interrogation.
"Oh, I know what you're wondering!" he flared out. "Would I a-spit on itin the pinch? That's what's eating you. I'll answer. Straight out, brasstacks, I WOULD. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
He paused to help himself to a cigar from the box on the table and tolight it with a steady and defiant hand.
"Hell!--I guess this neck of the woods knows Anthony Habert, and you canbank on it that it's never located his yellow streak. Sure, in thepinch, I'd spit on Old Glory. What the hell d'ye think I'm going on thestreets for a night like this? Didn't I skin out of the Southern Hotelhalf an hour ago, where there are forty buck Americans, not countingtheir women, and all armed? That was safety. What d'ye think I came herefor?--to rescue you?"
His indignation lumped his throat into silence, and he seemed shaken aswith an apoplexy.
"Spit it out," Davies commanded dryly.
"I'll tell you," Habert exploded. "It's Billy Boy. Fifty miles upcountry and twenty-thousand throat-cutting federals and rebels betweenhim and me. D'ye know what that boy'd do, if he was here in Tampico andI was fifty miles up the Panuco? Well, I know. And I'm going to do thesame--go and get him."
"We're figuring on going up," Wemple assured him.
"And that's why I headed here--Miss Drexel, of course?"
Both men acquiesced and smiled. It was a time when men dared speak ofmatters which at other times tabooed speech.
"Then the thing's to get started," Habert exclaimed, looking at hiswatch. "It's midnight now. We've got to get to the river and get aboat--"
But the clamor of the returning mob came through the windows in answer.
Davies was about to speak, when the telephone rang, and Wemple sprang tothe instrument.
"It's Carson," he interjected, as he listened. "They haven't cut thewires across the river yet.--Hello, Carson. Was it a break or a cut? ...Bully for you.... Yes, move the mules across to the potrero beyondTamcochin.... Who's at the water station? ... Can you still 'phonehim? ... Tell him to keep the tanks full, and to shut off the main toArico. Also, to hang on till the last minute, and keep a horse saddledto cut and run for it. Last thing before he runs, he must jerk out the'phone.... Yes, yes, yes. Sure. No breeds. Leave full-blooded Indians incharge. Gabriel is a good _hombre_. Heaven knows, once we're chasedout, when we'll get back.... You can't pinch down Jaramillo undertwenty-five hundred barrels. We've got storage for ten days. Gabriel'llhave to handle it. Keep it moving, if we have to run it into theriver----"
"Ask him if he has a launch," Habert broke in.
"He hasn't," was Wemple's answer. "The federals commandeered the lastone at noon."
"Say, Carson, how are you going to make your get-away?" Wemple queried.
The man to whom he talked was across the Panuco, on the south side, atthe tank farm.
"Says there isn't any get-away," Wemple vouchsafed to the other two."The federals are all over the shop, and he can't understand why theyhaven't raided him hours ago."
"... Who? Campos? That skunk! ... all right.... Don't be worried if youdon't hear from me. I'm going up river with Davies and Habert.... Useyour judgment, and if you get a safe chance at Campos, pot him.... Oh,a hot time over here. They're battering our doors now. Yes, by allmeans ... Good-by, old man."
Wemple lighted a cigarette and wiped his forehead.
"You know Campos, Jose H. Campos," hevolunteered. "The dirty cur's stuck Carson upfor twenty thousand pesos. We had to pay,or he'd have compelled half our peons to enlistor set the wells on fire. And you know,Davies, what we've done for him in past years.Gratitude? Simple decency? Great Scott!"
* * * * *
It was the night of April twenty-first. On the morning of thetwenty-first the American marines and bluejackets had landed at VeraCruz and seized the custom house and the city. Immediately the news wastelegraphed, the vengeful Mexican mob had taken possession of thestreets of Tampico and expressed its disapproval of the action of theUnited States by tearing down American flags and crying death to theAmericans.
There was nothing save its own spinelessness to deter the mob fromcarrying out its threat. Had it battered down the doors of the SouthernHotel, or of other hotels, or of residences such as Wemple's, a fightwould have started in which the thousands of federal soldiers in Tampicowould have joined their civilian compatriots in the laudable task ofdecreasing the Gringo population of that particular portion of Mexico.There should have been American warships to act as deterrents; butthrough some inexplicable excess of delicacy, or strategy, or heavenknows what, the United States, when it gave its orders to take VeraCruz, had very carefully withdrawn its warships from Tampico to the openGulf a dozen miles away. This order had come to Admiral Mayo by wirelessfrom Washington, and thrice he had demanded the order to be repeated,ere, with tears in his eyes, he had turned his back on his countrymenand countrywomen and steamed to sea.
* * * * *
"Of all asinine things, to leave us in the lurch this way!" Habert wasdenouncing the powers that be of his country. "Mayo'd never have doneit. Mark my words, he had to take program from Washington. And here weare, and our dear ones scattered for fifty miles back up country....Say, if I lose Billy Boy I'll never dare go home to face the wife.--Comeon. Let the three of us make a start. We can
throw the fear of God intoany gang on the streets."
"Come on over and take a squint," Davies invited from where he stood,somewhat back from the window, looking down into the street.
It was gorged with rioters, all haranguing, cursing, crying out death,and urging one another to smash the doors, but each hanging back fromthe death he knew waited behind those doors for the first of the rush.
"We can't break through a bunch like that, Habert," was Davies' comment.
"And if we die under their feet we'll be of little use to Billy Boy oranybody else up the Panuco," Wemple added. "And if----"
A new movement of the mob caused him to break off. It was splittingbefore a slow and silent advance of a file of white-clad men.
"Bluejackets--Mayo's come back for us after all," Habert muttered.
"Then we can get a navy launch," Davies said.
The bedlam of the mob died away, and, in silence, the sailors reachedthe street door and knocked for admittance. All three went down to openit, and to discover that the callers were not Americans but two Germanlieutenants and half a dozen German marines. At sight of the Americans,the rage of the mob rose again, and was quelled by the grounding of therifle butts of the marines.
"No, thank you," the senior lieutenant, in passable English, declinedthe invitation to enter. He unconcernedly kept his cigar alive at suchtimes that the mob drowned his voice. "We are on the way back to ourship. Our commander conferred with the English and Dutch commanders; butthey declined to cooperate, so our commander has undertaken the entireresponsibility. We have been the round of the hotels. They are to holdtheir own until daybreak, when we'll take them off. We have given themrockets such as these.--Take them. If your house is entered, hold yourown and send up a rocket from the roof. We can be here in force, inforty-five minutes. Steam is up in all our launches, launch crews andmarines for shore duty are in the launches, and at the first rocket weshall start."
"Since you are going aboard now, we should like to go with you," Daviessaid, after having rendered due thanks.
The surprise and distaste on both lieutenants' faces was patent.
"Oh, no," Davies laughed. "We don't want refuge. We have friends fiftymiles up river, and we want to get to the river in order to go up afterthem."
The pleasure on the officers' faces was immediate as they looked asilent conference at each other.
"Since our commander has undertaken grave responsibility on a night likethis, may we do less than take minor responsibility?" queried the elder.
To this the younger heartily agreed. In a trice, upstairs and downagain, equipped with extra ammunition, extra pistols, and apocket-bulging supply of cigars, cigarettes and matches, the threeAmericans were ready. Wemple called last instructions up the stairway toimaginary occupants being left behind, ascertained that the spring lockwas on, and slammed the door.
The officers led, followed by the Americans, the rear brought up by thesix marines; and the spitting, howling mob, not daring to cast a stone,gave way before them.
* * * * *
As they came alongside the gangway of the cruiser, they saw launches andbarges lying in strings to the boat-booms, filled with men, waiting forthe rocket signal from the beleaguered hotels. A gun thundered fromclose at hand, up river, followed by the thunder of numerous guns andthe reports of many rifles fired very rapidly.
"Now what's the _Topila_ whanging away at?" Habert complained, thenjoined the others in gazing at the picture.
A searchlight, evidently emanating from the Mexican gunboat, wasstabbing the darkness to the middle of the river, where it played uponthe water. And across the water, the center of the moving circle oflight, flashed a long, lean speedboat. A shell burst in the air ahundred feet astern of it. Somewhere, outside the light, other shellswere bursting in the water; for they saw the boat rocked by the wavesfrom the explosions. They could guess the whizzing of the rifle bullets.
But for only several minutes the spectacle lasted. Such was the speed ofthe boat that it gained shelter behind the German, when the Mexicangunboat was compelled to cease fire. The speedboat slowed down, turnedin a wide and heeling circle, and ranged up alongside the launch at thegangway.
The lights from the gangway showed but one occupant, a tow-headed,greasy-faced, blond youth of twenty, very lean, very calm, very muchsatisfied with himself.
"If it ain't Peter Tonsburg!" Habert ejaculated, reaching out a hand toshake. "Howdy, Peter, howdy. And where in hell are you hellbent for,surging by the _Topila_ in such scandalous fashion!"
Peter, a Texas-born Swede of immigrant parents, filled with the oldTexas traditions, greasily shook hands with Wemple and Davies as well,saying "Howdy," as only the Texan born can say it.
"Me," he answered Habert. "I ain't hellbent nowhere exceptin' to getaway from the shell-fire. She's a caution, that _Topila_. Huh! butI limbered 'em up some. I was goin' every inch of twenty-five. They waslike amateurs blazin' away at canvasback."
"Which _Chill_ is it?" Wemple asked.
"_Chill II_," Peter answered. "It's all that's left. _Chill I_a Greaser--you know 'm--Campos--commandeered this noon. I was runnin'_Chill III_ when they caught me at sundown. Made me come in undertheir guns at the East Coast outfit, and fired me out on my neck.
"Now the boss'd gone over in this one to Tampico in the early evening,and just about ten minutes ago I spots it landin' with a sousy bunch ofFederals at the East Coast, and swipes it back according. Where's theboss? He ain't hurt, is he? Because I'm going after him."
"No, you're not, Peter," Davies said. "Mr. Frisbie is safe at theSouthern Hotel, all except a five-inch scalp wound from a brick that'sgot him down with a splitting headache. He's safe, so you're going withus, going to take us, I mean, up beyond Panuco town."
"Huh?--I can see myself," Peter retorted, wiping his greasy nose on awad of greasy cotton waste. "I got some cold. Besides, thisnight-drivin' ain't good for my complexion."
"My boy's up there," Habert said.
"Well, he's bigger'n I am, and I reckon he can take care of himself."
"And there's a woman there--Miss Drexel," Davies said quietly.
"Who? Miss Drexel? Why didn't you say so at first!" Peter demandedgrievedly. He sighed and added, "Well, climb in an' make a start. Betterget your Dutch friends to donate me about twenty gallons of gasoline ifyou want to get anywhere."
* * * * *
"Won't do you no good to lay low," Peter Tonsburg remarked, as, at fullspeed, headed up river, the _Topila's_ searchlight stabbed them."High or low, if one of them shells hits in the vicinity--_goodnight_!"
Immediately thereafter the _Topila_ erupted. The roar of the_Chill's_ exhaust nearly drowned the roar of the guns, but thefragile hull of the craft was shaken and rocked by the bursting shells.An occasional bullet thudded into or pinged off the _Chill_, and,despite Peter's warning that, high or low, they were bound to get it ifit came to them, every man on board, including Peter, crouched, withchest contracted by drawn-in shoulders, in an instinctive and purelyunconscious effort to lessen the area of body he presented as a targetor receptacle for flying fragments of steel.
The _Topila_ was a federal gunboat. To complicate the affair, theconstitutionalists, gathered on the north shore in the siege of Tampico,opened up on the speedboat with many rifles and a machine gun.
"Lord, I'm glad they're Mexicans, and not Americans," Habert observed,after five mad minutes in which no damage had been received. "Mexicansare born with guns in their hands, and they never learn to use them."
Nor was the _Chill_ or any man aboard damaged when at last sherounded the bend of river that shielded her from the searchlight.
"I'll have you in Panuco town in less'n three hours, ... if we don't hita log," Peter leaned back and shouted in Wemple's ear. "And if we do hitdriftwood, I'll have you in the swim quicker than that."
_Chill II_ tore her way through the darkness, steered by thetow-headed youth who knew every foot of the river and
who guided hiscourse by the loom of the banks in the dim starlight. A smart breeze,kicking up spiteful wavelets on the wider reaches, splashed them withsheeted water as well as fine-flung spray. And, in the face of thewarmth of the tropic night, the wind, added to the speed of the boat,chilled them through their wet clothes.
"Now I know why she was named the _Chill_," Habert observed betwixtchattering teeth.
But conversation languished during the nearly three hours of drivethrough the darkness. Once, by the exhaust, they knew that they passedan unlighted launch bound down stream. And once, a glare of light, nearthe south bank, as they passed through the Toreno field, aroused briefdebate as to whether it was the Toreno wells, or the bungalow onMerrick's banana plantation that flared so fiercely.
At the end of an hour, Peter slowed down and ran in to the bank.
"I got a cache of gasoline here--ten gallons," he explained, "and it'sjust as well to know it's here for the back trip." Without leaving theboat, fishing arm-deep into the brush, he announced, "All hunky-dory."He proceeded to oil the engine. "Huh!" he soliloquized for theirbenefit. "I was just readin' a magazine yarn last night. 'Whose BusinessIs to Die,' was its title. An' all I got to say is, 'The hell it is.' Aman's business is to live. Maybe you thought it was our business to diewhen the _Topila_ was pepper-in' us. But you was wrong. We'realive, ain't we? We beat her to it. That's the game. Nobody's got anybusiness to die. I ain't never goin' to die, if I've got any say aboutit."
He turned over the crank, and the roar and rush of the _Chill_ putan end to speech.
There was no need for Wemple or Davies to speak further in the affairclosest to their hearts. Their truce to love-making had been made asbinding as it was brief, and each rival honored the other with a firmbelief that he would commit no infraction of the truce. Afterward wasanother matter. In the meantime they were one in the effort to get BethDrexel back to the safety of riotous Tampico or of a war vessel.
It was four o'clock when they passed by Panuco Town. Shouts and songstold them that the federal detachment holding the place was celebratingits indignation at the landing of American bluejackets in Vera Cruz.Sentinels challenged the _Chill_ from the shore and shot at randomat the noise of her in the darkness.
A mile beyond, where a lighted river steamer with steam up lay at thenorth bank, they ran in at the Apshodel wells. The steamer was small,and the nearly two hundred Americans--men, women, and children--crowdedher capacity. Blasphemous greetings of pure joy and geniality wereexchanged between the men, and Habert learned that the steamboat waswaiting for his Billy Boy, who, astride a horse, was rounding upisolated drilling gangs who had not yet learned that the United Stateshad seized Vera Cruz and that all Mexico was boiling.
Habert climbed out to wait and to go down on the steamer, while thethree that remained on the _Chill_, having learned that Miss Drexelwas not with the refugees, headed for the Dutch Company on the southshore. This was the big gusher, pinched down from one hundred andeighty-five thousand daily barrels to the quantity the companywas able to handle. Mexico had no quarrel with Holland, so that thesuperintendent, while up, with night guards out to prevent drunkensoldiers from firing his vast lakes of oil, was quite unemotional. Yes,the last he had heard was that Miss Drexel and her brother were back atthe hunting lodge. No; he had not sent any warnings, and he doubted thatanybody else had. Not till ten o'clock the previous evening had helearned of the landing at Vera Cruz. The Mexicans had turned nasty assoon as they heard of it, and they had killed Miles Forman at the EmpireWells, run off his labor, and looted the camp. Horses? No; he didn'thave horse or mule on the place. The federals had commandeered the lastanimal weeks back. It was his belief, however, that there were a coupleof plugs at the lodge, too worthless even for the Mexicans to take.
"It's a hike," Davies said cheerfully.
"Six miles of it," Wemple agreed, equally cheerfully. "Let's beat it."
A shot from the river, where they had left Peter in the boat, startedthem on the run for the bank. A scattering of shots, as from two rifles,followed. And while the Dutch superintendent, in execrable Spanish,shouted affirmations of Dutch neutrality into the menacing dark, acrossthe gunwale of _Chill II_ they found the body of the tow-headedyouth whose business it had been not to die.
* * * * *
For the first hour, talking little, Davies and Wemple stumbled along theapology for a road that led through the jungle to the lodge. They diddiscuss the glares of several fires to the east along the south bank ofPanuco River, and hoped fervently that they were dwellings and notwells.
"Two billion dollars worth of oil right here in the Ebano field alone,"Davies grumbled.
"And a drunken Mexican, whose whole carcass and immortal soul aren'tworth ten pesos including hair, hide, and tallow, can start the bonfirewith a lighted wad of cotton waste," was Wemple's contribution. "And ifever she starts, she'll gut the field of its last barrel."
Dawn, at five, enabled them to accelerate their pace; and six o'clockfound them routing out the occupants of the lodge.
"Dress for rough travel, and don't stop for any frills," Wemple calledaround the corner of Miss Drexel's screened sleeping porch.
"Not a wash, nothing," Davies supplemented grimly, as he shook handswith Charley Drexel, who yawned and slippered up to them in pajamas."Where are those horses, Charley? Still alive?"
Wemple finished giving orders to the sleepy peons to remain and care forthe place, occupying their spare time with hiding the more valuablethings, and was calling around the corner to Miss Drexel the news of thecapture of Vera Cruz, when Davies returned with the information that thehorses consisted of a pair of moth-eaten skates that could be dependedupon to lie down and die in the first half mile.
Beth Drexel emerged, first protesting that under no circumstances wouldshe be guilty of riding the creatures, and, next, her brunette skin anddark eyes still flushed warm with sleep, greeting the two rescuers.
"It would be just as well if you washed your face, Stanton," she toldDavies; and, to Wemple: "You're just as bad, Jim. You are a pair ofdirty boys."
"And so will you be," Wemple assured her, "before you get back toTampico. Are you ready?"
"As soon as Juanita packs my hand bag."
"Heavens, Beth, don't waste time!" exclaimed Wemple. "Jump in and grabup what you want."
"Make a start--make a start," chanted Davies. "Hustle! Hustle!--Charley,get the rifle you like best and take it along. Get a couple for us."
"Is it as serious as that?" Miss Drexel queried.
Both men nodded.
"The Mexicans are tearing loose," Davies explained. "How they missedthis place I don't know." A movement in the adjoining room startled him."Who's that?" he cried.
"Why, Mrs. Morgan," Miss Drexel answered.
"Good heavens, Wemple, I'd forgotten _her_," groaned Davies. "Howwill we ever get her anywhere?"
"Let Beth walk, and relay the lady on the nags."
"She weighs a hundred and eighty," Miss Drexel laughed. "Oh, hurry,Martha! We're waiting on you to start!"
Muffled speech came through the partition, and then emerged a veryshort, stout, much-flustered woman of middle age.
"I simply can't walk, and you boys needn't demand it of me," was herplaint. "It's no use. I couldn't walk half a mile to save my life, andit's six of the worst miles to the river."
They regarded her in despair.
"Then you'll ride," said Davies. "Come on, Charley. We'll get a saddleon each of the nags."
Along the road through the tropic jungle, Miss Drexel and Juanita,her Indian maid, led the way. Her brother, carrying the three rifles,brought up the rear, while in the middle Davies and Wemple struggledwith Mrs. Morgan and the two decrepit steeds. One, a flea-bitten roan,groaned continually from the moment Mrs. Morgan's burden was put uponhim till she was shifted to the other horse. And this other, a mangysorrel, invariably lay down at the end of a quarter of a mile of Mrs.Morgan.
Miss Drexel laughed and joked a
nd encouraged; and Wemple, in brutalfashion, compelled Mrs. Morgan to walk every third quarter of a mile.At the end of an hour the sorrel refused positively to get up, and, so,was abandoned. Thereafter, Mrs. Morgan rode the roan alternate quartersof miles, and between times walked--if _walk_ may describe herstumbling progress on two preposterously tiny feet with a man supportingher on either side.
A mile from the river, the road became more civilized, running along theside of a thousand acres of banana plantation.
"Parslow's," young Drexel said. "He'll lose a year's crop now on accountof this mix-up."
"Oh, look what I've found!" Miss Drexel called from the lead.
"First machine that ever tackled this road," was young Drexel'sjudgment, as they halted to stare at the tire-tracks.
"But look at the tracks," his sister urged. "The machine must have comeright out of the bananas and climbed the bank."
"Some machine to climb a bank like that," was Davies' comment. "What itdid do was to go down the bank--take a scout after it, Charley, whileWemple and I get Mrs. Morgan off her fractious mount. No machine everbuilt could travel far through those bananas."
The flea-bitten roan, on its four legs upstanding, continued bravely tostand until the lady was removed, whereupon, with a long sigh, it sankdown on the ground. Mrs. Morgan likewise sighed, sat down, and regardedher tiny feet mournfully.
"Go on, boys," she said. "Maybe you can find something at the river andsend back for me."
But their indignant rejection of the plan never attained speech, for, atthat instant, from the green sea of banana trees beneath them, came thesudden purr of an engine. A minute later the splutter of an exhaust toldthem the silencer had been taken off. The huge-fronded banana trees wereviolently agitated as by the threshing of a hidden Titan. They couldidentify the changing of gears and the reversing and going ahead, until,at the end of five minutes, a long low, black car burst from the wall ofgreenery and charged the soft earth bank, but the earth was too soft,and when, two-thirds of the way up, beaten, Charley Drexel braked thecar to a standstill, the earth crumbled from under the tires, and he ranit down and back, the way he had come, until half-buried in the bananas.
"'A Merry Oldsmobile!'" Miss Drexel quoted from the popular song,clapping her hands. "Now, Martha, your troubles are over."
"Six-cylinder, and sounds as if it hadn't been out of the shop a week,or may I never ride in a machine again," Wemple remarked, looking toDavies for confirmation.
Davies nodded.
"It's Allison's," he said. "Campos tried to shake him down for a privateloan, and--well, you know Allison. He told Campos to go to. And Campos,in revenge, commandeered his new car. That was two days ago, before welifted a hand at Vera Cruz. Allison told me yesterday the last he'dheard of the car it was on a steamboat bound up river. And here's wherethey ditched it--but let's get a hustle on and get her into therunning."
Three attempts they made, with young Drexel at the wheel; but the softearth and the pitch of the grade baffled.
"She's got the power all right," young Drexel protested. "But she can'tbite into that mush."
So far, they had spread on the ground the robes found in the car.The men now added their coats, and Wemple, for additional traction,unsaddled the roan, and spread the cinches, stirrup leathers, saddleblanket, and bridle in the way of the wheels. The car took thetreacherous slope in a rush, with churning wheels biting into the wovenfabrics; and, with no more than a hint of hesitation, it cleared thecrest and swung into the road.
"Isn't she the spunky devil!" Drexel exulted. "Say, she could climb theside of a house if she could get traction."
"Better put on that silencer again, if you don't want to play tag withevery soldier in the district," Wemple ordered, as they helped Mrs.Morgan in.
The road to the Dutch gusher compelled them to go through the outskirtsof Panuco town. Indian and half breed women gazed stolidly at thestrange vehicle, while the children and barking dogs clamorouslyadvertised its progress. Once, passing long lines of tethered federalhorses, they were challenged by a sentry; but at Wemple's "Throw on thejuice!" the car took the rutted road at fifty miles an hour. A shotwhistled after them. But it was not the shot that made Mrs. Morganscream. The cause was a series of hog-wallows masked with mud, whichnearly tore the steering wheel from Drexel's hands before he couldreduce speed.
"Wonder it didn't break an axle," Davies growled. "Go on and take iteasy, Charley. We're past any interference."
They swung into the Dutch camp and into the beginning of their realtroubles. The refugee steamboat had departed down river from theAsphodel camp; _Chill II_ had disappeared, the superintendent knewnot how, along with the body of Peter Tonsburg; and the superintendentwas dubious of their remaining.
"I've got to consider the owners," he told them. "This is the biggestwell in Mexico, and you know it--a hundred and eighty-five thousandbarrels daily flow. I've no right to risk it. We have no trouble withthe Mexicans. It's you Americans. If you stay here, I'll have to protectyou. And I can't protect you, anyway. We'll all lose our lives andthey'll destroy the well in the bargain. And if they fire it, it meansthe entire Ebano oil field. The strata's too broken. We're flowingtwenty thousand barrels now, and we can't pinch down any further. As itis, the oil's coming up outside the pipe. And we can't have a fight.We've got to keep the oil moving."
The men nodded. It was cold-blooded logic; but there was no fault to it.
The harassed expression eased on the superintendent's face, and healmost beamed on them for agreeing with him.
"You've got a good machine there," he continued. "The ferry's at thebank at Panuco, and once you're across, the rebels aren't so thick onthe north shore. Why, you can beat the steamboat back to Tampico byhours. And it hasn't rained for days. The road won't be at all bad."
* * * * *
"Which is all very good," Davies observed to Wemple as they approachedPanuco, "except for the fact that the road on the other side was neverbuilt for automobiles, much less for a long-bodied one like this. I wishit were the Four instead of the Six."
"And it would bother you with a Four to negotiate that hill at Alisowhere the road switchbacks above the river."
"And we're going to do it with a Six or lose a perfectly good Six intrying," Beth Drexel laughed to them.
Avoiding the cavalry camp, they entered Panuco with all the speed theruts permitted, swinging dizzy corners to the squawking of chickens andbarking of dogs. To gain the ferry, they had to pass down one side ofthe great plaza which was the heart of the city. Peon soldiers, drowsingin the sun or clustering around the _cantinas_, stared stupidly atthem as they flashed past. Then a drunken major shouted a challenge fromthe doorway of a _cantina_ and began vociferating orders, and asthey left the plaza behind they could hear rising the familiar mob-cry"_Kill the Gringoes!_"
"If any shooting begins, you women get down in the bottom of the car,"Davies commanded. "And there's the ferry all right. Be careful,Charley."
The machine plunged directly down the bank through a cut so deep that itwas more like a chute, struck the gangplank with a terrific bump, andseemed fairly to leap on board. The ferry was scarcely longer than themachine, and Drexel, visibly shaken by the closeness of the shave,managed to stop only when six inches remained between the front wheelsand overboard.
It was a cable ferry, operated by gasoline, and, while Wemple cast offthe mooring lines, Davies was making swift acquaintance with the engine.The third turn-over started it, and he threw it into gear with thewindlass that began winding up the cable from the river's bottom.
By the time they were in midstream a score of horsemen rode out on thebank they had just left and opened a scattering fire. The party crowdedin the shelter of the car and listened to the occasional richochet of abullet. Once, only, the car was struck.
"Here!--what are you up to!" Wemple demanded suddenly of Drexel, who hadexposed himself to fish a rifle out of the car.
"Going to show the skunks what shooti
ng is," was his answer.
"No, you don't," Wemple said. "We're not here to fight, but to getthis party to Tampico." He remembered Peter Tonsburg's remark. "Whosebusiness is to live, Charley--that's our business. Anybody can getkilled. It's too easy these days."
Still under fire, they moored at the north shore, and when Davies hadtossed overboard the igniter from the ferry engine and commandeered tengallons of its surplus gasoline, they took the steep, soft road up thebank in a rush.
"Look at her climb," Drexel uttered gleefully. "That Aliso hill won'tbother us at all. She'll put a crimp in it, that's what she'll do."
"It isn't the hill, it's the sharp turn of the zig-zag that's liable toput a crimp in her," Davies answered. "That road was never laid out forautos, and no auto has ever been over it. They steamboated this one up."
But trouble came before Aliso was reached. Where the road dippedabruptly into a small jag of hollow that was almost V-shaped, it aroseout and became a hundred yards of deep sand. In order to have speed leftfor the sand after he cleared the stiff up-grade of the V, Drexel wascompelled to hit the trough of the V with speed. Wemple clutched MissDrexel as she was on the verge of being bounced out. Mrs. Morgan, toosolid for such airiness, screamed from the pain of the bump; and eventhe imperturbable Juanita fell to crossing herself and uttering prayerswith exceeding rapidity.
The car cleared the crest and encountered the sand, going slower frommoment to moment, slewing and writhing and squirming from side to side.The men leaped out and began shoving. Miss Drexel urged Juanita out andfollowed. But the car came to a standstill, and Drexel, looking back andpointing, showed the first sign of being beaten. Two things he pointedto: a constitutional soldier on horseback a quarter of a mile in therear; and a portion of the narrow road that had fallen out bodily on thefar slope of the V.
"Can't get at this sand unless we go back and try over, and we ditch thecar if we try to back up that."
The ditch was a huge natural sump-hole, the stagnant surface of whichwas a-crawl with slime twenty feet beneath.
Davies and Wemple sprang to take the boy's place.
"You can't do it," he urged. "You can get the back wheels past, butright there you hit that little curve, and if you make it your frontwheel will be off the bank. If you don't make it, your back wheel'll beoff."
Both men studied it carefully, then looked at each other.
"We've got to," said Davies.
"And we're going to," Wemple said, shoving his rival aside in comradelyfashion and taking the post of danger at the wheel. "You're just as goodas I at the wheel, Davies," he explained. "But you're a better shot.Your job's cut out to go back and hold off any Greasers that show up."
Davies took a rifle and strolled back with so ominous an air that thelone cavalryman put spurs to his horse and fled. Mrs. Morgan was helpedout and sent plodding and tottering unaided on her way to the end of thesand stretch. Miss Drexel and Juanita joined Charley in spreading thecoats and robes on the sand and in gathering and spreading smallbranches, brush, and armfuls of a dry, brittle shrub. But all threeceased from their exertions to watch Wemple as he shot the car backwarddown the V and up. The car seemed first to stand on one end, then on theother, and to reel drunkenly and to threaten to turn over into thesump-hole when its right front wheel fell into the air where the roadhad ceased to be. But the hind wheels bit and climbed the grade and out.
Without pause, gathering speed down the perilous slope, Wemple cameahead and up, gaining fifty feet of sand over the previous failure. Moreof the alluvial soil of the road had dropped out at the bad place; buthe took the V in reverse, overhung the front wheel as before, and fromthe top came ahead again. Four times he did this, gaining each time, buteach time knocking a bigger hole where the road fell out, until MissDrexel begged him not to try again.
He pointed to a squad of horsemen coming at a gallop along the road amile in the rear, and took the V once again in reverse.
"If only we had more stuff," Drexel groaned to his sister, as he threwdown a meager, hard-gathered armful of the dry and brittle shrub, and asWemple once more, with rush and roar, shot down the V.
For an instant it seemed that the great car would turn over into thesump, but the next instant it was past. It struck the bottom of thehollow a mighty wallop, and bounced and upended to the steep pitch ofthe climb. Miss Drexel, seized by inspiration or desperation, with aquick movement stripped off her short, corduroy tramping-skirt, and,looking very lithe and boyish in slender-cut pongee bloomers, ran alongthe sand and dropped the skirt for a foothold for the slowly revolvingwheels. Almost, but not quite, did the car stop, then, gathering way,with the others running alongside and shoving, it emerged on the hardroad.
While they tossed the robes and coats and Miss Drexel's skirt into thebottom of the car and got Mrs. Morgan on board, Davies overtook them.
"Down on the bottom!--all of you!" he shouted, as he gained the runningboard and the machine sprang away. A scattering of shots came from therear.
"Whose business is to live!--hunch down!" Davies yelled in Wemple's ear,accompanying the instruction with an open-handed blow on the shoulder.
"Live yourself," Wemple grumbled as he obediently hunched. "Get yourhead down. You're exposing yourself."
The pursuit lasted but a little while, and died away in an occasionaldistant shot.
"They've quit," Davies announced. "It never entered their stupid headsthat they could have caught us on Aliso Hill."
* * * * *
"It can't be done," was Charley Drexel's quick judgment of youth, as themachine stopped and they surveyed the acute-angled turn on the stiffup-grade of Aliso. Beneath was the swift-running river.
"Get out everybody!" Wemple commanded. "Up-side, all of you, if youdon't want the car to turn over on you. Spread traction wherever sheneeds it."
"Shoot her ahead, or back--she can't stop," Davies said quietly, fromthe outer edge of the road, where he had taken position. "The earth'scrumbling away from under the tires every second she stands still."
"Get out from under, or she'll be on top of you," Wemple ordered, as hewent ahead several yards.
But again, after the car rested a minute, the light, dry earth began tocrack and crumble away from under the tires, rolling in a miniatureavalanche down the steep declivity into the water. And not until Wemplehad backed fifty yards down the narrow road did he find solid restingfor the car. He came ahead on foot and examined the acute angle formedby the two zig-zags. Together with Davies he planned what was to bedone.
"When you come you've got to come a-humping," Davies advised. "If youstop anywhere for more than seconds, it's good night, and the walkingwon't be fine."
"She's full of fight, and she can do it. See that hard formation rightthere on the inside wall. It couldn't have come at a better spot. If Idon't make her hind wheels climb half way up it, we'll start walkingabout a second thereafter."
"She's a two-fisted piece of machinery," Davies encouraged. "I know herkind. If she can't do it, no machine can that was ever made. Am I right,Beth?"
"She's a regular, spunky she-devil," Miss Drexel laughed agreement. "Andso are the pair of you--er--of the male persuasion, I mean."
Miss Drexel had never seemed so fascinating to either of them as she wasthen, in the excitement quite unconscious of her abbreviated costume,her brown hair flying, her eyes sparkling, her lips smiling. Each mancaught the other in that moment's pause to look, and each man sighed tothe other and looked frankly into each other's eyes ere he turned to thework at hand.
Wemple came up with his usual rush, but it was a gauged rush; and Daviestook the post of danger, the outside running board, where his weightwould help the broad tires to bite a little deeper into the treacheroussurface. If the road-edge crumbled away it was inevitable that he wouldbe caught under the car as it rolled over and down to the river.
It was ahead and reverse, ahead and reverse, with only the briefest ofpauses in which to shift the gears. Wemple backed up th
e hard formationon the inside bank till the car seemed standing on end, rushed aheadtill the earth of the outer edge broke under the front tires andsplashed in the water. Davies, now off, and again on the running boardwhen needed, accompanied the car in its jerky and erratic progress,tossing robes and coats under the tires, calling instructions to Drexelsimilarly occupied on the other side, and warning Miss Drexel out of theway.
"Oh, you Merry Olds, you Merry Olds, you Merry Olds," Wemple mutteredaloud, as if in prayer, as he wrestled the car about the narrow area,gaining sometimes inches in pivoting it, sometimes fetching back up theinner wall precisely at the spot previously attained, and, once, havingthe car, with the surface of the roadbed under it, slide bodily andsidewise, two feet down the road.
The clapping of Miss Drexel's hands was the first warning Daviesreceived that the feat was accomplished, and, swinging on to the runningboard, he found the car backing in the straight-away up the next zig-zagand Wemple still chanting ecstatically, "Oh, you Merry Olds, you MerryOlds!"
There were no more grades nor zigzags between them and Tampico, but, sonarrow was the primitive road, two miles farther were backed beforespace was found in which to turn around. One thing of importancedid lie between them and Tampico--namely the investing lines of theconstitutionalists. But here, at noon, fortune favored in the form ofthree American soldiers of fortune, operators of machine guns, who hadfought the entire campaign with Villa from the beginning of the advancefrom the Texan border. Under a white flag, Wemple drove the car acrossthe zone of debate into the federal lines, where good fortune, in theguise of an ubiquitous German naval officer, again received them.
"I think you are nearly the only Americans left in Tampico," he toldthem. "About all the rest are lying out in the Gulf on the differentwarships. But at the Southern Hotel there are several, and the situationseems quieter."
As they got out at the Southern, Davies laid his hand on the car andmurmured, "Good old girl!" Wemple followed suit. And Miss Drexel,engaging both men's eyes and about to say something, was guilty of asudden moisture in her own eyes that made her turn to the car with acaressing hand and repeat, "Good old girl!"