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Across the Mesa, a fiction by Helen Bagg |
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Chapter 18. Back To Athens |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. BACK TO ATHENS Mendoza and Tom walked toward the Casa Grande ranch-house with fearful hearts. "Dark as a pocket," commented Tom. "You set down here, Mendoza, while I go around in back." From the side, a faint light was visible from the dining-room of the house. "Hullo, what have we here?" ejaculated the engineer. At the same time, he saw a man's figure coming toward him; a very familiar figure. "Hard!" he gasped, darting forward and knocking the load of firewood from Hard's arms with the fervency of his greeting. "Hullo, Tom!" Hard returned the handshake quite as heartily. "Glad to see you. We were beginning to think we were marooned on this place." "We?" Tom's face lit up. "You're all right? All of you? Didn't none of you get killed by them Yaquis?" "Why, didn't Scott tell you?" demanded Hard, with sudden anxiety. "I ain't seen Scott sence you all went off together," said Tom, puzzled. "Hold on! Do you mean to say that they haven't shown up yet? Scott and the girl?" "Well, I left Athens yestiddy morning. You see, I walked to Conejo and picked up Mendoza and his car." "You walked to Conejo!" Hard's voice was awed. "'Twa'n't much. I took my time. You see, the Chink brought us word that there was something going on over here. He seen the barn burning when he was up on the mesa, and he didn't know what was up. He pretty nigh killed Cochise, so I had to walk. I knew there was no use coming here with no horses, so I went to Conejo. They've got martial law there. The Colonel's a nice young feller, if he is a greaser, and he loaned me Mendoza and the Ford. Now what happened here, anyhow?" Hard gave a brief outline of their adventures. "Mrs. Conrad," he said, "is an old friend of Herrick's and mine, who's had to leave her plantation in the South, and is on her way home. She is going East with Miss Street. She and I tried camping out at Soria's last night after Gonzales left us, but we got starved out and we tramped it back here, waiting for someone to come after us. I'm lame as I can be." Clara's face lit up when she saw the three men enter, and she shook hands cordially with Johnson and the old Mexican. Then an anxious look came into her eyes. Hard, seeing it, spoke quickly. "Johnson left Athens yesterday before Scott and Polly got there," he said, reassuringly. "He walked to Conejo." "Walked to Conejo!" "You see, Tom, Mrs. Conrad and I walked here from Soria's and we've both been crippled ever since. A walk to Conejo fills us with excited admiration." Tom chuckled. "Well, I always could walk," he replied. "Never done anything particular with the other end of me, but I could always depend on my feet. Say, folks, Mendoza's got his car outside. How about a quick bite and then beating it for Athens?" Clara turned eagerly to Herrick. "You'll come, won't you, Victor? I hate to think of your being here alone when everything is so upset." Herrick smiled and patted her hand affectionately. "You will give me no peace until I do, so I will go," he said. * * * * * 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." Clara's mind, however, was upon the absent. "I can't see what could have happened to them. They didn't fall in with Angel Gonzales, that we know," she said. "I'm dreadfully worried about them." "Hello!" It was O'Grady's voice. "Here comes horses down the road--two of them. I believe it's our folks." And he bolted out into the moonlight, followed by the others. It was, and a more exhausted and bedraggled couple it would have been hard to find. "Look like a pair of forty-niners," said O'Grady, "on the last lap of the trip." Scott rolled out of the saddle while Hard lifted Polly to her feet. "Coffee!" whispered the girl. "Is it really coffee that I smell?" "Gracious, I believe they're starving," gasped Mrs. Van, running into the house. "All we've had to-day is a cake of chocolate and some lumps of sugar," said Scott, briefly. "Look after the horses, O'Grady, will you? They've had it pretty rough, too." He was lame and sore from his fall of the day before, and tired and hungry from the day's discomforts, but he managed to say enough to give them an idea of what had happened. "After I climbed out of the arroyo," he said, "I didn't know which way to go. If those fellows had got Polly I wanted to go after them; if they hadn't--well, I didn't dare take the chance that they hadn't. I was pelting down the trail like a madman when I heard her voice calling me from up the trail. "We got on the horses and began climbing again, pretty well pleased with our luck, but the horses were all in. They'd been at it since early morning, climbing most of the time, and I saw that they weren't going to make it. So I picked a good-looking spot near the head of the stream that we'd been following, and we camped there for the night, ate the rest of our sandwiches, and rolled up in our blankets. It wasn't very comfortable but it was a case of needs must. "In the morning I set out to find the trail again. It had pretty well disappeared--choked up by the brush. We fought our way through it all morning and finally lost it; struck out higher up on the mountain and came out on the barren side near the top. That's all, except that we've been going since five this morning on nothing but a cake of chocolate that Polly found in her coat pocket and a few lumps of sugar." "If I were going back to Chicago to live I believe I'd start soup kitchens for hungry people," declared Polly, suddenly. "It's the worst thing in the world--being hungry." "If you was----" Mrs. Van Zandt started suddenly and stopped equally so. Polly blushed. Scott came to the rescue. "We may as well tell 'em while we're telling our other troubles," he suggested, and Polly told them. "I'm going home because he won't marry me unless Father consents," she said, "and he doesn't seem to think a consent by wire is legal. But I'm coming back." "Well, I wish you good luck, I'm sure." Mrs. Van Zandt leaned over and kissed Polly impulsively. "He'll browbeat you a bit but he'll stick by you. Guess I'll make some more coffee," and she bounced into the kitchen. "Gracious! Would you call that a congratulation?" gasped Polly. "Here's a bona-fide one, my dear," said Clara, gently. "I am sure you'll be happy." The others laughed and joked while Clara and Hard kept their secret to themselves. Scott followed Mrs. Van Zandt into the kitchen with some empty cups and their voices could be heard talking earnestly. "Well," said the latter, as she returned, "I'll say I think Mr. Scott's idea a good one." By a psychological process quite her own and quite unconsciously followed, Mrs. Van had promoted Scott to the dignity of the prefix upon hearing that he was engaged to the superintendent's sister. "He's hired Mendoza and that junk-pile of his to take you all to the border so's you can get a train East without traveling on the Mexican railroads." "It's like this," Scott explained. "Tom says they told him at Conejo that the revolutionary government had taken over all the railroads, both Mexican and American, and is operating them. Now, we might make the trip all right--they say lots of refugees are coming North; but what's the use? I'll run over to Conejo and get them to let us keep Mendoza for a few days and perhaps we can get some sort of a safe conduct for the road from that military guy over there. "I'd rather have old Villa's safe conduct than any of the rest of them; I think it cuts more ice with the population at large. But perhaps this chap can do something for us. We'll try to hit the border at Chula Vista--the roads that way are pretty fair. Now, Hard, suppose you and I take a turn down the road and have a look at Jimmy before he goes to sleep." "Scotty," they were outside and Hard spoke frankly, "I didn't want to speak of it before the others, but Mrs. Conrad and I have made up our minds to undo an old mistake. We've going to try life together instead of apart." "I hoped you would, Hard. She's a fine woman." "When I say an old mistake, don't misunderstand me," continued Hard, soberly. "She and Dick Conrad were happy together. She loved him when she married him--and she didn't love me. The mistake was mine, in not making her love me when I had the chance. I've got the chance again and I'm going to make good this time." "You're very lucky, Hard. Most fellows don't get a second chance--with the same woman. Will she come back here with you?" "I don't know. We're going to be married in Chula Vista and she's going home just as she had planned. I can't go, of course, but as soon as Street comes back I'll either go to her or she'll come to me. She hasn't given up her music and I don't want her to. It's all rather hazy, Scott. I only know that I let her get away from me once, and, selfish brute that I am, I'm going to tie her to me now while she's in the humor." _ |
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