Chapter 9. At Liberty

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_ CHAPTER IX. AT LIBERTY

Polly and Matt continued their walk in silence until they reached the dining-room. They found Scott sitting as they had left him, smoking and thinking; while, through the hole in the wall, Mrs. Van Zandt could be seen and heard busy with the dishes.

"Well, did His Nobs enjoy his tea?" asked Scott.

"He did that! Kicked into it like a little man," replied Matt, cheerfully. "Also he made the young lady a real sporting proposition."

"What?"

"Oh, don't be absurd!" snapped Polly, disgustedly. "Anybody'd suppose you were college boys at the dansant." And she went into the kitchen.

"Well, you see what you get, Matt; you would horn in. What do you mean--a sporting proposition?"

"Oh, a rich one. Buried treasure up in New Mexico--secret chart handed down to Juan Pachuca by a maiden aunt--I don't know what all--just to get the key of the office, but she was too sharp for him."

"I should hope so. Is that Hard?" Scott went to the window as the sound of hoof-beats was heard. Down the street came a man on horseback. Silhouetted against the moonlight, the tall Bostonian acquired a picturesqueness lacking in daylight. "I've got to take Hard out one of these days and teach him how to ride," remarked Scott, meditatively. "Jolt some of that Boston stiffness out of him."

"You can't," replied the Irishman, placidly. "It's in his blood. His ancestors brought it over in the Mayflower with 'em from England. I'll bet you Paul Revere rode just like Hard does."

"Shucks, Matt, those English guys can ride--stands to reason they can. Look at the cross-country stuff they do! And on an English saddle at that."

"Country? The country they ride over's nothing to what the Irish do. A feller told me----"

"Hello, boys, what's up? Why the theatre supper?" demanded Hard, entering.

He listened to the particulars which poured upon him. "Well," he said, finally, "I'm sorry I missed the excitement. 'Twas ever thus. The only time our house ever burned down I was at a matinee of the 'Black Crook.' Well, you saved the cash?"

"Miss Polly did," grinned Scott. "And we've got the boy that made the mischief."

"Jimmy much hurt?"

"Afraid so."

"I was afraid something like this would happen," said Hard. "They told me over in Conejo that there was trouble on. They had an all-night session at Hermosillo and the state seceded."

"That's what Pachuca says."

"Morgan's taken his family up to Douglas."

"Any news from Bob?"

"Just a letter for Miss Polly."

"We won't desert until we have orders, but I'm rather glad to have the car," continued Scott. "I thought we'd run over and see Herrick in the morning."

"I say, Scott, that Chinaman of Herrick's is a doctor. Why not have him take a look at Jimmy's leg?"

"A Chinaman!" Polly had come in with Hard's coffee.

"Sure!" cried Scott. "Just the thing. I'd forgotten about him. When a Chink is scientific, he's as scientific as the devil."

"He came over to practice medicine; you know how the Mexicans feel about the Chinese? His money went and he had to do what he could. Herrick picked him up somewhere and he's been there ever since," said Hard.

"We'll get him over here for Jimmy. He's clean at any rate."

"Listen to this!" Polly had opened her letter. "It's from Mother," she explained. "Poor old Bob's in the hospital--just been operated on for appendicitis! Isn't that the limit? On a honeymoon!"

"Hard luck," commented Scott. "How's he coming on?"

"She says he's doing splendidly. You see, he's been dodging that operation for the last ten years, and now it's got him, poor boy. Mother says they're worried to death about me."

"And well they may be," remarked Mrs. Van Zandt, heartily.

"She says the directors have met but didn't do anything."

"That sounds natural," said Hard. "They've been doing that for the last three years."

"Trying to figure out which costs less; to give up the property, or to pay us our salaries to hold it down," chuckled Scott.

"She says I am to come home at once," continued Polly, "but that I am not to try to travel alone. Either Mr. Scott or Mr. Hard is to go with me to the border."

"I'm glad somebody in your family has got good sense," said Scott, grimly. "It's a pity those things aren't hereditary."

"Thank you. I think I prefer to have Mr. Hard go."

Hard bowed solemnly. "Bob coming back?" he asked.

"As soon as they'll let him," said Bob's sister, promptly.

"Yes, he likes a scrap," remarked Scott. "I hope they keep the papers away from him this next week. Well, it's lucky for you, Miss Polly, that we've got Pachuca's car. Traveling on these railroads is bad enough at any time, but with a brand new revolution on hand, it'll be the deuce."

"I think it's rather horrid of them not to care whether I go home or not," Polly told herself, as she undressed for bed. "They might at least pretend they don't want me to go! I always supposed that the one girl in a mining camp would be dazzlingly popular--but this doesn't look much like it. And yet--he likes me, I know he does! He liked my bringing the car back; I saw it in his eyes, if he did make fun of me.

"He's jealous of Don Juan, too. Well, that won't do him any harm. He's so determined not to fall in love with me that he's going to need a little outside interference to make him change his mind. He's got to change his mind because I--yes, I do care for him--a lot. People may think these things don't come suddenly outside of books, but they do--oh, they do!" And, worn out by the exertions of the day, Polly curled herself in a knot and prepared to sleep.

Juan Baptisto Pachuca had not availed himself of the shakedown made for him by Mrs. Van Zandt's blankets. He had put out his light because he wanted to think and he preferred thinking by moonlight. He sat in Hard's office chair by the window, closed now, for the night was cool, and drummed impatiently upon the arm of it.

Mentally, Pachuca was more than impatient; he was outraged. His plans had been spoiled, his liberty restricted and his dignity impaired. He had been made to look ridiculous. Of all the offenses against him the latter was the most serious. He hated giving up anything he had put his mind on, but he hated a great deal more being made ridiculous.

Nor was it pleasant to be triumphed over by a girl. Juan Pachuca liked girls, especially good-looking ones, but he liked them in their places, not in the larger affairs of life. When they insisted upon mixing themselves up with such affairs, they ceased, in his estimation, to be pretty girls and became merely tiresome members of the other sex.

Had Polly Street given in to his proposals of escape he would have felt in a better temper with her, but he would not have been at all tempted to fall in love with her. He had been in the mood for that once--the night they had come over from Conejo together--but Fate, or the girl herself, or Marc Scott, he had hardly taken the time to decide which, had interfered and that was over.

Pachuca bore Polly no ill will for her part in that affair. That was her province--a love affair. A lady had the privilege of granting or denying her favors; it was not always because she wanted to that she denied them. He knew a good deal about that sort of thing and he was willing to give and take very agreeably in the game of love, without repining if things didn't seem to be going his way.

This, however, was a question of business and Juan Pachuca considered that any woman who could get ahead of him in a matter of business would have to get up exceedingly early in the morning. He would get out of that room or he would know the reason why. It was highly important that he should. In fact, his plans for the next few days depended absolutely upon his so doing.

Pachuca's business head, for all his conceit about it, was exceedingly primitive. His had been rather a primitive career from its beginning. Hard's story of the actress, while not entirely correct, had its foundation in fact. Pachuca had been disgraced; to be disgraced in any manner is bad enough, but to be disgraced for doing something that you know quite well is being done in perfect security by most of the people with whom you are connected is particularly galling.

Aching to thwart the government he hated, Pachuca hastened to ally himself with its particular enemy and to work against it with all the impetuosity of his nature. But Francisco Villa was not an easy man for anyone as heady as Juan Pachuca to get on with. There were quarrels and more quarrels, and finally Pachuca, again disgusted with the world and its people, retired to private life.

He was not, however, built for private life. Some of us are like that. We need the excitement and the stimulus of action to bring out our better points. Also, Pachuca's friends were not of the sort who cared much for the quiet life. In those few months of association with the great Villa, he had met men of various kinds; men who were honestly trying to do something for Mexico; men who were dishonestly trying to do something for themselves; and men who were in such a truly desperate frame of mind after ten years of revolution, banditry, and general upset, that they scarcely knew what they were doing.

Pachuca, who for all his aristocratic blood, was an exceedingly good mixer, had enjoyed these various and sundry associations and in the quiet of private life he yearned for them. Very much as a celebrated actress feels the lure of the footlights after she has left them for matrimony and the fireside, very much as the superannuated fire horse is said to react to the alarm, so Pachuca yearned for the agreeable persons with whom he had foregathered since leaving the army.

When there were rumors of another revolution, he began to think of looking up some of these exceedingly live wires, and seeing what could be done for Freedom, Mexico, and Juan Pachuca. It was with the idea of informing himself as to these matters that he had taken the journey which had resulted in his meeting with Polly Street, and the fortnight which she had spent in Athens had been used to accomplish a number of things.

Himself rather a good judge of which way the political cat might be expected to jump at this particular crisis, Pachuca had decided to throw in his lot with the Obregonistas. He knew Obregon, knew his hold on the people, his popularity with the labor party, and it looked to him very much as though that general of fascinating Irish ancestry had a good chance of being Mexico's next president.

At the same time he realized perfectly that his own reputation with the Obregonistas was not good. Various tales current among Mexicans of political standing, in regard to his relations with Villa, would be very much against him, and services rendered the Carranza government would hardly be likely to stand him in good stead. Pachuca wanted to stand well with the new party if he stood with them at all. He intended that the next president of Mexico should confer upon him an office of distinction, and offices of this sort must be earned, not only in Mexico but anywhere. In the great republic near by which Pachuca hoped some day to visit, preferably on a state mission, things were handled in this way also. If he could bring to the revolutionary chiefs of the new party men, arms, and money, he might hope for a warm reception.

During the fortnight referred to he had communicated with one Angel Gonzales, previously mentioned, who had also quarreled with Villa and been rigorously persecuted by him. Gonzales was at the head of a small band which he was quite willing to consolidate with Pachuca's men, and they had agreed to meet and discuss ways and means. It was toward this rendezvous that Pachuca had been journeying when he stopped to raid the Athens mining camp.

To be stopped at such a time was not to be endured. Pachuca looked around the small room angrily. He looked out of the window. It was a bad drop but not an impossible one. An athlete might manage it, he supposed, but he was not an athlete--he was a gentleman and a soldier. It would be a nasty thing to try it and to break a leg. He had never tried breaking a leg but he remembered having heard the family physician say that a broken leg meant a six weeks' vacation and he had no mind for a vacation on those terms.

He went to the door--locked, of course, he had heard the girl turn the key, but one might burst it open. He tried, several times, but the door held maddeningly. There was no transom, no other door--nothing but the plastered walls and the window. He turned again to the window, and threw it open. The cool night air came in refreshingly. In the distance, the dark shapes of the mountains stood out forbiddingly in the moonlight. Millions of stars winked and twinkled. Gaunt cacti reared their ungainly shapes--beautiful because of their very ugliness.

Somewhere over in those mountains Angel Gonzales was wending a torturous path to meet him. Angel would swear and rage when he did not come. Then he would probably annex Pachuca's men and their plunder and go cheerfully on his way. That would be Angel's idea of the philosophical manner of handling the situation. Juan ground his white teeth in a fury. Again he hung out of the window. The moonlight was so glaring that he was easily visible had anyone been watching, but all the lights in Athens were out and the inhabitants in bed.

Pachuca swung lightly out of the window and with a very cattish agility caught the sill with both hands and lowered himself. He looked down. It was the devil of a drop. Ten chances to one he would turn an ankle at the very least. He made a wry face. One does not do things successfully when one does them in this frame of mind. With an effort surprising in one so slight he drew himself back into the window again. There must be another way. It was positively not on the cards for him to be fooled in this stupid manner. He could see his car standing near the corral and the sight urged him to greater efforts.

He paced angrily up and down the floor. It was a very solid floor. As far as he was concerned it might be regarded as an invincible floor. If he had a pick, perhaps--Pachuca's eyes brightened, and a roguish look came into them. He had been thinking as he often did in English, being practically bi-lingual, and the word suggested something to him. Why not pick the lock? He felt eagerly in his pocket for his knife--left, alas, in the pocket of his leather coat in the machine. Still, there might be one somewhere about. In the desk, perhaps. The saints would help a good Spaniard, undoubtedly. Pachuca was not unduly religious, and he could not recall at the moment any saint renowned for picking locks, so he let it go at that and began to hunt. Some sort of tool might be found in the desk.

The desk yielded pencils, pens, erasers, and other harmless implements without number, but nothing even remotely resembling a knife. Pachuca slammed the drawers angrily and resumed his tramping. The night was getting on and he was apparently no nearer freedom than when the girl had left him. He cursed volubly and disgustedly.

"I suppose if I had the shoulders of that abominable Scott I could break the door!" he muttered. "On the other hand," he mused, grimly, "if I had had his brains I would not be here. It was a foolish business--trying to confiscate American property. It rarely pays." Pachuca, like the famous Mr. Pecksniff, believed in keeping up appearances even with one's self. His attempt was confiscation distinctly and not robbery. "It was talking with the American girl that day on the train that put it into my head. She would talk about her brother and his mine. Juan Pachuca, when will you learn to let women alone? Every time a woman comes upon the scene something disagreeable happens--and usually to you."

He paused by the window and surveyed it distastefully. "If I have to go out by that window, I will--but I do not like it. If I could bribe someone to put up a ladder! But they are all asleep--the lazy fools."

He glanced at the shakedown which Mrs. Van Zandt had sent over by Miller, the idea of a rope ladder made of sheets having floated idly through his head. Alas, the shakedown consisted of a small hard mattress and a couple of blankets, army blankets at that. Anyone who can make a rope ladder of army blankets, with nothing more solid to fasten them to than a rickety old desk, must be cleverer than even Juan Pachuca considered himself.

With a sigh of surrender he returned to the window. It was the only way; broken bones or no broken bones, it must be attempted. If he were unlucky enough to meet with disaster, he must crawl as far as the car, and once in the car he defied anyone, white, brown or black to stop him. If only they had left him his gun!

Carefully Pachuca balanced himself once more on the window and swung himself out, still clinging to the sill. The drop looked easier than it had before; he felt almost cheerful about it. Give him five minutes alone in the moonlight and he would have his liberty, his car and his triumph over Gringo carelessness. At the same moment, there arose out of the stillness the loud and penetrating bark of an aroused dog.

Yellow, who slept anywhere, being a tramp dog by nature, had elected to pass the night outside Scott's window, and the cabin in which Scott was sleeping was across the street and only a few feet away from the window from which Pachuca was trying to escape. Not content with barking, the interfering Yellow started on a gallop for the peculiar looking person hanging out of the window. Almost instantly, a light flashed in Scott's room and a head was thrust out of the window.

With an exasperated groan Pachuca drew himself back again and waited. Scott's head was withdrawn, and two seconds later, Scott, himself, clad in pajamas and a bathrobe, dashed out of the cabin and was met by another figure which seemed to spring from nowhere. Pachuca thought the second figure looked like Miller, the man who had brought his blankets, but he was not sure. By this time the dog had stopped barking and was following the two men. Pachuca stood in the window, waiting developments. Scott looked up with evident relief.

"You're there, are you?" he said.

"So it appears," disgustedly. "Am I a cat to scramble out of a window?"

"Well, Yellow was barking at something," replied Scott, with a grin. "Might have been a plain, four-footed one, and it might have been a human puss. If you don't mind, I reckon I'll tie him to the front door down here. He's rough on cats."

"Suit yourself, amigo, I'm going to sleep," was the disdainful reply.

Well, that ended going out by the window. Pachuca, having a Latin dislike for fresh air in the sleeping-room, closed the window angrily and threw himself down on the mattress. It was hard and there was no pillow. The blankets he would need to keep him warm. Pachuca, though used to hardships, dearly loved his comfort. He glanced around the room again; an old office coat hanging on a peg in a corner caught his eye. It would do for a pillow. He took it down and rolled it into a wad. As he did so, a clinking sound became audible. He reached into the pocket--a bunch of keys and an old hunting-knife came to light.

Pachuca grinned. Well, Heaven was looking out for its own; it was not in the nature of things that a Pachuca should be trampled in the dust by the proletariat! Patiently, one after another, he tried the keys--ah, the right one at last! He turned it and the door opened. Pachuca chuckled delightedly; it pleased his whimsicality to think that so apparently unsurmountable a difficulty should be solved in so plain and unromantic a fashion.

He returned to the window and saw Scott and Miller standing outside Scott's cabin; saw Scott go inside and the cabin become dark once more and Miller go on down the street, stopping at the last house near the corral. Pachuca frowned. Was the fellow going in and going to bed like a Christian, or was he going to hang around and keep an eye on the car? This last would be extremely awkward. Miller, however, turned in at the house and disappeared.

Pachuca spent five minutes at the window watching, but he did not reappear. "Ah well, one must risk something!" he mused, and glanced down at the sleeping Yellow. Cautiously and with the soft step of one who has learned the wisdom of a silent tread, the young man slid down the stairway. The door at the foot of the stairs was open; it opened outward and they had tied the dog back of it.

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. At the same moment, a burly figure rushed out of the house near by, caught at the car as it started, clung to the running-board and, leaning over, seized Pachuca by the arm.

It was Miller; Miller, who had indeed gone to bed, but whose bed was near the window of the little cabin, and who had been keeping one eye on the car and had emerged, scantily attired in a nightshirt tucked into a pair of trousers, to put a spoke in the Mexican's wheel. Pachuca set his teeth! It was too much--to be so near liberty and then to lose it. A desperate look came into his eyes; he paid no attention to the angry demand of his assailant that he stop the car, but, making a sudden lunge, he drove the hunting-knife into the shoulder of the big man.

"Damn you, put up that knife!" choked Miller, seeing the blow coming but not quickly enough to dodge it. With one hand clutching the car and one holding Pachuca, he was too late to reach his gun. By the time he loosed his hold on the Mexican, the knife had reached its mark; a knife none too sharp, but driven by a practiced hand, it pierced the flesh, and with a groan, Miller dropped off the running-board into the road.

Ah, the good car! Pachuca sang with joy as it leaped ahead into the darkness. They would be awake in a moment, the lazy Gringos, but what of it? He would be out of their reach. He laughed as he flew past the house where Polly slept.

"Adieu, pretty American! I kiss your hand--until we meet again!"

Something struck the back of the car with a sharp, tearing sound. Pachuca turned with a grin. A light had sprung up in the house into which he had seen Scott go. With another chuckle, the young Mexican bent over the wheel and whirled down the road toward freedom. _

Read next: Chapter 10. The Discovery

Read previous: Chapter 8. The Prisoner

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