"Well?" Janice asked faintly.

"Why, 'tisn't nothing like that. Lots of Texas towns along the Border ain't got anybody in 'em but Mexican folks, and Mexican-Spanish is the official language. Yes, _sir_!" said Marty, proud of his acquired acknowledge.

"The officers of the town are Mexs like everybody else. They're peaceable enough and law-abiding enough and they go back and forth over the river and into Mexico just as they please.

"Now, what we want to do is to pick out one of these little squash-towns along the bank of the Rio Grande, drive over to it in an automobile from the railroad, and make a d.i.c.ker with some greaser to ferry us across the river to some town on the other side."

"And then what, Marty?" asked Janice, made all but breathless by the manner in which her cousin seemed to have grasped the situation.

"Why, then we'll get another automobile, or a carriage, or something, and steer a course for this San Cristoval place. It's on a branch railroad, but the railroad ain't running, so they tell me. We can't hoof it there, for it's too far from the Border; but there must be roads of some kind and we'll find something to ride in--or----"

"Why, Marty!" gasped Janice, stopping him. "Your being here--on this very train with me--certainly _was_ an explosion. But _this_ is a greater one. Don't say any more. I can't stand any more excitement to-night," and she was more than a little in earnest although she smiled.

"Here comes the porter to make up the berths. You'll have to go. And we'll talk it over in the morning, early. And _do_ get rid of that mustache, for we'll be at Fort Hanc.o.c.k to-morrow and that is where I have about decided to leave the train."

"Sure," said the very confident Marty. "That's just the place I'd picked out myself to drop off at. All right, Janice. See you in the morning.

Er----"

"Well, what?" asked his cousin.

"Hadn't you better let me take that money of yours for safe keeping?"

"No, Marty," she said demurely. "We won't put all our eggs in one basket. You know, even _you_ might be robbed. Good-night, dear boy!"

CHAPTER XVIII

SOMETHING VERY EXCITING

Janice did not see the black-eyed woman who had been so much in her company across the continent again that night; and in the morning she found that the berth under her own had remained empty. Upon asking the porter she learned that Madam had left the train at Sweet.w.a.ter.

"And never said good-bye to me!" Janice thought with some compunctions of conscience. "Is it possible that she was offended because of those pieces of newspaper I carried in my bosom? It did look as though I doubted her honesty."

For the girl could not believe, as Marty had suggested, that the odd, foreign-talking woman had had designs upon her money.

"You never can tell about those foreigners," Marty said gruffly at breakfast time. He had managed to remove the mustache and his lip was sore.

Marty had all the narrow-minded prejudices against foreigners of the inexperienced.

"You're going to have a fine time down here among these Mexicans," his cousin told him.

"Watch 'em. That's _my_ motto," cried Marty. "And, say! ain't some o'

the greasers funny-lookin' creatures?"

At every little, hot station they pa.s.sed (for there was a startling difference in the temperature compared with the frosty nights and mornings they had left behind in Vermont) there were several of the broad-brimmed, high-crowned hats typically _Mejico_, as well as the shawl-draped figures of hatless women, and dozens of dirty, little-clothed children.

"Why! it looks like a foreign country already," Janice sighed.

But Marty was only eager. His eyes fairly snapped and he almost forgot to eat the very nice breakfast that Janice had ordered, he was so deeply interested in all that was outside the car windows.

Yet the outlook for the most part was rather dreary between stations, while the stations themselves were "as ugly as a mud fence" to quote Marty.

"But everything is new," said the boy. "I ain't missin' anything."

The conductor vised their tickets for a stop-over at Fort Hanc.o.c.k and agreed to "pull her down" for that station although it was not a stopping point for through trains.

"You'll have to go on up to El Paso on a local," he drawled; "and you'll have to mix up with greasers an' such."

"How do you know we shall want to go on to El Paso at all?" asked Janice, smiling.

"Why, ma'am, n.o.body ever stays in these river towns any longer'n they kin he'p. And outside of the soldiers stationed hereabout there's only seventy-five folks or so, in the place--only two of _them_ white."

"Oh!" Janice involuntarily gasped.

"Ol Jose Pez keeps the store and hotel. He's not such a robber as _some_; he's too lazy--and too proud, I reckon. You got folks at the post?"

"We expect to meet Lieutenant Cowan," Janice said.

The cousins were the only pa.s.sengers to leave the train, and they were quite unexpected. The natives, who _en ma.s.se_ always met the trains scheduled to stop at the station, refused to believe that the "limited"

had stopped. They preferred to believe that the appearance of the two young strangers was an hallucination; better such a mystery in their placid lives than the unexpected reality.

Several little children came to stare at Janice and Marty standing on the platform before the corrugated iron station, in which there was not even an agent. _One_ of these infants was dressed. He wore a torn hat evidently having belonged originally to someone with a much larger head than he possessed. He had to lift up its brim with both hands to peer at the strangers.

"They are _so_ dirty," murmured Janice.

"Gee!" sighed Marty, his freckled face brightening. "Ain't it immense?"

His cousin stared at him in an amazement that gradually changed to something like admiration. She suddenly realized that, if she could have chosen her escort, n.o.body would have so well suited as Marty Day under these distressing circ.u.mstances. He might not be very wise, but he was immensely enthusiastic.

He was staring now beyond the line of haphazard shacks and adobe buildings that bordered the one street, into the jungle of mesquite and cactus growing in the dry waste of sand that almost surrounded the settlement--and he could smile!

While on the train they had pa.s.sed many irrigated grapefruit orchards bordered by lordly date palms; but the tangle of mesquite and cactus was always just over the ocatilla fences. They had likewise seen a sprawling, low-roofed ranchhouse here and there from the train windows, but there was nothing like that comfort suggested here.

Most of the buildings in sight were one-room dwellings of adobe, with an open shed at the back built of four corner posts supporting a thatch roof, on which peppers were still sunning, late as was the season. Here and there between these forlorn huts grew an oleander or an umbrella chinaberry; and there were vines on some of the walls, masking their ugliness. But for the most part the village was a dreary and distressing looking collection of habitations.

Janice and Marty moved along the street of the town. There was no walk, and the roadway was deep in dust. Marty carried Janice's bag and strode along as though "monarch of all he surveyed." To tell the truth, the girl was closer to tears than she had been since leaving Polktown.

Their objective point was a large frame building, roofed with corrugated iron and with a veranda in front, at the end of the street. The sides of this more important looking building were trellised with vines. There was, too, the promise of cleanliness and coolness about the place.

Across the front they read the sign:

JOSe PEZ, MERCHANDISE

A solemn old man, burned almost black by the sun and with the skin of his face as wrinkled as an alligator's hide, rose from a comfortable chair on the porch to greet them. He wore a long white goatee and military mustache. He had an air of immense dignity.

"_Buenos dias, senorita! Buenos dias, senor!_" and he bowed politely.