A table was laid, with covered dishes on it, near the fountain. The courtyard was a clean, comfortable place. The style of living familiar to the Abreguardos was of course entirely new to Janice and her cousin.

"Luz" waited upon the guests.

Don Abreguardo came bustling into the court before they had finished the repast. Now that he was dressed, he proved to be a very dapper figure of an old gentleman, his bald poll hidden by a cap.

"This is a fine day--by goodness, yes!" he announced. "Have you attended the senorita with diligence, Luz?"

"As I would the Donna Isabella herself," declared the Indian handmaid.

"You may bring my coffee here. We will talk."

It seemed it was a coffee-making machine he desired. He was very particular about his coffee, was Don Abreguardo--liked it black and thick and drank it without sugar or cream.

While the coffee dripped he said, bowing to Janice:

"I have read the letter from my very good friend, Don Jose Pez, which you so kindly gave me last night, senorita. He tells me you have need of haste in making your way to Los Companos District?"

"It is true, sir," Janice said eagerly. "My father was wounded quite three weeks ago. So we heard. Since then we have not learned a thing about him."

"He is at one mine beyond San Cristoval?"

"The Alderdice. He has been chief man there for more than three years."

"_Si, si!_ I understand," said Senor Abreguardo. "There has been trouble in that vicinity, it is true. But it seems things always quiet down--even the worst."

After this more or less comforting a.s.surance the old man sat thinking for a minute or two with lips pursed. Now and then he took sips of his first cup of coffee.

"Were your haste not what it is, senorita," he said at length, "I would urge you to remain--you and your young _compadre_--until I might send for certain news of your father. But you are anxious in your mind--by goodness, yes!"

"Oh! indeed I am," cried Janice.

"Then we must forego the pleasure of your presence here at my poor dwelling," the senor said politely. "There is a way of going soon, I believe, to San Cristoval. Carlitos Ortez goes in his gas-car--his _tin Leezie_, he call it. You know?" and their host grinned suddenly.

"Cricky! an automobile?" gasped Marty. "Just the caper!"

"_Si, si!_" said Senor Abreguardo. "Carlitos, he swear by the _tin Leezie_. He will take you to San Cristoval if his car, it do not br-r-eak down--by goodness, yes!

"I hear," the man went on, nodding and still sipping coffee, "last evening before you arrive, senorita, Carlitos have engage to transport another traveler up country. He may take three pa.s.sengers in his car as easily as one--and you will pay him twenty American dollars apiece."

"Whew!" murmured the frugal Marty. "Couldn't we buy his flivver for that and run it ourselves?"

The senor's eyes twinkled. "He would charge you double--I a.s.sure you,"

he said. "Carlitos is no lover of _los Americanos_. But he will do as _I_ say. Besides," added the man very sensibly, "you would not know the road, and no American unattended could easily pa.s.s the bands of rovers now infesting this district."

"Sounds nice, don't it?" whispered Marty to Janice. "What say?"

"Oh, Marty! I _must_ go on," said the girl.

"Sure! All right, we take you," said Marty to Senor Abreguardo.

"You will pay Carlitos Ortez half of the money before you start--pay it into _my_ hands," explained the don. "And the end of your journey--San Cristoval, for he cannot go beyond that point--you will pay him the remainder and give him a paper a.s.suring me that he has performed his part of the contract. You are thus safeguarded, and I shall have done my duty by Don Jose's friends," concluded Senor Abreguardo, bowing over his coffee cup.

CHAPTER XXII

THE RED VEST AGAIN

Carlitos Ortez was one of those snaky-looking, black-haired peons, with a wisp of jetty mustache, who serve as the type of Mexican villains in lurid melodrama--and he had the heart of a child!

Janice might have been afraid of the quick-motioned, nervous little man had she been of a less observant nature. But she saw his eyes--deep brown, placid like a forest pool. The eyes served to make Carlitos almost handsome.

The automobile came to the archway of Senor Abreguardo's house in an hour. Janice and Marty did not meet any of the man's family. The Indian maiden, Lucita, told Janice that the ladies of the household seldom stirred from their apartments until after _siesta_.

But the don himself stood bareheaded in the sun to see them start.

Carlitos had put Janice and Marty into the back of the car.

"That other _hombre_--I peek him up later. He sit weeth me," he explained.

When they got under way with a good deal of rattle and banging, Marty, jouncing against his cousin as the car went over a stone in the road, sniffed.

"'Tin Lizzie!' He said it!" the boy growled. "This jitney's about one-candle power, isn't it? D'you s'pose there're any springs--ugh--on the contraption at all?"

"Let's not fuss," said Janice. "Think how much worse it would be if we had to ride horses--or mules. All of those I have seen have been half wild."

"Hi tunket! this flivver's wild enough, I should think," Marty declared, as the car skidded around a corner.

La Guarda was not a large town, and they were not long in getting to the edge of it. Under the shade of a low-roofed tavern a man was standing--quite a bulky man.

"There ees my other pa.s.senger," said Carlitos over his shoulder. "He of _los Americanos_, too. I theenk he go up country to buy horses. He horse trader. Sell beeg horse last night to Don Abreguardo."

Janice had seized Marty's hand and squeezed it hard. She was not listening to Carlitos, but staring at the man on the veranda of the tavern.

He wore one of the high-crowned, wide-brimmed hats of the country; but he was not otherwise dressed like the Mexicans. His waistcoat made a vivid splotch of color as he stood in the shade.

"Cricky!" gasped Marty. "Tom Hotchkiss! red vest, an' all!"

"Oh, it _is_, Marty!" agreed his cousin.

"And we can't do a thing to him!" groaned the boy. "He's gettin' farther away from the Border; afraid of being nabbed, I s'pose."

"I hope he will not recognize us."

"We'll be dummies. Keep that veil thing over your face, Janice, then he won't know you from one of these greaser girls. An' he'll take me for a Mexican, too."

"Thank you!" murmured Janice tartly, and Marty grinned teasingly.

There was no time for further planning. The automobile halted, panting, at the tavern and the man wearing the red vest came out with his bag.