Over the Border Part 31

Was it really pique that-made you kiss her?"

He wanted to laugh, but refrained, for under her smile he felt her earnestness. "Nothing else."

"You're sure?"

"Sure!"

"Cross your heart to die?"

He performed that solemn and ancient function, and if she still entertained a doubt she stuffed it away down in consciousness.

"Very well." With a little sigh of content she let her head fall back on his shoulder and a whisper escape from her upturned lips, "Now-you may."

From his covert on the ridge Jake had observed the meeting, talk, struggle, Ramon's retreat, also something which was hidden from the lovers in the valley below-the fact that, after crossing the ridge, Ramon had dismounted, pulled his rifle from the saddle slings, and crawled back on hands and knees to the edge of Jake's covert. By that time the little tilt concerning Felicia was over, and as Lee's head went to Gordon's shoulder Ramon raised the rifle.

A shot at that short distance would have pierced them both, but as Ramon's eye dropped to the sights a sharp order issued from the covert, "Throw up your hands! d.a.m.n quick!"

A quick, startled glance showed Ramon the lean, grim face through a break in the chaparral. Not for nothing had the _peones_ named Jake "The Python." In moments such as this his lean personality, deadly eye, conveyed that very impression-of a snake coiled to strike. As Ramon's hands went up, he stepped out and, crouching behind the ridge, took the other's rifle and drove him downhill to his horse.

Having extracted the cartridge both from the rifle and from the revolver in Ramon's holster, he threw the weapon at his feet. "I reckon I orter plug you, an' I would for two cents. It'd be set down to raiders, which fixes it very nice. Sure, I reckon I orter do it, but if you've got a few thinks to the contrary spit 'em out."

It was no idle threat. The vicious gleam of the cold gray eye told that.

But in place of fear Ramon's face showed almost relief. "Very good, senor. There is nothing you could do that would suit me better."

The cold eye flickered. "h.e.l.l! you're too anxious. I couldn't make up my mind to do it that quick-an' there's a few things I wanter find out. For one, what's your idee in wanting to drill them young folks?"

Ramon told-this time without the fireworks.

Jake summed it briefly. "Promised you, then threw you down. That's hard luck. But there's one thing you Mexes can never get into your hot heads-the right of our little American queens to change their pretty minds as often as they d.a.m.n please without any gent's consent. You was d.a.m.n lucky that she ever give you a smile. If I conclude to change my mind on plugging you, have it writ up large in your family tree that oncet an American girl let herself be engaged to you for nearly five minutes. Now supposing I refrain from my desire to make you into a corpse, d'you reckon you could keep a promise and not make any attempt on their lives?"

While he was talking Ramon's face had stiffened in defiance. He shook his head. But instead of anger, a small gleam of admiration lit Jake's hard eyes. Raising his gun, he aimed full at the other's breast.

"You have just two minutes to make up your mind."

"One minute!"

For a time it seemed as though he would have to shoot. But just before the time expired, Ramon spoke. "For myself, I do not care. But I have an old father and mother, whom my death would surely kill. I promise."

"All right." Jake dropped the rifle in the hollow of his arm. "I allow that I'm foolish for trusting a Mex, but the little Missy allus liked you. On her account we'll take one chance. Here's your cartridge-only don't load till you're off this range. An' remember"-a cold flash emphasized the order-"after this our boundary is your dead-line. Cross it again-you'll be shot like a panther, coyote, or other varmint."

Returning to his horse, he watched the other mount and ride away. A glance in the opposite direction showed him Lee and Gordon, going hand in hand up the opposite slope. Till they had gained across to the next valley he remained where he was. Then, riding in their rear, with a sharp eye always behind, keeping the width of a valley between them, he followed home.

XXVII: AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

Riding steadily and hard, Bull made the railroad just as the sun dipped and hung like a smoky lamp on the smoldering horizon. From a distance he had spied Benson leaning in the doorway of the box-car which served the Mexican agent for a telegraph station. The Englishman called to him across the tracks.

"There's a battle pending down the line. Troop-trains have been streaking through all day carrying Valles's reserves from Chihuahua. Don Pedro, here, says another is due to stop for water in half an hour. If we hand the comandante a few compliments, he may take us along."

"Half an hour?" Bull snorted. "That means half the night an' then some.

We'll have time for supper an' a sleep."

But for once the railroad went back on all precedents. Just as the crimson tip of the sun slid down behind a black-velvet mountain, the train came puffing in loaded with the usual picturesque rag-and-bobtail of brown soldiers, women, and children cl.u.s.tered like hiving bees on top.

"Must be yesterday's train a bit overdue," Bull defended his theory, as the cars clicked by with slowing rhythm. "The comandante'll be in the pa.s.senger-coach ahead. We'd better to mosey along an' brace him."

But their pa.s.sage was much more easily gained. A man who sat with legs dangling from the open doorway of a box-car emitted a whoop.

"Ole! Diogenes! Como le va! What of our matrimonial venture? How did it pan out?"

It was Naylor, the correspondent, Bull's friend and Cupid's aide. As his car rolled slowly up, there hove in sight placards that announced the t.i.tles of certain American papers in dignified Spanish that their oldest subscribers would never have recognized. But there was nothing foreign in the half-dozen of friendly faces that filled the doorway. From the dignified visage, with its short, gray beard and trim mustache, of their dean, down to the boyish face of a field photographer, all joined in a composite welcoming grin.

"Weekes, Mason, Martin, Roberts, c.u.mmings." The correspondent breezily ran off the names. "There were more before Santos-Coy, Valles's chief of staff, stuck us all up against a wall the last time our government clapped one of its. .h.i.t-and-miss embargoes on munitions. Valles saved us, but after that most of the fellows skipped out. So we have lots of room.

Come right up."

A part.i.tion divided the car into kitchen and living-quarters. Bunks rose in a tier of four at the end of the latter. Four more could be slept on long lockers at each side of the table which was being set for supper by the Chinese cook. From the oldest to the youngest, the correspondents were on edge for the approaching battle. At supper their talk ran on its possibilities.

"If Valles is beaten again," Weekes, the gray-haired dean, summed the conversation, "our government will throw another of its silly flip-flops and turn him down. And then-"

"-this corresponding job won't make good insurance."

"And then-" the dean began again.

"We'll hit for El Paso before Santos-Coy grabs us again."

"And then"-the dean triumphed over interruptions-"G.o.d pity the poor gringos in northern Mexico."

Bull's friend nodded. "Valles's army will scatter into bands that will rake the country with fine-tooth combs for the least bit of plunder. You had better get your girl and her fellow, Diogenes, and come out with us."

Later, when they had all climbed up on the roof and sat watching the oil-smoke from the laboring locomotive whirl and twist, then float away and lay its great sable plumes against the rich reds and golds of the evening sky, they gave expert opinion on Benson's mission.

"If Valles wins, so do you," the dean opined. "He needs horses worse than money, and, as you say, has slathers of it in the El Paso banks.

But if he loses-hit for the border at once. I saw him the other day after the first defeat, and h.e.l.l couldn't produce his equal. He was crazy; a maniac; a tiger gone stark, staring, frothing mad.

"And lose he will. How do I know?" He answered a challenge. "It's a mere problem of mathematics, the first equation of which was worked out in the battle the other day. Given two men of equal military ability, the one with a trained mind is bound to win. The other fellow, as you know, is a college man-a college man against a bandit." He turned to Bull and Benson. "It's a cinch that he'll win. If I were you, gentlemen, I'd wait the event."

Benson shook his head. "If we see Valles now and strike a bargain, we can get our cattle across the border before he's all in."

"Good enough reasoning," the dean admitted. "But-ever since the first defeat he's been in one of his towering rages. Even his own generals hardly dare go near him."

Benson shrugged; with British obstinacy he clung to his point. "It won't be the first time I've seen him in his rages. He may be dangerous-to Americans, but John Bull looks after his people and even Valles is careful of how he flies in the old fellow's face. I shall go to see him at once, and if he refuses-well"-his voice grew harsh and menacing-"he'll hear the truth about himself."

Not knowing him, the correspondents received it in silence. While they smoked Benson went on in his hard, rough voice. "I tell you, amigos, that your people have made a sad mess of this whole Mexican business.

For three years, now, you have been trying to apply the principles of your Declaration of Independence to a race which won't have evolved to a point where it has the faintest understanding of them for a thousand years to come. You stand on your Monroe doctrine, but refuse to take up its obligations and give alien nationals the protection you will not allow their own government to extend. While your statesmen prattle about the sacred right of revolution and Mexico's ability to settle her own affairs, the country is overrun with bandits and mobs of pelados who are killing off the decent people and destroying billions in property they never created.