The Desert Trail

"Then he stole it from me!" flashed back Gracia as she gazed at the specimen. "Oh, have you thought all the time that I betrayed Phil? But didn't I tell you – didn't I tell you at the hotel, when you promised to be my friend? Ah, I see that you are a hard man, Mr. Hooker – quick to suspect, slow to forget – and yet I told you before! But listen, and I will tell you again. I remember well when dear Phil showed me this rock – he was so happy because he had found the gold. And just to make it lucky he let me hold it while we were talking through a hole in the wall. Then my father saw me and started to come near – I could not hand it back without betraying Phil – and in the night, when I was asleep, some one took it from under my pillow. That is the truth, and I will ask you to believe me; and if you have other things against me you must say what they are and see if I cannot explain.

"No!" she ran on, her voice vibrant with the memory of past quarrels. "I have nothing to do with my father! He does not love me, but tries to make me marry first one man and then another. But I am an American girl now, at heart – I do not want to sell myself; I want to marry for love! Can you understand that? Yes? No? Then why do you look away? Have you something that you hold against me? Ah, you shake your head – but you will not speak to me! When I was at school in Los Angeles I saw the cowboys in the West show, and they were different – they were not afraid of any danger, but they would talk, too. I have always wanted to know you, but you will not let me – I thought you were brave – like those cowboys."

She paused to make him speak, but Hooker was tongue-tied. There was something about the way she talked that pulled him over, that made him want to do what she said, and yet some secret, hidden voice was always crying: "Beware!" He was convinced now that she had never been a party to treachery; no, nor even wished him ill.

She was very beautiful, too, in the twilight, and when she drew nearer he moved away, for he was afraid she would sway him from his purpose. But now she was waiting for some answer – some word from him, though the question had never been asked. And yet he knew what it was.

She wanted him to steal away with her in the evening and ride for the border – and Phil. That was what she always wanted, no matter what she said, and now she was calling him a coward.

"Sure them bronco-riders are brave," he said in vague defense; "but there's a difference between being brave and foolish. And a man might be brave for himself and yet be afraid for other people."

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"Well," he said, "I might be willing to go out and fight a thousand of them insurrectos with one hand, and at the same time be afraid to take you along. Or I might – "

"Oh, then you will go, won't you?" she cried, clasping him by the hand. "You will, won't you? I'm not afraid!"

"No," answered Bud, drawing his hand away, "that's just what I won't do! And I'll tell you why. That country up there is full of rebels – the lowest kind there are. It just takes one shot to lay me out or cripple one of our horses. Then I'd have to make a fight for it – but what would happen to you?"

"I'd fight, too!" spoke up Gracia resolutely. "I'm not afraid."

"No," grumbled Bud, "you don't know them rebels. You've been shut up in a house all the time – if you'd been through what I have in the last six months you'd understand what I mean."

"If Phil were here, he'd take me!" countered Gracia, and then Bud lost his head.

"Yes," he burst out, "that's jest what's the matter with the crazy fool! That's jest why he's up across the line now a hollering for me to save his girl! He's brave, is he? Well, why don't he come down, then, and save you himself? Because he's afraid to! He's afraid of getting shot or going up against Manuel del Rey. By grab! it makes me tired the way you people talk! If he'd done what I told him to in the first place he wouldn't have got into this jack-pot!"

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Gracia, aghast. "Why, what is the matter with you? And what did you tell him to do?"

"I told him to mind his own business," answered Hooker bluntly.

"And what did he say?"

"He said he'd try anything – once!"

Bud spat out the phrase vindictively, for his blood was up and his heart was full of bitterness.

"Oh, dear!" faltered Gracia. "And so you do not think that Phil is brave?"

"He's brave to start things," sneered Bud, "but not to carry 'em through!"

For a moment Gracia huddled up against a pillar, her hand against her face, as if to ward off a blow. Then she lowered it slowly and moved reluctantly away.

"I must go now," she said, and Bud did not offer to stay her, for he saw what his unkindness had done.

"I am sorry!" she added pitifully, but he did not answer. There was nothing that he could say now.

In a moment of resentment, driven to exasperation by her taunts, he had forgotten his pledge to his pardner and come between him and his girl. That which he thought wild horses could not draw from him had flashed out in a fit of anger – and the damage was beyond amendment, for what he had said was the truth.

XXIII

There are two things, according to the saying, which cannot be recalled – the sped arrow and the spoken word. Whether spoken in anger or in jest our winged thoughts will not come back to us and, where there is no balm for the wound we have caused, there is nothing to do but let it heal.

Bud Hooker was a man of few words, and slow to speak ill of any one, but some unfamiliar devil had loosened his tongue and he had told the worst about Phil. Certainly if a man were the bravest of the brave, certainly if he loved his girl more than life itself – he would not be content to hide above the line and pour out his soul on note-paper. But to tell it to the girl – that was an unpardonable sin!

Still, now that the damage was done, there was no use of vain repining, and after cursing himself whole-heartedly Bud turned in for the night. Other days were coming; there were favors he might do; and perhaps, as the yesterdays went by, Gracia would forgive him for his plain speaking. Even to-morrow, if the rebels came back for more, he might square himself in action and prove that he was not a coward. A coward!

It had been a long time since any one had used that word to him, but after the way he had knifed "dear Phil" he had to admit he was it. But "dear Phil"! It was that which had set him off.

If she knew how many other girls – but Bud put a sudden quietus on that particular line of thought. As long as the world stood and Gracia was in his sight he swore never to speak ill of De Lancey again, and then he went to sleep.

The men who guarded the casa grande slept uneasily on the porch, lying down like dogs on empty sugar-sacks that the women might not lack bedding inside. Even at that they were better off, for the house was close and feverish, with the crying of babies and the babbling of dreamers, and mothers moving to and fro.

It was a hectic night, but Bud slept it out, and at dawn, after the custom of his kind, he arose and stamped on his boots. The moist coolness of the morning brought the odor of wet greasewood and tropic blossoms to his nostrils as he stepped out to speak with the guards, and as he stood there waiting for the full daylight the master mechanic joined him.

He was a full-bodied, round-headed little man with determined views on life, and he began the day, as usual, with his private opinion of Mexicans. They were the same uncomplimentary remarks to which he had given voice on the day before, for the rebels had captured one of his engines and he knew it would come to some harm.

"A fine bunch of hombres, yes," he ended, "and may the devil fly away with them! They took No. 9 at the summit yesterday and I've been listening ever since. Her pans are all burned out and we've been feeding her bran like a cow to keep her from leaking steam. If some ignorant Mex gets hold of her you'll hear a big noise – and that'll be the last of No. 9 – her boiler will burst like a wet bag.

"If I was running this road there'd be no more bran – not since what I saw over at Aguas Calientes on the Central. One of those bum, renegade engine-drivers had burned out No. 743, but the rebels had ditched four of our best and we had to send her out. Day after day the boys had been feeding her bran until she smelled like a distillery. The mash was oozing out of her as Ben Tyrrell pulled up to the station, and a friend of his that had come down from the north took one sniff and swung up into the cab.

"Ben came down at the word he whispered – for they'd two of 'em blowed up in the north – and they sent out another man. Hadn't got up the hill when the engine exploded and blew the poor devil to hell! I asked Tyrrell what his friend had told him, but he kept it to himself until he could get his time. It's the fumes, boy – they blow up like brandy – and old No. 9 is sour!

"She'll likely blow up, too. But how can we fix her with these ignorant Mexican mechanics? You should have been over at Aguas the day they fired the Americans.

"'No more Americanos!' says Madero. 'Let 'em all out and hire Mexicans! The national railroads of Mexico must not be in the hands of foreigners.'

"So they fired us all in a day and put a Mexican wood-passer up in the cab of old No. 313. He started to pull a string of empties down the track, threw on the air by mistake, and stopped her on a dead-center. Pulled out the throttle and she wouldn't go, so he gave it up and quit.

"Called in the master mechanic then – a Mexican. He tinkered with her for an hour, right there on the track, until she went dead on their hands. Then they ran down a switch-engine and took back the cars and called on the roadmaster – a Mex. He cracked the nut – built a shoo-fly around No. 313 and they left her right there on the main track. Two days later an American hobo came by and he set down and laughed at 'em. Then he throws off the brakes, gives No. 313 a boost past the center with a crowbar, and runs her to the roundhouse by gravity. When we left Aguas on a hand-car that hobo was running the road.

"Ignorantest hombres in the world – these Mexicans. Shooting a gun or running an engine, it's all the same – they've got nothing above the eyebrows."

"That's right," agreed Bud, who had been craning his neck; "but what's that noise up the track?"

The master mechanic listened, and when his ears, dulled by the clangor of the shops, caught the distant roar he turned and ran for the house.

"Git up, Ed!" he called to the roadmaster. "They're sending a wild car down the cañon – and she may be loaded with dynamite!"

"Dynamite or not," mumbled the grizzled roadmaster, as he roused up from his couch, "there's a derailer I put in up at kilometer seventy the first thing yesterday morning. That'll send her into the ditch!"

Nevertheless he listened intently, cocking his head to guess by the sound when it came to kilometer seventy.

"Now she strikes it!" he announced, as the rumble turned into a roar; but the roar grew louder, there was a clash as the trucks struck a curve, and then a great metal ore-car swung round the point, rode up high as it hit the reverse and, speeding by as if shot from a catapult, swept through the yard, smashed into a freight-car, and leaped, car and all, into the creek.

"They've sneaked my derailer!" said the roadmaster, starting on a run for the shops. "Who'll go with me to put in another one? Or we'll loosen a rail on the curve – that'll call for no more than a claw-bar and a wrench!"

"I'll go!" volunteered Bud and the man who stood guard, and as startled sleepers roused up on every side and ran toward the scene of the wreck they dashed down the hill together and threw a hand-car on the track.

Then, with what tools they could get together, and a spare derailer on the front, they pumped madly up the cañon, holding their breaths at every curve for fear of what they might see. If there was one runaway car there was another, for the rebels were beginning an attack.

Already on the ridges above them they could hear the crack of rifles, and a jet or two of dust made it evident that they were the mark. But with three strong men at the handles they made the hand-car jump. The low hills fled behind them. They rounded a point and the open track lay before them, with something —

"Jump!" shouted the roadmaster, and as they tumbled down the bank they heard a crash behind them and their hand-car was knocked into kindling-wood.

"Now up to the track!" the roadmaster panted, as the destroyer swept on down the line. "Find some tools – we'll take out a rail!"

With frantic eagerness he toiled up the fill and attacked a fish-plate, and Bud and the young guard searched the hillside for tools to help with the work. They fell to with sledge and claw-bar, tapping off nuts, jerking out spikes, and heaving to loosen the rail – and then once more that swift-moving something loomed up suddenly on the track.

"Up the hill!" commanded the roadmaster, and as they scrambled into a gulch a wild locomotive, belching smoke and steam like a fire-engine, went rushing past them, struck the loose rail, and leaped into the creek-bed. A moment later, as it crashed its way down to the water, there was an explosion that shook the hills. They crouched behind the cut bank, and the trees above them bowed suddenly to the slash of an iron hail.

"Dynamite!" cried the roadmaster, grinning triumphantly as he looked up after the shock; and when the fall of fragments had ceased, and they had fled as if by instinct from the place, they struck hands on their narrow escape. But back at the big house, with everybody giving thanks for their delivery from the powder-train, the master mechanic raised a single voice of protest.

"'Twas not dynamite!" he yelled. "Powder-train be damned! It was No. 9! She was sour as a distillery! She blowed up, I tell ye – she blowed up when she hit the creek!"

And even after a shower of bullets from the ridge had driven them all to cover he still rushed to those who would listen and clamored that it was the bran.

But there was scant time to hold a post-mortem on No. 9, for on the summit of a near-by ridge, and overlooking the black tank, the rebels had thrown up a wall in the night, and from the security of this shelter they were industriously shooting up the town.

The smash of the first wild car had been their signal for attack, and as the explosion threw the defenders into confusion they made a rush to take the tank. Here, as on the day before, was stationed the Federal garrison, a scant twenty or thirty men in charge of a boy lieutenant.

Being practically out of ammunition, he did not stand on the order of his going, but as his pelónes pelted past the superintendent's house the reorganized miners, their belts stuffed with cartridges from their own private stock, came charging up from the town and rallied them in the rear.

In a solid, shouting mass they swept up the hill together, dropped down behind the defenses, and checked the astounded rebels with a volley. Then there was another long-range battle, with every sign of war but the dead, until at last, as the firing slackened from lack of cartridges, a white flag showed on the ridge above, and the leaders went out for a parley.

Properly speaking, Del Rey was in command of the town, but neither the Federals nor the miners would recognize his authority and the leadership went by default. While they waited to hear the rebel demands the Americans took advantage of the truce to bring up hot food from the hotel, where Don Juan de Dios stood heroically at his post. Let bullets come and go, Don Juan kept his cooks about him, and to those who had doubted his valor his coffee was answer enough.

"W'y, my gracious, Mr. Hooker!" he railed, as Bud refreshed himself between trips, "ain't you going to take any up to those women? Don't drink so much coffee now, but give it to the men who fight!"

"Ump-um," grunted Bud with a grin; "they got a skinful of mescal already! What they need is another car-load of ammunition to help 'em shoot their first rebel."

"I thought you said they wouldn't fight!" twitted Don Juan. "This is the battle of Fortuna that I was telling you about last week."

"Sure!" answered Bud. "And over there is the dead!"

He pointed to a riot of mescal bottles that marked the scene of the night's potations, and Don Juan gave him up as hopeless.

But, jest as he would, Bud saw that the situation was serious, for the foolhardy Sonorans had already emptied their cartridge-belts, and their guns were no better than clubs. Unless the rebels had been equally reckless with their ammunition they had the town at their mercy, and the first thing that they would demand would be the refugees in the big house.

The possession of the town; the arms of the defenders; food, clothing, and horses to ride – none of these would satisfy them. They would demand the rich Spanish landowners to be held for ransom, the women first of all. And of all those women huddled up in the casa grande not one would bring a bigger ransom than Gracia Aragon.

Bud pondered the outcome as the emissaries wrangled on the hillside, and then he went back to the corral to make sure that his horse was safe. Copper Bottom, too, might be held for ransom. But, knowing the rebels as he did, Hooker foresaw a different fate, and rather than see him become the mount of some rebel chieftain he had determined, if the town surrendered, to make a dash.

Riding by night and hiding in the hills by day, he could get to the border in two days. All he needed was a little jerked beef for the trip and he would be ready for anything.

So he hurried down to the hotel again and was just making a sack of food fast to his saddle when he heard a noise behind him and turned to face Aragon. For two days the once-haughty Don Cipriano had slunk about like a sick cat, but now he was headed for Gracia's big roan, and the look in his eyes betrayed his purpose.

"Where you going?" demanded Hooker in English, and at the gruff challenge the Spaniard stopped in his tracks. The old, hunted look came back into his eyes, he seemed to shrink before the stern gaze of the Texan, and, as the memory of his past misdeeds came over him, he turned as if to flee.

But there was a smile, an amused and tolerant smirk, about the American's mouth, and even for that look of understanding the harried haciendado seemed to thank him. He was broken now, thrown down from his pedestal of arrogance and conceit, and as Hooker did not offer to shoot him at sight he turned back to him like a lost dog that seeks but a kind word.

"Ah, señor," he whined, "your pardon! What?" as he sighted the sack of meat. "You are going, too? Ah, my friend" – his eyes lighted up suddenly at the thought – "let me ride with you! I will pay you – yes, anything – but if Bernardo Bravo takes me he will hang me! He has sworn it!"

"Well, you got it coming to you!" answered Hooker heartlessly.

"But I will pay you well!" pleaded Aragon. "I will pay you – " He paused as if to consider what would tempt him and then suddenly he raised his head.

"What is it you wish above everything?" he questioned eagerly. "Your title to the mine – no? Bien! Take me to the line – protect me from my enemies – and the papers are yours!"

"Have you got them with you?" inquired Hooker with businesslike directness.

"No, but I can get them!" cried Aragon, forgetful of everything but his desire to escape. "I can get them while you saddle my horse!"

"Where?" demanded Hooker craftily.

"From the agente mineral!" answered Aragon. "I have a great deal of influence with him, and – "

"Bastante!" exploded Bud in a voice which made Aragon jump. "Enough! If you can get them, I can! And we shall see, Señor Aragon, whether this pistol of mine will not give me some influence, too!"

"Then you will take them?" faltered Aragon as Hooker started to go. "You will take them and leave me for Bernardo Bravo to – "

"Listen, señor!" exclaimed Hooker, halting and advancing a threatening forefinger. "A man who can hire four men to do his dirty work needs no protection from me. You understand that – no? Then listen again. I am going to get those papers. If I hear a word from you I will send you to join your four men."

He touched his gun as he spoke and strode out into the open, where he beckoned the mineral agent from the crowd. A word in his ear and they went down the hill together, while Don Cipriano watched from above. Then, as they turned into the office, Aragon spat out a curse and went to seek Manuel del Rey.

XXIV

In a land of class privilege and official graft it is often only in times of anarchy that a poor man can get his rights. For eight months Hooker had battled against the petty intrigue of Aragon and the agente mineral, and then suddenly, when the times turned to war and fear gripped at their hearts, he rose up and claimed his own, holding out his brawny right hand and demanding the concession to his mine.

In a day the whirligig of fortune had turned, and it was the fighting man who dominated. He spoke quietly and made no threats, but the look in his eye was enough, and the agente gave him his papers.

With his concession inside his shirt and a belt of gold around his waist Bud stepped forth like a king, for there was nothing left in Mexico for him. Once on his horse and headed for the line and he could laugh at them all. In Gadsden he could show title to Kruger, he could give answer for his trust and look the world in the eye.

Yes, he was a man now – but his work was not quite done. Up at the big house, with the screeching women around her, was Gracia Aragon, and he owed her something for his rough words. To pay her for that he would stay. Whatever she asked now he would grant it; and if worst came to worst he would take her with him and make good his promise to Phil. He had given his word and that was enough. Now he had only to wait.

The boy lieutenant, the brothers Mendoza, the superintendent, and Manuel del Rey, all were out on the hillside talking terms with Bernardo Bravo and his chiefs. With the rebels it was largely a bluff, since field-glasses had shown them to be short of cartridges; but they had over a thousand men massed along the ridges and, with courage, could easily take the town.

As for the Mendozas and their Sonoran miners, they were properly chagrined at their waste of ammunition and swore by Santa Guadalupe to fight it out with hand-grenades. Even as their leaders wrangled the Mexican powder-men were busily manufacturing bombs, and all the while the superintendent was glancing to the south, for swift couriers had been sent to Alvarez, the doughty Spanish haciendado of the hot country, to beg him to come to their relief.

Twice before Alvarez had met the rebels. The first time he spoke them well and they ran off all his horses. The second time he armed his Yaquis and Yaqui Mayo rancheros against them and drove them from his domain, inflicting a sanguinary punishment.

Since then he had been itching to engage them in a pitched battle, and when the word reached him he would come. Two hundred and forty Yaquis, all armed with repeating rifles, would follow at his back, and even with his boasted thousands Bernardo Bravo could hardly withstand their valor. So, while the rebels parleyed, demanding a ransom of millions and threatening to destroy the town, the defenders argued and reasoned with them, hoping to kill the time until Alvarez should arrive.

In the open space in front of the house the refugees gathered in an anxious group, waiting for messengers from the front, and as Hooker walked among them he was aware of the malignant glances of Aragon. There were other glances as well, for he had won great favor with the ladies by ditching the powder-train, but none from Gracia or her mother.

From the beginning the Señora Aragon had treated him as a stranger, according to the code of her class, and Hooker had never attempted to intrude. But if Gracia still remembered that she was an American girl at heart, she forgot to show it to him. To all she was now the proud Spanish lady, thrown with the common people by the stress of circumstances, but far away from them in her thoughts.