Over the Border: A Novel

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But she made up for the disappointment by busy preparations for his comfort. She packed her own suit-case with socks and clean shirts, then bossed the job while her criadas brushed and curried and sponged him. After tying one of her father’s cravats around his neck she turned him round and round like a mother inspecting a school-boy, finally dismissed him with a gentle pat.

On the Mexican Central, trains were running, as Bull put it, “be how an’ when,” but fortune favored him. Catching a mixed freight and passenger at the burned station that midnight, he camped down on the rear platform to avoid the fetor of unwashed bodies and tobacco smoke exhaled by the mixture of peones, revolutionary soldiers, and fat Mexicancomerciantes that jammed the only first-class car. When he fell asleep he could make out the dim outlines of another form that evolved under the light of the following morning into an American war correspondent.

“’Morning, friend,” he greeted Bull, cordially. “My name is Naylor. Yours? Glad to meet you, Mr. Perrin. Now if you’ll tip this water-bottle for me, I’ll do the same by you, and we can take off at least one layer of dust and cinders.”

The operations placed them at once on terms that would have taken years to establish in civilization’s cultured circles. Before it was over, Bull had learned that his companion was “on a little pasear between revolutionary battles,” and had given, in return, some inkling of his own affairs. The young fellow’s lithe, spare figure, clean face, fearless gray eyes, impressed him strongly, and while the train ambled along through the scrubby desert of sand and cactus toward Juarez, he eyed and estimated and measured him with a care that attracted, at last, the other’s attention.

“Hey!” he demanded. “Is my nose out of plumb, or what?”

Bull warded off offense with the truth. “I happened to be looking for a man about your size. Any chance of your changing your job?”

“That depends.” The correspondent answered, breezily, but with caution. “Without being what you could call wedded to this sandy, thirsty, cutthroat business of Mexican revolutions, I like it better than anything else in sight. But what’s your lay? Ranching?” He repeated it after Bull. “In central Chihuahua? Forget it, friend.”

Bull eyed him wistfully. He fitted so closely to specifications. Finally, in desperation, he opened his simple heart; was explaining his quest when the young fellow burst out laughing.

“I beg your pardon.” He raised a protesting hand against Bull’s black glower, then went on with sympathetic seriousness: “But you’ll have to admit that one doesn’t see a man of your build every day in this matrimonial business. So there’s a damsel in distress, hey? That alters the case. If it wasn’t for a little girl up in San Francisco that I expect to marry some day when I become very rich and famous, I’d try and help you out, for I know just how you feel. It would be a damned shame to have her throw herself away on a Mexican. But you’ve laid yourself out some job. Not that you won’t be able to find men, good-looking chaps at that. But to get the right one calls for some picking and choosing. But I tell you what I will do – I shall be up for a week and I’d love to give you a hand.”

“Sure you kedn’t tackle it yourself?”

The young fellow denied the wistful appeal. “Hombre! a million wouldn’t release my girl’s mortgage.”

With a regretful sigh Bull struck hands on the compact. While they were talking the train had ambled through the brown adobe skirts of Juarez, the squalid Mexican town across the Rio Grande, whence they were presently shot by automobile over the international bridge into the spacious bosom of El Paso’s largest hotel. Bull had calculated to go out, at once, on his search, but while they sat at breakfast there descended upon them a host of reporters and correspondents, ravenous for news and aching to dispense hospitality.

“Might as well put it off till to-morrow, Diogenes.” His friend had already named Bull after the person who had such a deuce of a time hunting an honest man among the grafters and ward heelers of ancient Greece. “We’ll devote to-day to the irrigation of our desiccated systems, then go to it mañana like hungry dogs. But safety first! Take a ten out of your wad and give the rest to the clerk.”

Instead of one day, however, three passed during which Bull’s huge bulk upreared alongside a hundred bars. In all that time he never went to bed, for, intensified by long abstinence, the outbreak proved unusually virulent. Generally the conclusion of his debauches found him broke. But, thanks to the correspondent’s prevision, he awoke on the fourth morning, in bed at the hotel, with the bulk of his money still in the office safe. While he was draining the water-jug according to time-honored precedents, his friend appeared in the doorway of the adjoining room. His own head was swathed in a wet towel that almost hid his rueful grin.

“One never knows what one is starting. You certainly went the limit, Diogenes. Are you quite sure you’re through?”

Bull nodded and put down the jug with a satisfied sigh. “It’s a bit of a strain, this fathering an’ mothering a lone girl, a feller’s gotter keep so straight.” He added, apologetically, “I was jest plumb ripe for a bust, but I reckon this orter hold me for another three months.”

“Very well, then, let’s get down to work. At intervals, while I could still see, I kept one eye open for possibles. But it’s like looking for gold or diamonds; the supply doesn’t touch the demand. The few prospects all proved to have attachments in the shape of sweetheart or wife. Good ones, I suppose, are so rare that the girls grab them at sight like marked-down waists on a bargain-counter.”

After two days of vain search through the plazas and parks, hotel lobbies, streets, and bars of El Paso, Bull was almost driven to the same conclusion. Short men, tall men, thin men, broad men; some that were ugly, others handsome; well and ill clad from all walks of life – passed under his observation. The few he trailed were either engulfed within the sacred precincts of some bank or met at the doors of suburban bungalows and there warmly kissed by young and pretty wives. Without fulfilling the specifications called for in the potential husband, it would have been difficult enough to have enlisted an ordinary ranch hand for service across the line. At the close of the second day Bull reported as much to the correspondent when they met in the hotel lobby.

“Guess I’ll have to give it up.”

“Now if that was only free.” The other bowed, just then, to a young man who had just walked in from the street. “Look at him! Five-eleven in his socks, hazel eyes, brown hair, good strong jaw, flat shoulders and flanks, deep chest; walks the earth like he owned it. Some dresser, too. That mixed plaid cost a hundred at his New York tailor’s.”

“Some banker’s son, I’ll bet you,” Bull grumbled.

“That or better. I had a little chat with him this morning. A ’varsity man by his accent and manner. Seemed to know the Mexican situation down to the ground from the Wall Street end, so papa’s probably a broker. Holy snakes! Look at that! Neat work! Neat work!”

Walking up to the counter, the young man had held out his hand – evidently for the key of his room – while his indifferent gaze traveled around the lobby. The clerk, who departed in no wise from the casual specifications of his supercilious breed, glanced at the hand contemptuously. Turning, the young man spoke. Then as, without glancing up, the clerk answered, he snatched, hauled that superior person across the counter, and slammed him down hard on the floor. Next, as they came on, he felled one large door porter and three oversized bell-boys who had answered the clerk’s yell. This done, he waited, expectantly, quietly surveying the wreck, the hazel eye admired by Naylor transmuted into hard steel flecked with dots of brown light.

Jaw, eyes, pose, all said, “Next!” But the “wreck” was complete. The oversized bell-boys ran off to answer imaginary calls. An automobile party at the door called for the porter’s attention. Deserted, the clerk swiftly retreated behind his counter, behind which, from a safe distance, he issued defiant mutterings. With a slight nod that expressed comprehension and satisfaction, Hazel-Eyes sauntered across the lobby out into the street.

All had passed in the time required for the correspondent to reach the desk. He was back again in five seconds. “He’s broke – owes two weeks’ room rent. Clerk told him to get out; hence the scrap. Diogenes, we’re in luck! Venus and Cupid are in the ascendant. He’s our meat.”

Grabbing Bull’s arm, he hustled him outside, where they spied the quarry turning up a cross-street that led to the plaza. When he finally settled down on an empty bench, the correspondent nudged Bull in the ribs.

“Look at them!” He indicated the hundreds of men idling on the benches or sprawled out on the turf. “Last refuge of the broke, home of the out-of-works. That settles it. Bet you he hasn’t the price of a meal. But, say! he’s plucky. The beggar is actually smiling.”

From the way in which the young fellow’s glance wandered around the assembled out-of-works, it was easy to see that he rather enjoyed the novel situation. When Bull had noted and commented on the fact, the correspondent went on:

“Now, Diogenes, we must proceed with due regard for the traditions. When grand dukes, princes, and caliphs in disguise befriend some worthy person, they invariably begin by testing his honesty – see Arabian Nights and other authorities. Split a couple of tens off your wad and drop them as you stroll past him. I’ll stay here and watch lest he be found wanting.”

Bull managed it, too, quite cleverly, scraping the bills out of his pocket along with his tobacco-pouch. Watching closely, the correspondent saw the young fellow look, pick them up, then run and tap Bull’s shoulder. Leaning back, he shook with silent laughter.

“And they say romance is dead,” his thought ran. “Dead! while this big, black giant stalks around like a knight of old seeking a perfect husband for a girl he’s known only a few weeks. Diogenes, my friend, Don Quixote had nothing on you. Of all the lovely, fine pieces of idiocy that ever helped to raise us out of the muck of commercialism, this is the very finest. And wouldn’t it be queer if it worked? It’s almost too good to be true, and yet – a girl that can move a man to do things like that must be remarkably worth while. Quien sabe? Perhaps it will end like all true romances, with a happy marriage.”

Till the two settled down side by side on a bench, the correspondent watched. Then with a satisfied nod he rose and walked out of Bull’s life in the same casual way he had entered it; to return once more, however, at a critical juncture, many months later.

Thus left to his own devices, Bull carried on the campaign with diplomacy quite foreign to his Goliath makeup. From thanks and casual observations anent the weather, he led by gradual stages to labor conditions as exemplified by the surrounding out-of-works. His simulated astonishment when the young fellow claimed community with them was remarkably well done.

“No-o-o!” he protested.

“Sure!” the other nodded. “I was turned out of my hotel only half an hour ago.”

Quite in the fashion of grand dukes and caliphs, Bull still pretended doubt. “Broke, mebbe, but you don’t belong with these. What was it? Wine, weemen, or cyards?”

The young fellow grinned a little ruefully. “A woman, yes, but not in the usual way. What would you think if I told you – But, pshaw! what’s the use? It would sound to you just like any other out-of-work fairy-tale. Well, it may amuse you. If you really want to know, I’m here, busted and broke, because I refused a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gilt-edged securities and real estate.”

“A hundred thousand!” Bull’s financial acquaintance having rarely risen above the sixty-a-month class, he could not repress his surprise.

“There, I told you. Nevertheless, it is true. I am here because I refused a hundred thousand – with a girl attached.”

Bull’s face fell. “I see. Folks wanted you to marry her an’ you refused beca’se you’d already picked one for yourself.”

The young man nodded. “Correct except in one or two particulars. I disliked the girl so much that her money couldn’t tempt me. As for the one I’ll marry, I haven’t picked her yet. But I mean to when I’m taken that way.”

Bull’s face lit up with hope again as, with naïve frankness, the young fellow went into details; told how his father had set his heart on a marriage that would unite the wealth of two families. The girl, an only daughter, was desirable; pretty, accomplished, played, sang, and all that! They had been brought up almost like brother and sister, and there was the hitch!

“For a fellow doesn’t want to marry his sister,” he explained. “I know her so well she hasn’t a surprise in her hand. When I hook up, it will be with a girl that can bowl me over at first sight and keep me guessing forever after. But the Relieving Officer” – he broke off, laughing at Bull’s puzzled look – “that’s my name for my father. He was always coming through when I got in debt at college, hence the title. He’s a good old scout, but obstinate as – as – ”

“ – yourself?” Bull suggested.

“Right-o! Well, you know what happens when the irresistible force hits the immovable obstacle – something busts. That was me. Without even the last check the stern parent presents to the undutiful son in melodrama, I got. Of course the dear old gentleman wouldn’t have me suffer. He supposed I’d presently come home to partake of the fatted calf; and just for fear that I might, I took my last money and bought a ticket West. So here I am, without money and without friends. Add it up and subtract the result – pick and shovel. I see them looming in the future.”

“Oh, shore!” The caliph – that is, Bull – was proceeding very cautiously. “You’ll get a job in some bank.”

“Don’t believe it. You see, I’d just come home from Princeton and had no commercial training. Anyway, I’d rather work in the open, ranching, or something like that. If I had a little capital, I’d buy in. As I haven’t, I’m open for any kind of a job. But there, again, I’ve got no experience further than the fact that I can ride a horse. I’m afraid it’s pick and shovel.”

The abused and hackneyed psychological moment had arrived! The net was spread, the twigs limed, the cage door open! With great artfulness Bull proceeded to shoo the bird inside. He knew of a job – in fact, it was on the same hacienda where he worked himself! Of course it had the disadvantage of being located in Mexico, across the line where nothing was certain but death and “requisitions”! And there was always the chance of a scrap! He, Bull, wouldn’t advise any one to try it that had too strong a grip on this life, for there was no saying just when one might be launched into “Kingdom Come.” But for a man who liked action and would take a fighting chance – so forth and so on.

A disinterested listener would have thought these and kindred inducements were eminently fitted to scare the bird away. If so – Bull did not want him. But, sizing him for a lad of spirit with the romantic outlook of his years, he counted on their appeal. Nor was he mistaken. He had finished telling of Carleton’s death at the hands of the Colorados, and was relating the accidental manner in which he and hiscompañeros had assumed the guardianship of Lee, when the young fellow thrust out his hand.