J. Frank Davis

“ The biggest thing in a man’s life and I’ve had to be dumb for twenty-two years! Twenty-two years without a word from home—although after a while it stopped seeming like home. Buenos Aires is my home now. People down there don’t think badly of me at all. If it wasn’t for the girl—and yet, until I got into Mexico there, so close to Texas, I never really intended to look her up in person. ”

“ Carmichael looked quickly in the direction in which Miller was staring. He saw a score of men and half as many women entering and leaving the hotel. Discarding those who were going out as unlikely to have attracted Miller’s attention, since he had had opportunity to see them before, the Ranger swiftly appraised the new arrivals.
One or two were traveling men, just alighted from a depot street car, hustling with their bags toward the desk. ”

“ That man Bristow, of Sarran’s gang, had a good reputation compared to most of the rest of them. He hadn’t ever killed a man—at least it never had been proved that he had—and maybe Gater and Sarran had that in their minds when they set him to get me. I suppose the scheme had been all worked out for some time, waiting for the cards to fall just right. Anyway, he and I met one evening along about dusk near the post office—and there wasn’t one single man in sight that didn’t belong body and soul to Gater. And Bristow said fighting words to me and went after his pistol and I beat him to it. ”

“ Carmichael succeeded in concealing his surprise that Miller knew him.
“Go to it,” he said. He, too, took a seat, his pistol resting on his knee. “You won’t be fool enough to start anything more,” he said, moving it significantly. “If you do, you won’t get away with it. All right. Suppose you tell me——”
Miller interrupted him. He was staring at his own wrists, as though puzzled.
“I thought there’d be handcuffs on them,” he said. “Much obliged. I’d hate to go out through that lobby handcuffed.”
“What did you go to pull a gun on me for, that a way?” the Ranger demanded. ”

“ Captain Carmichael considered briefly.
“If he’s come here on some errand with Locke for that Tarbox outfit—and those questions look like he wants to know when and where to find him at bed hours,” he said, “he isn’t likely to lose any time. And with a gun hung on him——”
The captain crossed to where his own holstered pistol had been laid on the bed while he made his toilet, strapped it on, and reached for his coat.
“I reckon the time has come to ask Mister Miller what his game is,” he said. “Him toting a pistol that-a-way without any permit to do so gives me a good excuse. ”

“ Captain Carmichael frowned as he studied the situation that had suddenly developed. Certain facts which aligned themselves in his mind seemed to have a bearing on one another and on the very assignment from the governor on which he was engaged.
Texas, as the next-door neighbor to Mexico, has many business relationships with the southern republic and Texans believe they understand Mexico and Mexicans better than do the residents of most other States. ”

“ She’s a fine-looking young woman, Carmichael. Just to think that until day before yesterday I didn’t even know whether she had lived or died! A man doesn’t have much affection for a little bit of a baby, less than a year old—especially if its mother died when it came. ”

“ And this”—he touched the long ragged scar on his upper lip—“you never saw that. Nobody in Texas did. Nobody in Texas ever saw me without a mustache; I had it all raised when I came here. Not a living soul in the State knew I had this mark under it except my wife—and she never saw it. I got it falling off a shed onto a harrow back there in Kentucky when I wasn’t twelve years old. Just as soon as I was able to raise hair over it, I hid it. Then I raised whiskers, too. I was twenty when I came to Texas, you know.”
“So you thought I didn’t recognize you there on the train?” ”

“ Presently, nodding as though in thanks for some information, he left the desk and went to a chair, not the one he had vacated with its full view of the entrance, but another in a far corner. Seated in it he paid no more attention to the throng but fell into deep thought. ”

“ The captain had it safely out of reach and had satisfied himself that Miller bore no other arms when the man opened his eyes, groaned, touched his head gently with his fingers and made a dizzy effort to sit up.
“Steady, hombre!” Carmichael warned him gruffly. “I’ve got your gun. Take it easy. When your brain gets cleared a little we’ll talk.” ”

“ The man’s papers were in perfect order and he bore in his big British bag or on his person nothing dutiable and no firearms. His name was Andrew Miller, and he was a citizen of Argentina, of English birth. This was his first visit to the United States. He had had business in Mexico and wished to see a portion of the big northern republic. He expected to return to South America within a month or two.
The train rolled on to San Antonio, where the scar-lipped Argentinian left it. ”

“ Miller did not groan again, although his head must have ached terribly. Once he had gained full control of his faculties he did not even wince, and Carmichael noted this with approval; he admired men who could take what punishment came to them without whining. ”

“ The village children of ages from five to a dozen—a swarm of them—were not with the men whose backs rested against the station walls or the women in their doorways or about the fires, but were strung along the track for the length of the train, trotting beside the Pullmans as they slowed. ”

“ Fighting the political ambitions and desires of the combination of which the Tarbox outfit was a member was another combination. Wallace Locke was a member of it. Notwithstanding his youth, because of connections with the governor and other strong men of Texas, he was powerful. ”