The Mission of Janice Day Part 38

Marty and Janice got into the car, having gone around back of it to enter from the opposite side. Hotchkiss climbed in beside the Mexican driver, still muttering about "not knowing where he was bound for."

The road was rougher than it had been the day before and much of the way it was ascending. So the automobile went slowly. The engine sputtered--and so did Tom Hotchkiss. Carlitos was sunk in sullen mood and his comments--usually addressed to the car--were in Spanish, and scarcely translatable.

Janice became exceedingly weary before the morning was half over. Riding over plowed ground in a springless cart would have been little worse than being jounced about in this automobile.

They did not rest even during _siesta_, only stopping long enough for Carlitos to mend his car with a piece of wire and what Janice supposed must be much Spanish profanity. The journey was getting on the Mexican's nerves as it was upon that of his pa.s.sengers.

At certain places they were stopped by rough-looking men--some of them armed. Carlitos made his explanations in his own tongue. Tom Hotchkiss was growing visibly panic-stricken. He had doubtless been afraid of arrest on the United States side of the Border; but the appearance of these bands of seemingly masterless vagabonds frightened the runaway storekeeper from Polktown still more.

It was mid-afternoon and the automobile was limping along through a wild valley, when above the coughing of the engine Janice heard the _rat-a-plan_ of hoofbeats. She looked around earnestly, and finally spied a company of hors.e.m.e.n charging cross-country toward the trail the automobile was following.

"Oh! who are those?" she cried, leaning forward to place her hand on Carlitos' shoulder.

He looked up, saw the cavalcade, and jerked the steering wheel a little.

They b.u.mped into a bowlder, the car shot back, and then the engine died with an awful rattle.

"_Carramba!_" sputtered Carlitos. "We have the accident now--yes, huh?"

"But who are those men?" repeated Janice. "They see us. They are coming this way."

Carlitos stood up to look. He shrugged his shoulders.

"That is Dario Gomez riding in their lead. He is a great bandit chief, senorita. Now we are--what you call?--in for it--by goodness, yes!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SITUATION BECOMES DIFFICULT

They had halted beside a dense patch of chaparral. Carlitos had scarcely thrown his verbal bomb when Tom Hotchkiss slid out of his seat and dived into the thicket beside the narrow road like a wood-chuck into its hole.

No fat man ever disappeared more quickly.

Janice and Marty were too disturbed by the announcement of the automobile driver, and too startled withal, to note Hotchkiss'

departure. The bandits, headed by Dario Gomez, swung into the trail and charged immediately down upon the stalled automobile.

The band consisted of nearly forty--an unusually large and important _commando_, as the Mexican banditti rove the country mostly in small parties, preying on whomever may have anything worth taking, and keeping up a desultory warfare against the troops of whatever de facto government may at the time be in power in Mexico City.

"Hi tunket!" exploded Marty. "What are we going to do now?"

Carlitos shrugged his shoulders, sat down, and began to roll the ever present cigarette. "As the young senor says, ''I tunkeet!'" quoted the Mexican. "What can we do but submeet?"

"Submit to what, Carlitos?" whispered Janice. "What is the danger from these men?"

"_Quien sabe?_" drawled the driver of the car. "We are in the hands of G.o.d, senorita."

The leader of the fierce-looking band was a man with long, waving _mustachios_, a regular piratical-looking hirsute adornment. He carried a white, ugly scar across his right cheek--evidently the memento of a more or less recent saber wound. He spoke first of all in Spanish to Carlitos while his wildly riding followers--plainly _vaqueros_ all--dragged their mounts back to a dramatic halt about the stalled car, surrounding the party with a cloud of dust.

Carlitos drawled a reply and gestured toward his remaining pa.s.sengers.

Dario Gomez exclaimed:

"_Americanos_--and in the habit of friends? What means this?"

He spoke very good English. His eyes flashed, but his mustache lifted at the corners as though he laughed.

Marty was tongue-tied for the moment. The threatening aspect of the cavalcade and especially of Dario Gomez himself was too much for the nonchalance of the boy. Even the hidden weapon in his sash gave him no comfort, for these "forty thieves" were all armed to the teeth.

It was a difficult situation. Carlitos evidently had no help to offer.

Indeed he seemed to feel no particular responsibility, though he was not closely a.s.sociated with these l.u.s.ty vagabonds.

"What means this masquerade, senor and senorita?" Dario Gomez repeated.

It was Janice who stepped into the breach--and stepped from the car as well. She approached the charger ridden by the bandit chief, putting aside the veil that had half hidden her face.

"Senor," she said earnestly, "will you not help me get to my father? The car has broken down and we are still a long way from San Cristoval--are we not, Carlitos?"

"Huh? By goodness, yes!" replied the amazed driver.

"My cousin and I," pursued Janice Day, "have come across the States to find my father--from far beyond Chicago--from beyond New York. I must find him quickly, sir. He is wounded--perhaps dying! Will you help me?"

"Who is your _padre_, senorita?" Dario Gomez asked. "How was he wounded?"

"Mr. Broxton Day is my father. He is chief at the Alderdice Mine, beyond San Cristoval."

"Ah! beyond the town, you say? We have no power there, senorita. Not _now_. Old Whiskers rules up there once again--and with a strong arm."

Janice did not know to whom he referred as "Old Whiskers"; possibly to some petty chief like himself. She remembered the name of a rebel leader who had been her father's friend in the past and she urged:

"I am sure my father would not have been attacked at all had Senor Juan Dicampa been still alive. He was my father's friend."

"Ha! the Dicampa? He was _my_ friend, too," returned Gomez. "But he joined forces with the conqueror--and was shot for his treachery."

"Oh!"

"Juan Dicampa ended as so many deliverers end--as an apostle of 'the loaves and fishes.' Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dario Gomez. "I and my followers, we are as yet poor enough to be honest. G.o.d keep us so!"

"But my father has surely done n.o.body harm," cried Janice. "I am sure his name must be known for justice and kindness in the Companos District."

"It is true, _mi general_," said one of Gomez's men softly. "I am acquaint' weeth the Senor B-Day. He is a _gran hombre_."

Dario Gomez pushed back his sombrero and ran a hand through his thick, graying hair, laughing with twinkling eyes and uplifted mustache into Janice's face.

"Shall we, then, play modern Robin Hoods to this so-beautiful senorita in distress?" he demanded.

"Who ees thees Rob'n 'Ood, _mi general_?" asked another of his followers. "A brave _compadre_?"

"You've said it," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Gomez, in good American slang. "Very famous."