Helen Bagg

“ There was no knowing what rosy tale Pachuca had told them; more than likely that the American army had crossed the border and that they were striking for their altars and their fires. He saw women, babies, and household goods loaded upon his good horse-flesh and disappearing down the road.
Scott’s blood boiled. His impulse was to shoot Juan Pachuca without warning. He raised his arm and then he paused. One does not shoot men in the back easily unless one is used to doing it. At that moment a Mexican saw him and yelled. Instantly everyone saw him. Pachuca whirled his horse about. ”

“ It was very beautiful out there; mountains, 193 hills, bushes, all a study in absolute stillness. The only sound that came to her ears was the howl of a wolf in the distance.
“Coming in at just the right moment,” smiled the girl. “What a country for effects! Oh dear, I believe I could sleep out there in the hammock if it wasn’t too chilly.”
Taking the couch cover over her arm she crept softly out of the door and out on to the veranda where the hammock swayed gently in the breeze. Polly adjusted herself in it with care; a fall would bring all the occupants of the house out with a bound. ”

“ Polly Street drove her little electric down Michigan Boulevard, with bitterness in her heart.
It was a cold wet day in the early spring of 1920, and Chicago was doing her best to show her utter indifference to anyone’s opinion as to what spring weather ought to be. It was the sort of day when, if you had any ambition left after a dreary winter, you began to plot desperate things.
Polly hated driving the electric—her soul yearned for a gas car. ”

“ When Li Yow clattered up the trail leading out of the river bed and up the mesa, he was a happy man, in spite of the fact that a horse was to him the last means of locomotion that he would have chosen for an all night trip, with the possible exception of a camel or an elephant. Except as objects for his scientific skill, horses were not dear to his heart. A wagon, a train, an automobile, these were sensible conveyances for an intellectual man of an old and distinguished family going about his business, but a horse, never! ”

“ And that miserable Scott man knows why I came! Well, I can snub him, anyhow.”
Polly planted both feet firmly on the floor and reached for her stockings. A few minutes later she stood in the doorway, a dark sweater drawn over her lacy waist, her plaid skirt blowing in the breeze, and her vivid hair covered only with a net. The air was cool and bracing, the sun just beginning to be a bit warm, the mountains emerging from behind fleecy clouds, and the sky as blue as that of Italy. ”

“ Before the girl had realized it the two hours were over and the little engine reappeared.
Conejo should, I believe, be called a town. The people who live in it always dignify it by that name and they probably have a reason for so doing. To one holding advanced ideas as to towns, it seems at a first glance to be only a collection of pinkish looking adobes which on inspection turn out to be a church, a store, a jail, a saloon, a hotel—at which no one stays who has a friend to take him in—and some private houses. It is Juarez without the bull ring, the racetrack or the gambling places. ”

“ All the young people were engaged—except those who were married.
“That, at least, I had sense enough not to do!” raged Polly, as she narrowly missed a pedestrian’s heel.
It is hard for older people to realize how important it is at twenty-three to be doing exactly what others are doing; the absolute anguish of being the only man in the A. E. F. without a wife or sweetheart, or the only girl at home without a soldier husband or lover. ”

“ Scott turned, bewildered, to see Polly running wildly toward him. She flung herself upon him and upon Jasper before he could dismount, pouring out the story of the men who had gone down the trail.
“And the worst of it was,” she wept, stormily, “that I didn’t even try to warn you. I just made for that cave and hid myself. That’s the sort of a girl I am.”
“Did you, honey? Do you know, that strikes me as mighty sensible? I don’t hold much with girls saving men’s lives outside the movies, where they’re well paid for it. It strikes me life-saving is a man-sized job.” ”

“ It was rather ghostly, too, driving at this hour; the chill, early morning feel of the air, the fading moon, the faint pinkness hanging over the mountains suggesting the coming dawn.
“One thing you miss around here is the cattle,” said Scott. “Up in New Mexico you’d be starting out this time in the morning and you’d see the range cattle looking at you, sort of surprised to see folks around so early in the morning; some of ’em still lying down and napping. Around here raising cattle hasn’t been very popular the last few years—too hazardous.” ”

“ Athens, when the mining industry was running full time, was a busy if not a beautiful spot. Its row of shacks housed workers, male and a few female, to a generous number, while its busy little train of cars—for Athens owned a tiny spur of railroad connecting with the neighboring town of Conejo and operated for reasons germane to the coal industry—gave it, if you were very temperamental, something of the air of a metropolis seen through a diminishing glass. ”

“ Polly, however, was too much interested in the changes of scenery to notice anything as ordinary as a good-looking young man. The country was changing, gradually, but still unmistakably changing, from a desert, flat and stifling, to a region of small hills and valleys; still brownish yellow, but with the monotony of mesquite varied by live oaks, and in some cases by shallow little streams along whose banks grew cottonwoods, their green foliage restful to the eye weary of desert bareness. ”

“ Van Zandt and Polly went into the house and Scott with his prisoner walked across to the office where they fell in with O’Grady, who grinned pleasantly when the state of affairs was explained to him.
“Come back to spend the night with us? Sure we can make him comfy! Up-stairs, son. You can have the engineer’s office to yourself,” he added, hospitably.
“I don’t like leaving you here, Pachuca,” said Scott, as he threw open the door of Hard’s office. “It’s not my idea of entertaining the aristocracy, but it’s the best I can do for a gentleman of your peculiar habits.” ”

“ Polly looked a bit surprised, but Hard laughed as he went into the house.
“Herrick never does any rough work,” he said, indulgently. “He has to take care of his hands.”
“So!” replied their host, “my fingers are my good friends, consequently I take good care of them. Why not? Some day I may need their services again.”
“I hope so,” said Polly, frankly. “I think it’s rather dreadful for an artist to bury himself in a place like this.”
“One does not bury oneself, my child, one rests and creates,” said the musician, gently. “Ah, here is Scott! He has been looking at my wagon.” ”

“ Mexicans on the rampage, and Yaquis on the warpath, did not, however, come under the category of superstitious fears, and he heartily hoped he might accomplish his journey without meeting either of them.
He rode Scott’s big roan, Cochise, a common-sense animal which could be trusted to the tender mercies of what its master called “a crazy Chink.” This excellent beast understood thoroughly the art of saving his strength, and curbing any foolish enthusiasm on the part of a rider to race up-hill or to exhaust one’s wind too early in the game. ”

“ If he could only reach Jasper he would follow that cloud of dust until he knew what had happened to the woman he loved.
Jasper and the mare, uninfluenced by motives either of fear or anger, still grazed by the clump of brush and allowed the almost exhausted Scott to lead them back to the trail. He mounted Jasper, and turned the mare loose. He started down the trail after the vanished band at a pace quite as reckless as their own.
“Marc! Marc Scott!” Polly’s voice rose desperately as she saw him disappearing down the trail. “Come back here!” ”

“ Bob Street was a lucky man to have found a girl like Emma. A dreamy look succeeded the martial one. Visions of a flower-bedecked hacienda—was that what they called them, it didn’t sound exactly right—surrounded by peons dozing in the sun succeeded the dimpled vision of Emma. Polly drew her ideas of Mexico entirely from the movies, Bob’s short letters being quite lacking in atmosphere. ”

“ One’s first sand-storm is always a surprise. It looks so innocent from behind a window pane; just sand—blowing about rather swiftly, whirling in spirals, beating against the glass, piling itself up in drifts—an interesting sight but not a terrifying one.
Polly had been a little surprised to see the fat ladies 39 array themselves in goggles before descending from the train, and had laughingly refused an offer of his own from Juan Pachuca, who promptly put them on himself. ”

“ Juan Pachuca opened the hunting-knife and surveyed it in a business-like fashion. There was a sudden movement of his arm and poor Yellow shivered and crumpled up noiselessly. Quietly, the knife still in his hand, Pachuca slipped behind the building and continued his way toward the corral. He reached the car unhindered and breathed a sigh of relief; the rest would be plain sailing. A peep into the tonneau showed him that the plunder had been removed; but that, of course, he had expected. He jumped into the car and started the engine. ”

“ It was a sober little crowd that sat around the dining-room table at Athens that night. Though their joy had been very great at the safe coming of Hard and Clara in Mendoza’s car, it had been tinged with gloom at the non-arrival of Scott and Polly. Jimmy Adams was reported much improved.
“That Chinaman doesn’t cook any more,” confided Mrs. Van to Clara. “He’s had a rise in life and he just sits and meditates. Awful people to meditate—the Chinese. What they find to think about I can’t see, but it seems to make ’em happy.” ”

“ I mean, just being beautiful and guarded and all that sort of thing. At home we like a girl who has seen a little of life,” apologetically.
“Not a young lady of family!” said Pachuca, decidedly.
“Well, of course, in America we don’t think a lot about family, though it’s nice to have it if you can. We think more of education and getting on in the world. Señor, I wish you would get down and look at that engine; there’s something awfully wrong with it.”
Polly spoke suddenly for Juan Pachuca was leaning very close to her. ”

“ Pachuca was in a bad humor and confined his attention to the wheel, a precaution which the increasing darkness rendered highly prudent; Scott was intent upon watching the young Mexican, determined to have no tricks played upon him; while Polly, exhausted by the excitement of 108 the past hour, crouched quietly in the crowded tonneau. A long way in the rear the patient pony trotted on his homeward way, wondering, no doubt, why things that moved on wheels could go so much faster than those traveling on plain, old-fashioned legs. ”

“ Van Zandt bustling in, followed by Scott, their hands full of provisions, found the two chatting sociably.
“I’d have had cake for you,” volunteered the former, “if Dolores and her beau hadn’t ate it all on me.”
“It’s like a midnight feast at boarding-school,” chuckled the visitor, waked up by the coffee.
“It’s like the spreads we used to have when we was on the road,” said Mrs. Van Zandt, meditatively.
“On the road?” Polly’s eyes opened wide.
“Mrs. Van was one of the original ‘Floradora Sextette,’” 67 remarked Scott, soberly. “The only one who didn’t marry a millionaire.” ”

“ Hard stopped beside her, thinking how her splendid youth and vibrant coloring harmonized with the surroundings.
“Not bad at all,” laughed the girl. “You only need a few wild looking Mexicans prowling about to give a touch of life.”
Hard pointed toward the mine. Some dark-skinned men wearing big straw sombreros were running a hand car up the track while another group lounged in a doorway.
“There are your Mexicans, but I’m afraid they’re too lazy to be very wild. Nothing but a revolution excites them these days and sometimes I think they’re getting a bit blasé over them. ”

“ These men didn’t want to stop work.”
“My dear girl, you seem to have lost sight of the fact that a revolution is taking place. It is their duty to stop working and to fight.”
“It always seems to be their duty to fight and they never get anything out of it!”
“They do get something out of it. They got their land when they overthrew Diaz. With Carranza, they got a new constitution. With Obregon, they will get peace and a good government.”
“Then you are for Obregon?”
“Naturally. But I must have men and horses and munitions. I—Juan Pachuca—cannot fight in the ranks.” ”