Across the Mesa

by Helen Bagg

  CHAPTER II

  ATHENS

  In the northern part of Mexico, in the state of Sonora, lies the littlemining town of Athens, ironically named by someone whose sense of beautywas offended by the yellow stretches of desert sand, broken by hills,dotted here and there by cactus and mesquite, and frowned upon by gauntand angular mountains.

  Athens, when the mining industry was running full time, was a busy if nota beautiful spot. Its row of shacks housed workers, male and a few female,to a generous number, while its busy little train of cars--for Athensowned a tiny spur of railroad connecting with the neighboring town ofConejo and operated for reasons germane to the coal industry--gave it, ifyou were very temperamental, something of the air of a metropolis seenthrough a diminishing glass.

  The plant and offices which boasted two stories, and the generalmerchandise store which was long and rambling, were larger than theshacks; otherwise Athens was a true democracy. The company house in whichthe superintendent, the manager and the chief engineer "bached" onlydiffered from the others by an added cleanliness, for Mrs. Van Zandt, theenergetic woman who ran the boarding-house, gave an eye to its welfare.The little houses were arranged in one long street and that street wasAthens.

  Several days after the invasion of Athens suggested itself to Miss PollyStreet in far-off Chicago, a prominent citizen strode from the offices inthe direction of the boarding-house. He moved with decision, for he washungry, and Mrs. Van Zandt was fastidious as to hours. The office forceate its supper at six, and the fact that Marc Scott was the assistantsuperintendent and, in the absence of the superintendent on affairsmatrimonial, in charge altogether, was no reason in the eyes of Mrs. VanZandt why he should be late to his meals.

  Scott paused outside the boarding-house to look into the distance where anaccustomed but always interesting sight met his eyes. Away in thedistance, between two foothills, appeared the tiny thread of smoke whichmarked the approach of the little train from Conejo. It was fascinating towatch it; at first so indistinct, then plainer, and finally to see thelittle engine puffing its way along, dragging the small cars. There wouldbe no one on it but the train gang and nothing more exciting than themail, but its bi-weekly arrival never lost interest for Marc Scott.

  "Johnson's late to-night," he muttered, and pushed open the door which ledimmediately to the dining-room. Three men had just begun eating. There wasHenry Hard, the chief engineer; Jimmy Adams, the bookkeeper, and JackWilliams, who ran the company store; they, with young Street, Scott, thedoctor--who a month ago had taken an ailing wife back to Cincinnati--andthe train gang, formed the little group of Americans who had held themining camp together.

  While their location had been freer from trouble than many parts ofMexico, both in regard to bandit and federal persecution, they had borne apart in the general unrest. Once the town had been attacked by Indians;another time, lying in the path of one of Villa's hurried retreats, it hadendured a week-end visit from that gentleman, after which horses andcanned goods had been scarce for a while.

  The worst trouble they had had, however, had been with labor. They workedthe mine with Mexicans, and the Mexicans were an uncertain quantity.Athens was too far from the border to admit of hiring labor from the otherside and allowing it to go back and forth, and the men they got were adiscouraged lot, ready to abandon the job for anything that came up, fromjoining the newest bandit to enlisting in the army. Fighting seemed their_metier_ and most of them preferred it to the monotony of working a mine.A few who were married and had hungry families stayed longer than the restbut it was always a problem.

  Just now the mine was running three days a week and no one knew whenorders would come to shut down entirely. There were the usual rumorsafloat in regard to the coming election in July and a good many people whohad seen other elections in Mexico expected trouble. The Athens peoplewere looking to Street's return for news from headquarters, but alreadyseveral days had gone by since the wedding and they had heard nothing.

  The men looked up and nodded as Scott entered and Mrs. Van Zandt, peeringin from the kitchen through a square hole which served as a means ofcommunication, brought him his coffee. Mrs. Van Zandt had a weak spot inher heart for Marc Scott--most women and children had. One did not atfirst see why. He was not good looking, except that he was well made andwell kept; not particularly pleasing in his manner, being given to anabruptness of speech which most people found disconcerting; and he likedhis own way more than is conducive to social harmony.

  He was, however, straight as a die; was afraid of few things and nopersons; and if he liked you, he had an especial manner for you which tookthe edge off his gruffness so that you wondered why you had ever thoughthim disagreeable. His hair and skin were as brown as each other, which wassaying a good deal; his eyes were gray; his teeth white and strong; and hehad the healthy look of a man who lives in the open, bathes a good dealand does not overeat.

  "Late as usual," remarked Mrs. Van Zandt, pessimistically, as she set thecoffee down beside him. "The less a man has to do in this world, theharder it seems to be for him to get to his meals on time."

  "Ain't it the truth?" remarked Adams, with feeling. He was a short, chubbyyoungster, with a twinkling blue eye. "If it was me, I could whistle formy supper, but seeing it's him, he gets fed up, the beggar!"

  "Too bad about you!" sniffed Mrs. Van Zandt. "I thought you'd cut out thatsecond cup of coffee?"

  "I'm aiming to cut it out during the heated term," was the cheerful reply."There's something about your coffee, Mrs. Van, that's like somefolks--refuses to be cut."

  "Humph!" Mrs. Van was not inaccessible to flattery. "Dolores," this to ablack-haired girl whose face appeared at the hole. "You can cut the pieslike I told you--in fours. If that girl stays with me another month I'llmake something out of her; but, Lord, why should I think she'll stay? Theynever do. Mexicans must be born with an itch for travel."

  "I notice," suggested Hard, "that in the haunts of civilization they arecutting pies in sixes." Hard was a Bostonian--tall, spare, and muscular.He came of a fine old Massachusetts family, and his gray eyes, surroundedby a dozen kindly little wrinkles, his clean-cut mouth, wide but firm andthin lipped, showed marks of breeding absent in the other men.

  "Hush, don't tell her!" growled Adams. "A woman just naturally can't helptrying to follow the styles, and I can use more pie than a sixth, let metell you."

  Mrs. Van, having attended to the distribution of the pie, sat down at thefoot of the table for a bit of conversation. She was a good-looking womanwith dark hair and eyes, and features which, though they were hard, werenot disagreeable. Her figure was restrained with much care from itsinclination to over fleshiness. Mrs. Van scorned the sort of woman who letherself get fat and fought the enemy daily. I could not possibly tell youher age, for no one but herself knew it. It might be thirty-five and onthe other hand it might easily be ten or fifteen years more.

  She had led a roving life, beginning somewhere in the Middle West,carrying on for a time in the East, where it involved a bit of stage lifeto which she loved to refer. There had been a short spasm of matrimony,not entirely satisfactory, the late Van Zandt having had his full share ofhis sex's weaknesses, and a final career of keeping a boarding-house inNew York. After that she had drifted West and finally into Mexico. She hadbeen a veritable godsend to the Athens mining company which had undergonethe agonies of native cooking until the digestions of the American portionof the working force were in a condition resembling half extinct craters.

  "What I'm wonderin' is if Bob Street and his girl got married or not andwhen they're coming home," she remarked as she sat down. One of Mrs. Van'slittle peculiarities, saved probably from the wreck of her theatricalcareer, was a tendency toward calling people by their first names whenthey were not there to protect themselves and sometimes even when theywere.

  "If they've got any sense at all they'll wait," said Scott, placidly."This is no time to be bringin' more women into the country."

  "That's so," agreed Williams, a co
nfirmed bachelor. "It was good luck theDoc took his wife and kids off when he did. There'll be trouble here whenthem elections is held."

  "Pick up your skirts and run, Mrs. Van!" suggested Adams. "You may becooking for a Mexicano yet."

  "If I do he'll know it," was the prompt reply. "I ain't the runnin' kind.Anybody who's staved off the landlord in New York as many times as I haveain't going to worry about Mexicans. What I think those young folks oughtto do is to go East for their honeymoon."

  "They can't," replied Adams, with a grin. "It wouldn't look sporting forthe Supe to leave his underlings without protection in such a crisis."

  "I like Bob Street as well as any young chap I know," said Mrs. Van Zandt,meditatively, "but I don't know as I'd want him standin' between me andAngel Gonzales--if Angel was much mad." Angel Gonzales was a local bandit;a man of many crimes and much history. "But, of course, it wouldn't lookwell for the Sup'rintendent to run away."

  "Street's not the running kind, either; don't fool yourself about that,"remarked Scott, quietly.

  "He's a good kid. I don't care if he is a rich man's son," said Adams withsincerity. "If my Dad had money I wouldn't be keeping books, you bet."

  "No, son, you'd be playing the ponies up at Juarez," responded Hard,cheerfully.

  "Not ponies, Henry dear, roulette," replied Jimmy, pleasantly. "Me andMrs. Van are going to get spliced just as soon as the Ouija board tellsher the winning system."

  "It's all very well for you to make fun of things you don't know any moreabout than a baby, Jim Adams." Mrs. Van's scorn was intense. "If you'dread that article I showed you in the magazine about the man that talkedto his mother-in-law by the Ouija----"

  "Mother-in-law? Great guns, is that the best the thing can do?"

  The reply was cut short by the entrance of the train gang, hot and hungry,clamoring for food.

  "How's Conejo?"

  "Sand-storm. Windy as a parson. Say, you fellows eat up all the pie?"Conversation was suspended while the demands of hunger were satisfied, andScott distributed the mail which the late comers had brought.

  "From Bob?" Hard looked up from his Boston paper as Scott grunted over hisletter. Scott nodded and then as the others looked their curiosity, heread the brief note aloud.

  "DEAR SCOTTY:

  "Have just had a summons from the directors to go East at once; guessthey're uneasy about something they've heard and want first-handinformation. Emma and I are starting for Chicago to-morrow. Open all mailand wire anything important.

  "BOB."

  "Just what I said they'd ought to do," breathed Mrs. Van, happily. "Well,that girl's got a good husband--I'll say she has."

  "Directors would be a heap more uneasy if they knew what we know,"remarked Williams, sententiously. "Hear anything more about the Chihuahuatroops bein' ordered in, Johnson?"

  "Nope," replied the engineer, his mouth full of pie. "Everybody crawledinto their holes in Conejo. Didn't you never see a sand-storm, Jack?"

  "I wish I'd known he was going to Chicago. I'd have asked him to look inon my girl," said Jimmy, folding up his letter. "I don't like the way shewrites--all jazz and picture shows. Some cuss is trying to cut me out withher."

  "More likely she's heard about you and the little Mexican over to Conejo,"remarked the fireman, unsympathetically.

  "If you'd had her address she sure would have," replied Adams, promptly."That Mexican girl----"

  "Yes, we remember her. She was a looker but she used too much powder--theyall do." Hard's voice was judicial. "She always reminded me of a chocolatecake caught out in a snow-storm."

  "Hush up!" Mrs. Van's voice was tragic. "Do you want Dolores to get madand quit? They've got their feelings same as we have. I guess I've got tocatch a deaf and dumb one if I want to keep her on this place!"

  Marc Scott sat in his place, a pile of letters before him, when the othershad gone, and Mrs. Van was helping Dolores with the dishes.

  "Say, Mrs. Van, when you get through with those dishes come outside aminute; I want to talk to you," he said as he threw open the door.

  The shack boasted no veranda, but there were three small steps. Scottseated himself on the top one and rolled a cigarette. The air was chilly.The sun had sunk behind the mountains and outlined their rugged shapeswith golden lines against the purple. Everything was very still--there wasnot a sound except for the faint strains of the victrola, which JimmyAdams always played for an hour after supper. A few figures moved about inand out of the other cabins; not many--for the working force was lightthese days. A light in the store showed that Williams was keeping openhouse as usual.

  The door opened and Mrs. Van came out and sat beside him on the step.

  "Well?" she said, quietly, "what's the matter?"

  "I'm in the deuce of a mess," replied Scott.

  "You mean Indians?"

  "Worse than that--it's a woman, Mrs. Van."

  "A woman!" Mrs. Van was plainly shocked. "My land, Marc Scott, you ain'tbeen foolin' with that heathen in the kitchen?"

  Scott chuckled. "Listen, Mrs. Van, I oughtn't to string you like that--itis a woman, though. You heard me read that letter of Bob's?"

  "Yes."

  "He said to read the mail."

  "Well, haven't you?"

  "Yes, and the first one I tumbled into feet foremost was a confidentialone from his sister. She says she's coming down here. She thinks he'shere."

  "What? You mean here? Athens?"

  "That's what she says. The letter's been lying over at Conejo sinceTuesday and the chances are she's there by this time."

  "But----"

  "Oh, that ain't the worst. It was a confidential letter. She said----"Scott paused in embarrassment.

  "I'm not telling you this for fun, Mrs. Van Zandt, but because I don'tknow what to do. You're a lady----"

  "Oh, go on, what's the matter with you? I guess if you know it it ain'tgoing to hurt me. Has she run off with somebody, or has her Pa lost hismoney, or what?"

  "I'll show you." Scott fished out Polly's letter apologetically. "Istopped reading it directly I saw it was confidential," he continued, "butI got this much at one swallow."

  "DEAR BOB:

  "I know it's awfully nervy of me to drop in on you and Emma right at thebeginning of your honeymoon, but I am coming just the same. JoyceHenderson has behaved atrociously to me."

  "That's all I read," concluded Scott, penitently. "Joyce Henderson is thefellow she's engaged to--Bob told me that. I had to look at the end to seeif she said when she was coming, and by George, if she started when shesaid she was going to, she ought to be in Conejo right now."

  "Now!!"

  "What we're going to do with her, I don't know, do you?"

  "She and the wedding couple have just crossed each other!"

  "Looks like it. Look here, Mrs. Van, what am I going to do? If I don'tlook her up, God knows what'll happen to her over in Conejo, unless shehas sense enough to go to the Morgans. If I do, she's going to raise merryheck because I read that letter about the fellow jilting her. Now Ithought maybe if you'd let on that you read it--a girl wouldn't mindanother woman's knowing a thing like that as much as she would a man."

  Mrs. Van Zandt surveyed Scott pityingly.

  "It always seems so queer to me that a man can have so much muscle and solittle horse sense," she said at length.

  "But----"

  "There ain't any use my explaining; you wouldn't get me," she went on,impatiently. "But here's something even you can understand. I'd look niceopening the boss's mail, wouldn't I? Now you've read the worst of it youmight as well dip into it far enough to find out just when she's coming.Somebody'll have to drive over to Conejo for her as long as the machine'sbusted."

  "I've read all I'm going to," said Scott, doggedly. "You can do thefinding out."

  Mrs. Van Zandt grunted, arranged a pair of eyeglasses which sat uneasilyon a nose ill adapted to them, and glanced at the letter. She gave a sighof relief.

  "She says she's going straight to the Morgans' wh
en she gets to Conejo.Bob's told her about them. Prob'ly Morgan'll run her over in his car. Sheain't very definite about time; don't seem to know just how long she'll bedetained at the border."

  "Unless they're all fools up there she'll be detained some time," saidScott, disgustedly. "Well, I'll go and get the Morgans on the wire and seeif they've seen anything of her," and he strode away toward the office.

  Mrs. Van Zandt sat watching him as he swung down the street. The sun'sgilding had faded from the mountains and it was growing dark. Here andthere a star peeped out as though to commiserate Athens upon itsloneliness.

  "It is lonely," Mrs. Van said to herself. "I don't know as I ever felt itso much before. I hope it don't mean that we're going to have trouble.Sometimes I think I must be psychic--I seem to sense things so. Wish thatgirl had stayed at home, but, Lord, I'd of done the same thing at her age.That's a youngster's first idea when things go wrong--to run away. Asthough you could run away from things!"

  The lady shook her head pessimistically and drew her sweater more closelyabout her as the air grew chillier. A short plump figure with a shawlwrapped around its head came out from the back of the house and meltedinto the darkness.

  "Is that you, Dolores?"

  "Si. The deeshes all feenish," said Dolores, promptly.

  "Did you wash out the dish towels?"

  "Si. All done. I go to bed." Dolores disappeared.

  "You're a liar," breathed Mrs. Van, softly. "You ain't goin' to bed,you're goin' to set and spoon with that good-looking cousin of yours.Well, go to it. You're only young once and this country'd drive a woman tomost anything." Her eyes twinkled humorously. When Mrs. Van's eyestwinkled you forgot that her face was hard.

  "My, but they're hittin' it up on Broadway about this time! Let'ssee--it'll be about eleven--the theatres just lettin' out, crowds going upand down and pouring into restaurants. Say, ain't it queer the differencein people's lives? There's them sitting on plush and eating lobster, andhere's me looking into emptiness and half expecting to see a Yaquigrinning at me from behind a bush! Hullo, you back?"

  Scott, accompanied by Hard, came down the street again. Both seemeddisturbed.

  "Well," remarked the former, grimly. "She's started."

  "Started?" Mrs. Van rose. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I got Jack Morgan's mother on the 'phone," said Scott. "Seems she'd beentrying to get us. The girl got into Conejo about six--just after our trainpulled out--tried to get us on the 'phone and couldn't; so she got amachine and is on the way over."

  "Got a machine!" Mrs. Van gasped. "Are the Morgans crazy?"

  "Jack and his wife have gone over to Mescal with their car and there'snobody home but the old lady and the youngsters. Old lady Morgan's deafand hollers over the wire so I couldn't get much of what she said,"continued Scott, ruefully. "I made up my mind that she'd got old Mendozato bring her over in his Ford. Guess it's up to me to harness up and goover to meet them."

  "I should say so. That girl must be scared to death if nothing worse hashappened to her."

  "Nothing worse will happen to her with Mendoza--unless he runs her into anarroyo. Mendoza's principles are better than his eyesight. But, believeme, she deserves to be scared. It might put a little sense into her."

  "Shall I drive over with you?" queried Hard.

  "No, but you might help Mrs. Van move our things down to Jimmy's. Ithought we'd put her in our shack, Mrs. Van, and you could come up andstay with her." And Scott swung off into the direction of the corral.

  The other two proceeded to the company house, as the superintendent'squarters were called.

  "Well," said the lady, as they began to pack the two men's belongings, "Iexpected to get this house ready for a bride and groom but I must say Iwasn't looking for a lone woman. And yet if I'd had my wits about me Imight have known. Only last night Dolores and me were running the Ouijaand it says--look out for trouble--just as plain as that!"

  "I shouldn't call her anything as bad as that," said Hard, crossing towhere the photograph of Polly Street hung over the fireplace.

  The picture showed a small girl, probably about ten or eleven; a fatlittle girl with chubby legs only half covered with socks, and withdimples in the knees; a little girl with very wide open eyes and a plumpface, a firmly shaped mouth and a serious expression; a little girl withfrizzly hair and freckles that the photographer had failed to retouch, ina costume consisting of a short skirt, middy, and tam-o'-shanter.

  "I wouldn't call her a trouble maker," said Hard, laughing, "unless she'schanged a lot in ten years."