The Mission of Janice Day Part 36

Close to, he was not to be mistaken for anybody but Tom Hotchkiss, the absconding Polktown storekeeper. He was a man of girth, with short legs.

His head was set low upon a pair of heavy shoulders. Indeed, he possessed little visible neck--scarcely enough on which to put a collar.

Tom Hotchkiss was of the apoplectic build to suffer in a warm climate; and the sun, even at this time of year, seemed almost tropical to these New Englanders. He had discarded none of his ordinary dress save his hat, and that looked incongruous enough with his brown cutaway coat, the red vest, gray trousers, and spats.

"He certainly _is_ a hot member to look at," muttered Marty Day, as the man approached the car.

Hotchkiss stared curiously at the other pa.s.sengers; but Janice hid her face with her veil and the broad brim of Marty's hat quite sheltered his freckled countenance from casual observation.

"Friends of Don Abreguardo, senor," explained Carlitos. "They go weeth us."

He cranked up again, and the automobile began to shake and quiver "like an elephant with the palsy," to quote the disgusted Marty.

"Say!" he whispered, "this isn't much like your Kremlin--believe me!"

They started. A dog got up from his bed in the dust of the road, yapped at them languidly, and lay down again in his form. The car skidded around another corner and they were immediately in the open country.

Climbing a long hill the automobile seemed a dozen times on the point of being stalled; but no--she kept pluckily on to the summit.

On the down-grade beyond this rise the car went so fast--thumping and cras.h.i.+ng over outcropping roots and other obstructions--that Janice cried out in alarm.

"If we don't meet nothin' we're all right--eh?" shouted Carlitos above the roar of the car. "The brake, she done bust."

"Huh!" muttered Marty. "One thing sure, we can go as fast as this old 'tin Lizzie' can."

This did not sound altogether rea.s.suring to Janice. She unlatched the door on her side of the tonneau, ready to jump out if it looked as though the reckless driver was about to bring them to disaster.

The man in the red vest hung on to the side, and, short as his neck was, the two pa.s.sengers in the tonneau could see that roll of fat above the collar of his s.h.i.+rt turning pale!

"Tom's getting white around the gills," whispered Marty to his cousin, chuckling. "He frightens easy. I wonder if we could scare him into giving up that _cash_ and helping dad?"

"But--but he surely ha-hasn't all that mo-money with him," was jounced out of Janice's lips in a staccato whisper.

"He ain't forgot where he put it nor how to get hold of it again, you bet!" growled Marty. "Hi tunket! this sun ought to sweat it out of him.

Ain't it hot?"

"And dusty," sighed Janice. "Oh, thank goodness! here's the bottom of the hill."

Carlitos grinned back at them--the smile of a wolf, but with his kind eyes twinkling.

"How you do, eh? The senorita not like such traveling--by goodness, no?"

he said. "But if we travel not fast on the--what you call?--down-grade, we not travel far, perhaps, yes?"

Janice covered her countenance and made no reply, for the startled face of Hotchkiss was likewise turned back.

"You don't have to go so fast on _my_ account," he snarled. "I got all the time there is."

"Cricky!" whispered Marty. "I'd like to hear him say that after the judge and jury get through with him. He ought to get _life_ for what he's done."

"s.h.!.+" begged Janice. "It will do no good to quarrel with him here."

They rattled on through a pleasant valley, with here and there a bunch of cattle or horses grazing. Occasionally a _vaquero_ dashed past and waved his hand in greeting to Carlitos Ortez. The latter seemed to fall into a gloomy mood and for two hours did not speak.

Then he stopped the car beside a well at the edge of the chaparral and there in the shade the pa.s.sengers alighted, while Carlitos filled his radiator and tinkered with parts of the machine that seemed to need attention.

Janice and Marty managed to keep away from Tom Hotchkiss and spoke only in low tones. Perhaps the man with the red vest believed his fellow-pa.s.sengers to be Mexicans, like Carlitos.

"Who owns all this land?" Hotchkiss asked.

Carlitos jerked his head out from under the car where he had been fumbling, and scowled.

"By the right of G.o.d, senor, _I_ own part of it. All of _Mejico_ is ours--the people's. We own. But the reech and the strong have taken away our lands--by goodness, yes!"

"Well, you haven't got anything on folks everywhere," declared Hotchkiss. "The strong and the shrewd get it all--you bet!"

"This," and Carlitos swept a gesture including all the valley, "is the _ranchero_ of Senor Balda.s.so Nunez. He is a buzzard."

"Yes?"

"His father was a buzzard before him--the old senor. Look you!" cried Carlitos with growing excitement. "My grandfather was a boy in the old senor's time. He is past eighty now and still working for the present Senor Balda.s.so."

"A long while to keep one job," said Hotchkiss.

"Listen, senor! At sixteen my grandfather was a big, fine, strong man--like _me_. He wish to marry a certain girl--she is my grandmother.

Well! It is so that the old senor hear about my grandfather's wish--by goodness, yes! He send to my grandfather and offer a hundred pesos so he may pay the priest for to marry him and my grandfather accept, senor."

"That was mighty neighborly of the senor," observed the Yankee storekeeper.

"Yes-s?" hissed Carlitos. "One hundred pesos, mind--and the Church take all of that. Between the church and the landowners we are ground to powder!

"Mind you, senor, it was for becoming man and wife, and for the raising of seven sons and daughters and, now, of over thirty of _my_ generation.

My grandfather and all the men and boys living of his race, save me and a brother who is with the raiders, are still working for Senor Balda.s.so to pay off that hundred pesos!

"What you think of that, senor, huh?"

"Aw--that don't seem sensible," said Hotchkiss. "Haven't you paid the original debt?"

"_Si_, senor! that is the truth. Always are we kep' in debt to Senor Balda.s.so. _Me_, I get out--turn outlaw you say--buy this 'tin Leezie'--mak' money plenty. But none of it go to that Senor Balda.s.so--by goodness, no!"

"So you aren't helping pay off the family debt?" drawled Hotchkiss.

"No, senor. Sometime I hope to," said Carlitos grimly.

"Yes?"

"At once. All of a piece. You understand?"

"You mean you're going to make money enough to close the account with the old man?"

"Not money," and Carlitos smiled his wolf-like smile again. "I hope to help hang Senor Balda.s.so at the door of his own _hacienda_--by goodness, yes!"