CHAPTER XIII

ACROSS THE BORDER

It had not been difficult to arrange for passports. The consul in El Paso did that with unusual alacrity when he understood for what purpose the young _Americanos_ desired them.

The _rancho_ for which they were headed was about ten miles from Agua Prieta, a tiny border town. They would go as far as they could by train. Had Raquel not wanted to ride Paintbrush on the expedition the trip could have been much more quickly made by motor.

But how fortunate this apparently impractical desire was to turn out! The pinto stood the trip very well indeed, and came daintily down the runway of the box car at the small tank stop, their last station. Georgie’s pony followed with the air of a veteran traveler.

And so on a hot day in July down the dusty little street that was Agua Prieta (which means dirty water) rode two boys who might easily have passed for natives. They were Raquel and Georgie.

“You boys! What do you want in Mexico?” The dignified but far from clean official who examined passports in an adobe hut eyed them a trifle suspiciously.

“Buy cattle? Very, very good. _Muy bien._ But you’d better tend to business and get back where you’re going, _pronto_!” he thrust at them brusquely.

“You leave that to us.” Georgie spoke confidently. Raquel was only a girl after all and her voice would give her away. She had decided to pass for a boy, so to Georgie was delegated the gratifying office of making arrangements as far as possible.

They trotted out of the dusty little town and loped away across the desert with full saddle bags and light hearts. Long alkaline stretches reached before them, stunted palms and huge Spanish daggers sped merrily behind them.

The ranch of Don Martin Amador, cousin of the Don Justino who had arranged the purchase with Raquel, appeared to be a primitive and rough place, a station for native cowpunchers, no more. They came upon it according to directions, as there was no other place in sight for miles and miles. There were two windmills, many fine pens and corrals, but no cattle in sight.

As they rode up to a barbed wire gate no servant was to be seen, and only when they pounded on the bright blue door of the adobe house, did they get any response. Movements, then steps, were heard. The blue door opened and a jovial and intoxicated _caballero_ appeared.

“Don Martin Amador? But, yes. I am Don Martin Amador. You come from Don Justino?” He smiled indulgently. His most _estimable primo_. What a pity there were no more cattle to sell.

Raquel was aghast. He had no cattle to sell? She put the question incredulously. “But I came only because I was assured by Don Justino that you were waiting here for the purchaser he would send.”

“_Si, si._ Yes, yes.” The _comprador_ he had sent had arrived three days before and it was already two days now since the cattle, one thousand head, had been driven away, down to the railroad. One could see for oneself the corrals were empty.

“_El Americano_ who bought them, Don Señor Meyers, was a most estimable gentleman, and he had the most estimable whiskey.”

There was no doubt about it. Her father’s enemy had been there first. He had beaten her. He couldn’t have been told about the cattle by Esquibal this time. It must have been by Don Justino himself, in whom she had always believed.

At her evident distress Don Martin felt at once most sympathetic. If they would but wait till his son returned from El Paso, where he had accompanied Don Señor Meyers with the cattle, in order to collect the balance of the money and deposit it in his bank there, his son would escort them to a large _rancho_ to the south where there were hundreds--thousands of head of fine cattle.

“When will that be?” Raquel caught at a ray of hope.

A week, maybe two. Don Martin was comfortably soothing, stretched out again in his chair, with a whiskey at his elbow. One knew how it was with a young man, getting to the city from this so dry _rancho_. Things to drink, and see, and beautiful ladies.

Georgie rolled his eyes lugubriously, and heaved an eloquent groan.

But Raquel was thinking rapidly. Here they were. Why go back empty handed, if there were other cattle that she could get?

Could not Don Martin direct them himself to the _rancho_ of which he spoke? Their time was limited; they had expected to be back in the city in not more than ten days. Considering that they had had Don Justino’s word of honor as to the cattle, and the disappointment----?

“But, yes,” said Don Martin, “myself, I no longer ride. But I can give directions where easily you will find _El Rancho del Desierto_ (the Ranch of the Desert), where one Faustino Mirabal has upwards of two thousand head of very good cattle.” Twenty leagues from that place, it was. They could not miss it

“Very well, then,” Raquel decided at once.

It occurred to Don Martin to offer his callers some refreshment. He suddenly bellowed forth, and finally from the rear of the casa appeared a very ancient old woman who set about laying a table. A boy came to water their horses and turn them into a corral.

After they had eaten and the disappointment had worn off a bit, Raquel’s spirits rose again. She would not return without cattle. It might take a little longer than she had expected, but she couldn’t be hindered as easily as that. And so she took careful directions--from Don Martin, from the old servant, from the boy.

Again they were in the saddle--steady lope and trot and walk and lope, across burning deserts, cactus covered, with mirages unfolding on the flats before them.

Sundown brought them to a rambling hacienda, where curious, tousled heads and frightened faces peered from a dirty doorway. An old man slept on his haunches against the wall. There was a well in the courtyard, and a pretty girl of eighteen or so brought a brimming _olla_ of cool water. She offered it to the handsome young Señor, first, blushing and casting down her eyes. Such young _caballeros_ did not step often into their desert courtyard.

“_El rancho de Faustino Mirabal?_” But Señores, this was it. Faustino--he was not there. The cattle? They were scattered on the desert and yonder in those eastern foothills. It would take many, many days, many _vaqueros_ for a rodeo.

What a pity! But the young sir could easily find all the cattle in the world near Nacozari. _El Rancho Escondido_, the Hidden Ranch, was wealthy, protected, and lay in the hills where there was much pasture.

Raquel had tightened her belt for action. She had no thought of turning back now. El Rancho Escondido or some other _rancho_, it would be.

“We’ll ride all night, Georgie, after the horses have rested,” she decided. “It’s easier riding in the cool of the night than sleeping on the hot sand, after a day in the sun, and when we stop for breakfast we can rest till afternoon, then push on to Nacozari.”

She turned to uncinch the pinto. The Mexican Señorita came close to her.

“_Oiga_, Señorito Raquel,” she breathed in a low voice, “listen, young sir, Raquel; do not ride by night; do not ride by the road. Stay here--in the court yard you may rest, and at dawn I will direct you by a short cut through the hills to Nacozari. You will be more rested and it will save time,” she added persuasively, “and----” she hesitated, but at an encouraging smile from Raquel added rapidly, “_soldados_, young Señores, soldiers; a new army of Mexico forms and, if you do not avoid their path, you will of a certainty be compelled to go with the soldiers who gather secretly between here and Nacozari.

“By tomorrow they will be further south and east,” she added as Raquel and Georgie remained silent, momentarily stunned and uncertain what to do or say, “and the way will be clear again.” She stopped and looked dramatically about, although Raquel and Georgie would have been willing to testify there was no one within twenty miles. Then she closed her lips with an effort and seemed alarmed that she had said so much.

“_Muy bien_, Señorita; very good then,” Raquel answered, making up her mind at once. “If you will be so kind, we will stop here and leave early in the morning for Nacozari. We have food in our saddle bags, so do not let us trouble you.”

But the girl brought a snowy cloth of drawn work, spread it upon a soap box by the well, and gave them hot frijole beans, and tortillas; and they in return gave the dirty black-eyed little children some dried figs and dates from their supplies.

Dreamless sleep came to them on their folded ponchos; under Raquel’s head her money belt; above, the brilliant stars of those clear skies. At dawn the Mexican girl knelt, shaking them, while the ragged little children and the old man still slept. “Drink, and take these tortillas.” She pressed the thin corn cakes upon them. “I will go with you as far as I can to point the way.”

She led a fuzzy little burro out of a windowless room that opened on the courtyard, and the three went off towards a hill to the south. An hour later they parted, the girl’s directions pointing their route through a pass southward.

Looking backward, it all seemed like a dream to Raquel. It had been a gay ride down to Nacozari that she and Georgie had undertaken that day, through the same kind of country they had grown up in--hundreds of miles of it! Only this was hotter. Then suddenly bursting into Nacozari, the little Mexican town so like a motion picture setting--green plaza, statue in the center, the deep galleried hotel covered with a profusion of scarlet roses. Supper, and cool white beds in cool white rooms, after a chat on the veranda in the dark with some Mexicans lounging there.

“You seek the cattle _ranchos_?” queried a mine foreman of communicative disposition. (No one else had seemed to know anything about anything.) “A bad time.” Raquel had become used to this attitude. People were constitutionally discouraging down here, it seemed.

“They’re mostly run off into the hills,” continued the foreman, “but there is fine country over there, southeast, and at El Rancho Escondido the old Don Señon Torreon still has more cattle than he can count. _Si, Señor._”

For a slight consideration he himself might even ride so far with the young Señores; did they have any American cigars? No? A pity. But for two dollars gold he would be happy to tell them exactly how to reach El Escondido--even take them part way.

With the caution of the rider whose saddle is more valuable than his horse, Raquel and Georgie took their saddles and bags up to their rooms. Raquel went over their light equipment, putting everything in shape for the trip next morning. At the bottom of her bag was a bulky little lump which she found was made by two cans of sterno and a tiny can of powdered coffee. Mom’s contribution! Sterno had always seemed wonderful to her. No wood to tote, no fire to lay.

Raquel smiled. Little need of that. She took the three little tins out, then impulsively put them back.

“They came this far. Let them stay.”

It was after dark when they arrived at the hotel and with the faint dawn they left. No one had noticed them. The old Chinaman who shufflingly served them a good and plentiful breakfast, gave never a second glance to the pretty youth and the younger boy who ate so much and paid so promptly. There were plenty of beautiful boy faces in Mexico, soft-eyed, long-lashed.

So no one questioned them, no one detained them. The conscientious American officials of the great mining company at Nacozari never knew that an American girl had passed right under their noses down into a hornet’s nest of banditry and revolution, nor did Raquel suspect the forces that were already drawing in around her and Georgie.

She loved the increasingly tropical look of the country as they trotted and loped, and walked and cantered, over palm-covered mesas, through palmetto groves by streamlets shrunken with the heat, until they came at dusk upon the approach to El Rancho Escondido.

It was then that the spell of old Mexico fell upon Raquel, wrapping her in romance. Even Georgie was not indifferent to the charm of the picture before them--crumbling walls laden with purple bougainvillea, with creamy roses, caressed by a mellower moonlight than northern nights know.

And that night as she lay in her balconied bedroom, cool linen sheets inviting rest, Raquel went dreamily over the welcome given them by their host, the courtly Don Nestor Torreon. The fine flavor of Spanish courtesy she knew--it was a possession of peon and prince--but this was an aristocrat, who kept here on this isolated estate the customs and manners of other times. The carven table, laden with ancient, hand-hammered silver; the quiet unobtrusive service. There was a servant to every task, it seemed, a thing to which the sturdy young Americans were unaccustomed.

Although there was decay about El Escondido, disrepair and cobwebs, the linen was spotless, the silver shining, the food delicate and delicious. Don Nestor, his fine old head courteously inclined, listened attentively to Raquel’s statement of her mission.

“I have cattle indeed,” he told them, “I do not even know how many. They are scattered in the hills, out of the way of revolution. For two years we have never rounded them up; they have been branded in lots, as they were found. Some were never branded.

“Discounting losses by theft, banditry, accidents, and then taking away ten per cent, I estimate, Señoritos”--he bowed first toward Raquel and then toward Georgie, who swelled with manliness--“I estimate that I have at least thirty-five thousand head of cattle here in Sonora, bearing the brand of El Rancho Escondido.”

Raquel gasped. What a princely possession! And he owned the range. Tomorrow Esteban, his foreman, would ride out with _vaqueros_ to bring in several hundred head. It would take some time, Don Nestor believed, to get together a thousand. They had better wait a bit there and let them collect as many cattle as possible. He would be glad to sell at their price.

Don Nestor had no family, alas! Wealth was nothing to him. How did they plan to drive the cattle out? He had heard that revolutionists were again gathering in Sonora. He was so isolated, he paid little attention.

“One always hears that, Señor,” Raquel replied laughingly, “yet business in Mexico still goes on. I, too, heard rumors as we rode along, yet all was quiet. I think we can drive straight back through the hills the way we came. We will need _vaqueros_ from here. And my brother here is two men himself.”

It was enchanting to rest in the charming old house next day; to listen to Don Nestor’s tales of the past, of Spanish legend, and Aztec lore, and old Mexican tradition, and to hear the natives strumming the guitar and the violin, from hidden court yard and balcony. It was pleasant to feel the lazy, sweet plentifulness of everything.

And then, that night, after the third day, suddenly there were shots. Don Nestor came trembling up the little flight of stairs that gave upon the court yard, knocking at their doors. He was in nightshirt and cap, a candle in his hand.

“Awake,”--they did not need to--“dress, dress, my dear Señorita. But of course I understood from the beginning you were no man!” he exploded irritably. “_Bandidos_, robbers, revolutionists, already upon us! The infamy! Manuel, the overseer, will ride with you to a refuge in the hills. _Pronto_, Queeck, Señorita!”

And there was a last glimpse of the old man descending through a trap door into a hidden cellar, carrying baskets of family plate, and a chest of some precious treasure. He refused to leave with them. He could not, he said, ride so far anyway.

The hurried flight from the corral on restless, waiting horses--Raquel was never to forget it. Georgie seized his own horse and Manuel was saddling a mount of Don Nestor’s for Raquel, but already she had a blanket over the pinto, the bit in his mouth and her own saddle in place.

They raced through the gate just as a party of marauders rode up to the front of the hacienda and surrounded the place. They rode breathlessly through the night, up into the foothills over a rocky trail. The heaving horses climbed as only a panic-pushed animal can. There was a short pursuit and shooting but Manuel shook it off by cutting sharply upward into the hills over this unfrequented path.

At last a high road following the top of the mesa was reached. The horses stopped short, breathing violently. Georgie pressed close to his sister’s side.

“Raquel.” Unconsciously he spoke in English, although they had agreed always to speak Spanish in Mexico, for policy’s sake. “Don’t worry. I will never leave your side a moment. I’m responsible for you.”

“Sh-h, Georgie. It was I who brought you down here. I should have looked into conditions more.... It will come out all right.

“Manuel, where are we going?”

“To a little _rancho_, Señores, about a mile from here. There we can stay till it is safe to return to El Escondido.”

“What barbarities!” Manuel crossed himself piously. “I fear for the shock to the _padron_.... We’d better travel ahead now.”

“I don’t like him very much,” Georgie said in a low voice.

“Why, Don Nestor trusts him absolutely,” Raquel replied. Now that the shooting had stopped she was seized by a spirit of adventure. Everything always came out all right.

They had reached the deserted house, perched near the edge of a sharp cliff, the height of which could not be seen in the darkness. Manuel motioned them to dismount. He took the horses round to a corral, somewhere in the rear of the house, while Georgie and Raquel went inside.

They chose the larger of the two front rooms, and were about to close and barricade the door behind them, when Manuel returned and quickly stepped inside.

“We’ll sleep here,” Georgie said. There were two cots covered with sheepskin robes, which they could see dimly by starlight. “You can call us if necessary.”

“Don Nestor told me not to leave your sides,” replied Manuel courteously but firmly, “and his orders are never to be disobeyed. I shall lie before the door so that any one who enters must do so over my dead body.” Manuel spread his blanket, and made ready to lie down on the floor.

“And any one who goes out has got to step over your live body, huh?” thought Georgie. Instinctively he drew nearer Raquel. “My brother can protect me, Manuel,” he said craftily. “We don’t want to deprive you of a bed. We’d really feel more comfortable if some one was outside.”

“What is that light over there?” suddenly pointing through the window to a distant hillside, where firelight flared up for a moment, then died down.

Manuel shrugged. “_Quien sabe?_ There are probably sheepmen, _vaqueros_, even bandits, in these hills.” Without troubling to look, he lay down in his blanket.

Raquel and Georgie lay quietly down side by side. They were both wide awake; could never sleep, they thought. And yet, somehow, after their wild ride, the quiet of the house must have had its effect, for soon both brother and sister lost consciousness.

How long a time had passed as she slept Raquel could not have told. She became conscious of some one fumbling about her. Wrapped in that heavy torpor of first sleep, she could not move. Then hands touched her, crept about her waist. The touch brought her instantly fully awake, but an instinct kept her motionless; the hands felt for the pockets of her money belt.

It was all she could do to keep from springing up, but she still feigned heavy sleep. The figure kneeling beside her rose and, silhouetted for a moment against the dim light outside, slipped through the door. Raquel sat up quickly and drew her little automatic from her boot; then she reached for Georgie beside her.

He was not there. Her groping hands could find no boyish figure by her side. Afraid with a fear such as she had never known before Raquel on her hands and knees tremblingly felt over every inch of the dirt floor. Then, crouching, she made towards the door, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, and slipped through.

A mad torture possessed her. What had become of Georgie? Had Manuel hurt him? The night was so dark that only instinct could direct one. Even the stars had gone out. Raquel, hugging the walls of the house, moved slowly around towards the corrals--or where she supposed the corrals must be.

But she had completely circled the squalid little building and was back at the front door without having passed any corral.

“Why didn’t I stay in the room?” she thought. “I’ll get back there, and when that beast Manuel returns I’ll shoot at him, frighten him good, or wing him and tie him up. Then I’ll find Georgie.”

Her left hand crept cautiously to the door jamb. A man’s hard hand closed quietly over it. Raquel shot from the hip. She could kill a striking rattlesnake without raising her arm. The shot must have come as a surprise to that sneaking figure in the darkened room. There was a groan; then silence as Raquel again flattened herself against the outside wall.

A momentary fear that she might have “winged” Georgie was quelled by a clear “coo-ee” coming to her out of the darkness, from back on the hillside--the cattle call in Georgie’s unmistakable treble, with that rising inflection at the end.

He was alive then, and near. She hardly dared move, for the chances were that Manuel was simply lying low. She had aimed for his right shoulder--or where it should have been.

Backing away from that hateful house she retreated through the dark in the direction of Georgie’s voice. About fifty feet back on the hillside she ran into the corral. She heard the sound of horses and gave the chirrup with which she always called the pinto. It was a sign for both Georgie and the horse. She was rewarded by having the spotted pony’s nose laid eagerly in her outstretched hand, while another soft “coo-ee-ee” sounded about thirty feet away.

Kneeling above Georgie’s prostrate body Raquel found him bound hand and foot, and only one skilled in the handling of rope could have loosened the lariat in that darkness.

“Oh, what a sock on the head,” groaned Georgie. “He knocked me out while I was asleep, that coyote of a Manuel. Oh, Rakie, are you all right? Feel and see if the money is in my boots yet. _Gracias a Dios._ We must beat it, Sis.”

“Hush, don’t be a burro!” Raquel scarcely breathed the words as she helped her brother to his feet and towards the corral. On the hillside where they had first noticed a light a flame was now flaring up regularly.

“A signal,” Georgie whispered, close to Raquel’s ear. “Manuel had a small fire here that he put out just before he went back to the house.”

They found their own horses and mounted them. Cautiously Raquel pulled open the corral gate. There was a sudden rush out of the gloom and two men threw themselves simultaneously at the heads of the two horses.

But just as quickly the pinto reared and pawed, then shook himself violently free, while a well directed kick from the toe of Raquel’s boot caught her assailant under the chin, and the two were off in the night, followed by shouts and several shots.

Then all was still except for the thudding hoofs of their own horses. They were given their heads, Georgie’s pony in the lead.

“They’ll be making back for El Escondido,” thought Raquel, as they had headed in that direction, it seemed. But a few moments in the dark convinced her that she was hopelessly confused.

The animals slowed up at last and began a careful descent. It was not very steep but it required careful going, in the pinto’s estimation.

The sky was growing lighter. Suddenly they could see all about them. They had descended into a deep canyon through which ran a clear stream in a sandy bed. The canyon was filled with vegetation--palmetto, scrub oak and the brilliant blossoms of the bird of paradise tree. The horses did not offer to stop until they had reached the stream bed in the bottom of the canyon, out of sight of any one from above.

They dismounted and drank with the horses, which considerately took a little pool down stream. Georgie looked dazed, and pallid under his deep tan.

“Poor Georgie dear,” choked Raquel in swift anxiety. “Tell me, what happened? You look as if you didn’t feel well, dear.”

“He knocked me out, Raquel, while I was asleep. First I knew, I found myself on the hillside all tied up like a calf for the branding, my head splitting--feel this lump--and a bad taste in my mouth. I was scared stiff, knew something was up, and laid low waiting to see what would happen.

“A couple of fellows came up to the corral. Manuel spoke with them. I couldn’t catch it all. But ‘_Americanos_, ransom, money belt, and _muchacha_,’ all came in. Then Manuel went back to the house and I passed out again.

“Gee, Rakie, I was scared for you!” Tears came into the eyes of Raquel’s staunch protector. “Then he came back and went over me and didn’t find any money belt at all. I s’pose he had already looked and found you didn’t have the money.

“A boy who had waited for him at the corral came up and they talked. He told the boy that you were a girl, and therefore more valuable, and he was going to keep you there himself. He said he wouldn’t hand you over without better terms.

“Oh, snakes, Rakie, I don’t know how I stood it! And just for a lot of cows----”

“That was pretty bad,” Raquel admitted, “but we’re safe now anyway. Tell me the rest.”

“So then Manuel went back. I heard your automatic, and yelled without waiting. I had to know if it was you, and to let you know I was there all right.”

Georgie was tired with his recital and lay back wearily. He wanted only a drink of water, but Raquel took some figs and tortillas from the saddle bags, and ate them while the horses grazed near by. Georgie slept, but Raquel kept anxious watch.

When he woke later in the morning she explained that she wanted to reconnoiter a bit, and would climb afoot up the canyon. Some time later she returned. “We’re lost, Georgie,” was her report. “But I could find the way back to Escondido by just following up the canyon to the source of the stream, I think. Then when we get past that mesa our sense of direction should locate us. It wouldn’t be safe for a few days yet though.”

Georgie’s reply was a light-headed laugh.

“I shot Manuel four times while you were gone,” he said, “and there he comes again.” He pointed wildly over Raquel’s shoulder. She turned involuntarily, but only the cool green of the palms was there. She took Georgie’s feverish head between her hands. The boy was delirious, quite out of his head.

Of that day and the next Raquel can not think even now without distress. She moved farther down the canyon with the horses and her now unconscious Georgie, for she was afraid of being pursued even to this retreat. The place must be known because of the water here. Yet here they must stay. She could not take Georgie out into the blazing sun, away from the only water and shade of which she was sure. She bathed his face and his body in the cool stream, and laid him on a soft sandy place.

On the second day Georgie, quiet and pale, woke to his senses from a long sleep. He felt perfectly all right, he insisted, and was hungry. Raquel had been expecting this, hoping for it. And she had caught a strange little creature like a possum, and had had a stew simmering in her little pan for several hours.

They drank deeply of the spring water, filled their canteens, then ate the remaining figs. They had decided to make a break for Escondido that night. They would have to have food. The little animal she had caught was the only edible thing that Raquel had seen.

The horses were saddled and they rode up the canyon looking eagerly from side to side in an effort to recognize the trail by which they must have come down into this pretty little valley. But a morning’s search discovered no place where it was possible to ascend. Many an easy slope made a promising beginning, only to end against a cliff or a jumble of insurmountable rock. Shortly after noon they came to the canyon’s end. It was a cul-de-sac, closed by insurmountable cliffs, over which leaped the little stream in a lacy waterfall a hundred feet above their heads. It was discouraging. They must ride out then through the other end of the canyon, where the little stream meandered forth into the desert and was swallowed up by the thirsty sands.

And so night found them, these two young adventurers, making their way over a brilliantly moonlit waste--quite alone--lost on a Mexican desert.