The Mission of Janice Day Part 28

"Are--are you Mr. Pez?" asked Janice timidly.

The old man bowed low again. "Don Jose Almoreda Tonias Sauceda Pez--at your service, senorita."

"We wish to find Lieutenant Cowan. He is stationed here."

"No longer, senorita," said the old fellow, shaking his head in vigorous denial. "He is gone with his troop a month now. I do not know his present station. At the telegraph office the operator may be able to tell you. To my sorrow I cannot. Lieutenant Cowan is my friend."

"And my father's friend. My father is Mr. Broxton Day," Janice hastened to tell him.

"Senor Broxton Day?" repeated the don. "I am sorrowful, senorita. I do not know heem. But we have a--how do you call it in Eenglish?--Ah! a mutual friend in Lieutenant Cowan. Come in. My poor house and all that I possess is at your service."

"You--do you conduct a hotel here, Senor Pez?" suggested Janice.

"Surely! Surely!" declared the old man with another sweeping gesture.

"We must get rooms here then, Marty," she said to her cousin; "and perhaps the gentleman can tell us how we may get across the river and to San Cristoval."

"You let _me_ do the talking," Marty said rather gruffly. "I'll make the bargain. I've found out that a dollar Mex ain't worth but fifty cents."

He said this in a low voice; but the don was already summoning somebody whom he called "Rosita" from the interior of the house. The house was divided in the middle, one half of the lower floor being given up to the exigencies of trade. On the other side of the hall that ran through to the rear were the hotel rooms.

Rosita appeared. She was a woman shaped like a pyramid. Even her head, on which the black coa.r.s.e hair was bobbed high, finished in a peak--the unmistakable mark of the ancient Aztec blood in her veins. Her shoulders sloped away from her three chins and it seemed as though the greatest circ.u.mference of her body must be at her ankles, for her skirt flared.

Rosita had guessed at her waist-line and had tied a string there, for her dress was a one-piece garment and she had no actual knowledge of where her waistband should be placed.

But in spite of her strange shape and dark complexion, Rosita was still very pretty of countenance and had wonderfully white teeth and great, violet eyes. She was still in her early thirties. A toddling little one clung to her skirt.

"Take the _ninito_ hence, Rosita, and show the senorita to the best room above. Her _caballero_----?" Senor Pez looked at Marty doubtfully and the boy struck in:

"That's all right, old feller. It don't matter where I camp. We'll talk about that pretty soon. You go ahead and see the room, Janice, and wash up. Maybe they can give you dinner."

"Surely! Surely!" said the don, shooing the _ninito_ out of the way as though it were a chicken.

Rosita mounted to the upper floor in the lead. Janice followed with a queer feeling of emptiness at her heart--the first symptom of homesickness.

But the mountainous Rosita seemed as kindly intentioned as the old don.

She opened the door with a flourish on a broad, almost bare room, with an iron bed, a washstand and bureau of maple, a rocking chair, and with curtains at the two windows.

On the floor was a straw matting and over its dry surface Janice heard a certain rustling--a continual rhythmic movement. As she stared about the floor, hesitating to enter, Rosita said:

"It is be-a-u-tiful room--yes, huh?"

"But--but what is that noise?" asked the girl from the North, her mind filled with thoughts of tarantulas and centipedes.

"Huh? Nottin'. _That?_ Jes' fleas--sand fleas. They hop, hop, hop. No mind them. You hongree--yes, huh? I go get you nice dinner--yes, huh?"

She departed, quite filling the stairway as she descended to the lower floor.

"My goodness!" thought Janice, with a sudden hysterical desire to laugh.

"I should hate to have the house catch fire and wait my turn to go downstairs after Rosita!"

It took no conflagration to hasten her preparations for descent on this occasion. She met Marty at the foot of the staircase. The boy's face was actually pallid, and against this background his freckles seemed twice their usual size.

"What is it? What has happened?" demanded Janice, seizing his arm.

Marty drew her farther from the foot of the staircase to where she could see through a narrow doorway into the store.

"See there!" the boy hissed.

"See what? Oh, Marty! you frighten me."

"'Tain't nothin' to be frightened of," he a.s.sured her. "See that feller with the red vest?"

"I see the red waistcoat--yes," admitted Janice, peering into the gloomy store.

"Hi tunket! D'you know who's inside that red vest?" sputtered Marty.

"No-o."

"Tom Hotchkiss!" said her cousin. "What d'you know about that?"

CHAPTER XIX

THE CROSSING

It is not the magnitude of an incident that most shocks the human mind.

A happening stuns us in ratio to its unexpectedness.

Now, if there was anything in the whole range of possibilities more unexpected than the appearance of Tom Hotchkiss, the absconding Polktown storekeeper, down in this unlovely Border town, Janice Day could not imagine what that more unexpected occurrence could be.

It took fully a minute for Marty's announcement to really percolate to his cousin's understanding. She stared dumbly at the red vest, which was about all she could see of the man in Don Jose Almoreda Tomas Sauceda Pez's store, and then turned to Marty, saying:

"Yes?"

"Cricky!" sputtered the boy. "You gone dumb, Janice? Don't you understand?"

"I--I--no, Marty. I do not believe I _do_ understand. Is--is it surely that Hotchkiss man?"

"Surest thing you know!" declared the boy.

"What _shall_ we do?" and for once Janice felt herself to be quite helpless.

That Marty's wits were bright and s.h.i.+ning was proved by his immediate reply:

"You leave it to me. I got a scheme. I'm going to skip over to the telegraph office. We want to find that Lieutenant Cowan if we can, anyway. And I'm going to send what they call a night letter to dad. A _night_ letter to a _Day_, see?" and he giggled.