The Desert Trail

"Well, say," urged Phil, "let's go ahead with our denouncement before he starts something. Besides, the warm weather is coming on now, and if we don't get a move on we're likely to get run out by the revoltosos."

"Nope," said Bud; "I don't put this into Mendez's hands until I know he's our man – and if I ever do go ahead I'll keep him under my six-shooter until the last paper is signed, believe me. I know we're in bad somewhere, but hurrying up won't help none.

"Now I tell you what we'll do – you go to the mining agent and get copies of all our papers and send them up to that Gadsden lawyer. I'm going to go down and board with Mendez and see if I can read his heart."

So they separated, and while Phil stayed in town to look over the records Bud ate his beans and tortillas with the Mendez family.

They were a happy little family, comfortably installed in the stone house that Mendez had built, and rapidly getting fat on three full meals a day. From his tent farther up the cañon Bud could look down and watch the children at play and see the comely Indian wife as she cooked by the open fire.

Certainly no one could be more innocent and contented than she was, and El Tuerto was all bows and protestations of gratitude. And yet, you never can tell.

Bud had moved out of the new house to furnish quarters for El Tuerto and had favored him in every way; but this same consideration might easily be misinterpreted, for the Mexicans are slow to understand kindness.

So, while on the one hand he had treated them generously, he had always kept his distance, lest they be tempted to presume. But now, with Phil in town for a few days, he took his meals with Maria, who was too awed to say a word, and made friends with the dogs and the children.

The way to the dog's heart was easy, almost direct, and he finally won the attention of little Pancho and Josefa with a well-worn Sunday supplement. This gaudy institution, with its spicy stories and startling illustrations, had penetrated even to the wilds of Sonora, and every Sunday as regularly as the paper came Bud sat down and had his laugh over the funny page.

But to Pancho, who was six years old and curious, this same highly colored sheet was a mystery of mysteries, and when he saw the big American laughing he crept up and looked at it wistfully.

"Mira," said Bud, laying his finger upon the smirking visage of one of the comic characters, "look, and I will tell you the story."

And so, with laborious care, he translated the colored fun, while the little Mendezes squirmed with excitement and leaped with joy. Even the simple souls of El Tuerto and Maria were moved the by comicas, and Mendez became so interested that he learned the words by heart, the better to explain them to others.

But as for Mexican treachery, Bud could find none of it. In fact, finding them so simple-hearted and good-natured, he became half ashamed of his early suspicions and waited for the return of Phil to explain Don Cipriano's complacency.

But the next Sunday, as Bud lay reading in his tent, the mystery solved itself. Cruz Mendez came up from the house, hat in hand and an apologetic smile on his face, and after the customary roundabout remarks he asked the boss as a favor if he would lend him the page of comic pictures.

"Seguro!" assented Bud, rolling over and fumbling for the funny sheet; then, failing to find it instantly, he inquired: "What do you want it for?"

"Ah, to show to my boy!" explained El Tuerto, his one eye lighting up with pride.

"Who – Pancho?"

"Ah, no, señor," answered Mendez simply, "my boy in La Fortuna, the one you have not seen."

Bud stopped fumbling for the paper and sat up suddenly. Here was a new light on their faithful servitor, and one that might easily take away from his value as a dummy locator.

"Oh!" he said, and then: "How many children have you, Cruz?"

Cruz smiled deprecatingly, as parents will, and turned away.

"By which woman?" he inquired, and Bud became suddenly very calm, fearing the worst. For if Cruz was not legally married to Maria, he could not transfer the mining claim.

"By all of them," he said quietly.

"Five in all," returned Cruz – "three by Maria, as you know – two by my first woman – and one other. I do not count him."

"Well, you one-eyed old reprobate!" muttered Bud in his throat, but he passed it off and returned smiling to the charge.

"Where does your boy live now?" he asked with flattering solicitude, the better to make him talk, "and is he old enough to understand the pictures?"

"Ah, yes!" beamed Mendez, "he is twelve years old. He lives with his mother now – and my little daughter, too. Their mama is the woman of the mayordomo of the Señor Aragon – a bad man, very ugly – she is not married to him."

"But with you – " suggested Bud, regarding him with a steely stare.

"Only by the judge!" explained Mendez virtuously. "It was a love-match and the priest did not come – so we were married by the judge. Then this bad mayordomo stole her away from me – the pig – and I married Maria instead. Maria is a good woman and I married her before the priest – but I love my other children too, even though they are not lawful."

"So you married your first wife before the judge," observed Bud cynically, "and this one before the priest. But how could you do that, unless you had been divorced?"

"Ah, señor," protested Mendez, holding out his hands, "you do not understand. It is only the church that can really marry – the judge does it only for the money. Maria is my true wife – and we have three nice children – but as I am going through La Fortuna I should like to show the picture paper to my boy."

Bud regarded him in meditative silence, then he rose up and began a determined search for the funny sheet.

"All right," he said, handing it over, "and here is a panoche of sugar for your little girl – the one in La Fortuna. It is nothing," he added, as Mendez began his thanks.

"But oh, you marrying Mexican," he continued, relapsing into his mother tongue as El Tuerto disappeared; "you certainly have dished us right!"

IX

Not the least of the causes which have brought Mexico to the brink of the abyss is the endless quarrel between church and state, which has almost destroyed the sanctity of marriage and left, besides, a pitiful heritage of deserted women and fatherless children as its toll.

Many an honest laborer has peoned himself to pay the priest for his marriage, only to be told that it is not legal in the eyes of the law; and many another, married by the judge, has been gravely informed by the padre that the woman is only his mistress, and the children born out of wedlock.

So that now, to be sure that she is wedded, a woman must be married twice, and many a couple, on account of the prohibitive fees, are never married at all.

Cruz Mendez was no different from the men of his class, and he believed honestly that he was married to the comely Maria; but Hooker could have enlightened him on that point if he had cared to do it.

Bud was playing a game, with the Eagle Tail mine for a stake; and, being experienced at poker, he stood pat and studied his hand. Without doubt Mendez had lost his usefulness as a locator of the mine, since Maria was not his legal wife and could not sign the transfer papers as such. According to the law of the land, the woman now living with Aragon's mayordomo was the "legitimate" wife of the contract, and she alone could release the title to the mine once Mendez denounced the claim.

But Mendez had not yet denounced the claim – though for a period of some thirty days yet he had the exclusive privilege of doing so – and Bud did not intend that he should.

Meanwhile they must walk softly, leaving Aragon still to hug the delusion that he would soon, through his mayordomo, have them in his power – and when the full sixty days of Cruz Mendez's mining permit had expired they could locate the mine again.

But how – and through whom? That was the question that Bud was studying upon when Phil rode up the trail, and in his abstraction he barely returned his gay greeting.

"Well, cheer up, old top!" cried De Lancey, throwing his bridle-reins to the ground and striding up to the tent. "What ho, let down the portcullis, me lord seneschal! And cease your vain repining, Algernon – our papers are all O.K. and the lawyer says to go ahead. But that isn't half the news! Say, we had a dance up at the hotel last night and I met – "

"Yes – sure you did," broke in Bud; "but listen to this!" And he told him of El Tuerto's matrimonial entanglements.

"Why, the crooked devil!" exclaimed De Lancey, leaping up at the finish. "Oyez! Mendez!"

"Don't say a word," warned Bud, springing to the tent door to intercept him, "or you'll put us out of business! It is nothing," he continued in Spanish as Mendez came out of his house, "but put Don Felipe's horse in the corral when he is cool."

"Sí, señor– with great pleasure!" smirked Mendez, running to get the horse, and after he had departed Bud turned back and shook his head.

"We can't afford to quarrel with Mr. Mendez," he said; "because if Aragon ever gets hold of him we're ditched. Jest let everything run on like we'd overlooked something until the sixty days are up – then, if we get away with it, we'll locate the mine ourselves."

"Yes; but how?"

"Well, the's two ways," returned Bud; "either hunt up another Mexican citizen or turn Mexican ourselves."

"Turn Mexican!" shrilled Phil, and then he broke down and laughed. "Well, you're a great one, Bud," he chortled; "you sure are!"

"I come down here to get this mine," said Bud laconically.

"Yes, but you're a Texan – or was one!"

"That makes no difference," answered Bud stoutly. "The hot weather is coming on – revolution is likely to begin any time – and there ain't a single Mexican we can trust. Jest one more break now and we lose out – now how about it?"

"Who's going to turn Mexican," questioned De Lancey, "you or me?"

"Well —I will, then!"

"No, you won't, either!" cried Phil, forgetting his canny shrewdness. "I'll do it myself! I'm half Mexican already, I've been eating chili so long!"

"Now here," began Bud, "listen to me. I've been thinking this over all day and you jest heard about it. The man that turns Mexican is likely to get mixed up with the authorities and have to skip the country, but the other feller is in the other way – he's got to stay with the works till hell freezes over.

"Now you're an engineer and you know how to open up a mine – I don't. So, if you say so, I'll take out the papers and you hold the mine – or if you want to you can turn Mex."

"Well," said De Lancey, his voice suddenly becoming soft and pensive, "I might as well tell you, Bud, that I'm thinking of settling in this country, anyway. Of course, I don't look at Aragon the way you do – I think you are prejudiced and misjudge him – but ever since I've known Gracia I've – "

"Gracia!" repeated Bud; and then, stirred by some great and unreasoning anger, he rose up and threw down his hat pettishly. "I'd think, Phil," he muttered, "you'd be satisfied with all the other girls in the world without – "

"Now here!" shouted Phil, rising as unreasoningly to his feet, "don't you say another word against that girl, or I'll – "

"Shut your mouth, you little shrimp!" bellowed Bud, wheeling upon him menacingly. "You seem to think you're the only man in the world that – "

"Oh, slush, Bud!" cried Phil in disgust. "You don't mean to tell me you're in love with Gracia too!"

"Who – me?" demanded Hooker, his face suddenly becoming fixed and mask-like; and then he laughed hoarsely in derision and sank down on the bed.

Certainly, of the two of them, he was the more surprised at his sudden outbreak of passion; and yet when the words were spoken he was quick to know that they were true.

Undoubtedly, in his own way, he was in love – but he would never admit it, that he knew, too. So he sank down on the blankets and swore harshly, while De Lancey stared at him in unfeigned surprise.

"Well, then," he went on, taking Bud's answer for granted, "what're you making such a row about? Can't I go to a dance with a girl without you jumping down my throat?"

"W'y, sure you can!" rumbled Bud, now hot with a new indignation. "But after getting me to go into this deal against my will and swearing me to some damn-fool pledge, the first thing you do is to make friends with Aragon and then make love to his daughter. Is that your idea of helping things along? D'ye think that's the way a pardner ought to act? No, I tell you, it is not!"

"Aw, Bud," protested De Lancey plaintively, "what's the matter with you? Be reasonable, old man; I never meant to hurt your feelings!"

"Hurt my feelings!" echoed Hooker scornfully. "Huh, what are we down here for, anyway – a Sunday-school picnic? My feelings are nothing, and they can wait; but we're sitting on a mine that's worth a million dollars mebbe – and it ain't ours, either – and when you throw in with old Aragon and go to making love to his daughter you know you're not doing right! That's all there is to it – you're doing me and Kruger dirt!"

"Well, Bud," said De Lancey with mock gravity, "if that's the way you feel about it I won't do it any more!"

"I wish you wouldn't," breathed Bud, raising his head from his hands; "it sure wears me out, Phil, worrying about it."

"Well, then, I won't do it," protested Phil sincerely. "So that's settled – now who's going to turn Mexican citizen?"

"Suit yourself," said Bud listlessly.

"I'll match you for it!" proposed De Lancey, diving into his pocket for money.

"Don't need to," responded Bud; "you can do what you please."

"No; I'll match you!" persisted Phil. "That was the agreement – whenever it was an even break we'd let the money talk. Here's your quarter – and if I match you I'll become the Mexican citizen. All set? Let 'er go!"

He flipped the coin into the air and caught it in his hand.

"Heads!" he called, without looking at it. "What you got?"

"Heads!" answered Bud, and Phil chucked his money into the air again and laughed as it dropped into his palm.

"Heads she is again!" he cried, showing the Mexican eagle. "I never did see the time when I couldn't match you, anyway. So now, old socks, you can keep right on being a Texan and hating Mexicans like horny toads, and I'll denounce the Eagle Tail the minute the time is up. And I won't go near the Aragon outfit unless you're with me – is that a go? All right, shake hands on it, pard! I wouldn't quarrel with you for anything!"

"Aw, that's all right," mumbled Bud, rising and holding out his hand. "I knowed you didn't mean nothing." He sat down again after that and gazed drearily out the door.

"Say, Bud," began Phil, his eyes sparkling with amusement, "I've got something to tell you about that dance last night. If I didn't put the crusher on Mr. Feliz Luna and Manuel del Rey! Wow! I sure wished you were there to see me do it.

"This Feliz Luna is the son of an old sugar-planter down in the hot country somewhere. He got run out by the revoltosos and now he's up here trying to make a winning with Gracia Aragon – uniting two noble families, and all that junk. Well, sir, of all the conceited, swelled-up little squirts you ever saw in your life he's the limit, and yet the old man kind of favors him.

"But this Manuel del Rey is the captain of the rurales around here and a genuine Mexican fire-eater – all buckskin and fierce mustachios, and smells like chili peppers and garlic – and the two of 'em were having it back and forth as to who got the next dance with Gracia.

"Well, you know how it is at a Mexican dance – everybody is supposed to be introduced to everybody else – and when I saw those two young turkey-cocks talking with their hands and eyebrows and everybody else backing off, I stepped in close and looked at the girl.

"And she's some girl, too, believe me! The biggest brown eyes you ever saw in your life, a complexion like cream, and hair – well, there never was such hair! She was fanning herself real slow, and in the language of the fan that means: 'This don't interest me a bit!' So, just to show her I was wise, I pulled out my handkerchief and dropped it on the floor, and when she saw me she stopped and began to count the ribs in her fan. That was my cue – it meant she wanted to speak with me – so I stepped up and said:

"'Excuse me, señorita, but while the gentlemen talk – and if the señora, your mother, will permit – perhaps we can enjoy a dance?'

"And say, Bud, you should have seen the way she rose to it. That girl is a sport, believe me, and the idea of those two novios chewing the rag while she sat out the dance didn't appeal to her at all. So she gave me her hand and away we went, with all the old ladies talking behind their fans and Manuel del Rey blowing up like a volcano in a bunch of carambas or worse. Gee, it was great, and she could dance like a queen.

"But here's the interesting part of it – what do you think she asked me, after we'd had our little laugh? Well, you don't need to get so grouchy about it – she asked about you!"

"Aw!"

"Yes, she did! So you see what you get for throwing her down!"

"What did she ask?"

"Well, she asked – " here he stopped and laughed – "she asked if you were a cowboy!"

"No!" cried Bud, pleased in spite of himself. "What does she know about cowboys?"

"Oh, she's wise!" declared Phil. "She's been to school twice in Los Angeles and seen the wild West show. Yes, sir, she's just like an American girl and speaks English perfectly. She told me she didn't like the Mexican men – they were too stuck on themselves – and say, Bud, when I told her you were a genuine Texas cowboy, what do you think she said?"

"W'y, I don't know," answered Bud, smiling broadly in anticipation; "what did she say?"

"She said she'd like to know you!"

"She did not!" came back Bud with sudden spirit.

Though he laughed the thought away, a great burden seemed to be lifted from his heart, and he found himself happy again.

X

To an American, accustomed to getting things done first and talking about it afterward, there is nothing so subtly irritating as the Old World formalism, the polite evasiveness of the Mexicans; and yet, at times, they can speak to the point with the best of us.

For sixty days Don Cipriano Aragon had smiled and smiled and then, suddenly, as the last day of their mining permit passed by and there was no record of a denouncement by Cruz Mendez, he appeared at the Eagle Tail mine with a pistol in his belt and a triumphant sneer on his lips.

Behind him rode four Mexicans, fully armed, and they made no reply to De Lancey's polite "Buenos días!"

"Take your poor things," burst out Aragon, pointing contemptuously at their tent and beds, "and your low, pelado Mexican – and go! This mine no longer stands in the name of Cruz Mendez, and I want it for myself! No, not a word!" he cried, as De Lancey opened his mouth to explain. "Nothing! Only go!"

"No, señor," said Hooker, dropping his hand to his six-shooter which hung low by his leg and stepping forward, "we will not go!"

"What?" stormed Aragon. "You – "

"Be careful there!" warned Bud, suddenly fixing his eyes on one of the four retainers. "If you touch that gun I'll kill you!"

There was a pause, in which the Mexicans sat frozen to their saddles, and then De Lancey broke the silence.

"You must not think, Señor Aragon," he began, speaking with a certain bitterness, "that you can carry your point like this. My friend here is a Texan, and if your men stir he will kill them. But there is a law in this country for every man – what is it that you want?"

"I want this mining claim," shouted Aragon, "that you have so unjustly taken from me through that scoundrel Mendez! And I want you to step aside, so that I can set up my monuments and take possession of it."

"The Señor Aragon has not been to the agente mineral to-day," suggested De Lancey suavely. "If he had taken the trouble he would not – "

"Enough!" cried Aragon, still trying to carry it off cavalierly. "I sent my servant to the mining agent yesterday and he reported that the permit had lapsed."

"If he had taken the pains to inquire for new permits, however," returned De Lancey, "he would have found that one has been issued to me. I am now a Mexican citizen, like yourself."

"You!" screamed Aragon, his eyes bulging with astonishment; and then, finding himself tricked, he turned suddenly upon one of his retainers and struck him with his whip.

"Son of a goat!" he stormed. "Pig! Is this the way you obey my orders?"

But though he raved and scolded, he had gone too far, and there was no putting the blame on his servant. In his desire to humiliate the hated gringos he had thrown down all his guards, and even De Lancey saw all too clearly what his intentions in the matter had been.

"Spare your cursing, Señor Aragon," he said, "and after this," he added, "you can save your pretty words, too – for somebody else. We shall remain here and hold our property."

"Ha! You Americanos!" exclaimed Aragon, as he chewed bitterly on his defeat. "You will rob us of everything – even our government. So you are a Mexican citizen, eh? You must value this barren mine very highly to give up the protection of your government. But perhaps you are acquainted with a man named Kruger?" he sneered.

"He would sell his honor any time to defraud a Mexican of his rights, and I doubt not it was he who sent you here. Yes, I have known it from the first – but I will fool him yet!

"So you are a Mexican citizen, Señor De Lancey? Bien, then you shall pay the full price of your citizenship. Before our law you are now no more than that poor pelado, Mendez. You cannot appeal now to your consul at Gadsden – you are only a Mexican! Very well!"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled significantly.

"No," retorted De Lancey angrily; "you are right – I cannot appeal to my government! But let me tell you something, Señor Mexicano! An American needs no government to protect him – he has his gun, and that is enough!"

"Yes," added Bud, who had caught the drift of the last, "and he has his friends, too; don't forget that!" He strode over toward Aragon and menaced him with a threatening finger.

"If anything happens to my friend," he hissed, "you will have me to whip! And now, señor," he added, speaking in the idiom of the country, "go with God – and do not come back!"

"Pah!" spat back Aragon, his hate for the pushing foreigner showing in every glance; "I will beat you yet! And I pray God the revoltosos come this way, if they take the full half of my cattle – so long as they get you two!"

"Very well," nodded Bud as Aragon and his men turned away, "but be careful you do not send any!

"Good!" he continued, smiling grimly at the pallid Phil; "now we got him where we want him – out in the open. And I'll just remember them four paisanos he had with him – they're his handy men, the boys with nerve – and don't never let one of 'em catch you out after dark."

De Lancey sat down on a rock and wiped his face.

"Heavens, Bud," he groaned, "I never would have believed it of him – I thought he was on the square. But it just goes to prove the old saying – every Mexican has got a streak of yellow in him somewhere. All you've got to do is to trust him long enough and you'll find it out. Well, we're hep to Mr. Aragon, all right!"

"I have never seen one of these polite, palavering Mexicans yet," observed Bud sagely, "that wasn't crooked. And this feller Aragon is mean, to boot. But that's a game," he added, "that two can play at. I don't know how you feel, Phil, but we been kinder creeping and slipping around so long that I'm all cramped up inside. Never suffered more in my life than the last sixty days – being polite to that damn' Mexican. Now it's our turn. Are you game?"

"Count me in!" cried De Lancey, rising from his rock. "What's the play?"

"Well, we'll go into town pretty soon," grinned Bud, "and if I run across old Aragon, or any one of them four bad Mexicans, I'm going to make a show. And as for that big brindle dog of his – well, he's sure going to get roped and drugged if he don't mend his ways. Come on, let's ketch up our horses and go in for a little time."