Part 18 (1/2)

Jim threw cool water on the wound. ”Is it very bad?” he asked.

”It's sure attracting my attention, Jim.”

”Can I do anything?”

”Yes, next time you're falling around don't use my laigs--they're private. Whar is this place?”

Jim looked up at a window-gap, high in the 'dobe wall, and saw the starlight checkered with iron bars; then listening, he heard a muttering of Spanish talk, and noticed the door of the cell lined out with a glimmer from the guardroom.

”It smells bad, like a trap,” said Curly.

”I wonder,” says Jim, ”what time they feed the animals? I'm starving.”

”My two sides,” says Curly, ”is rubbing together, and I'm sure sorrowful. We done got captured somehow.”

”I remember now. They gave us coffee. They must have been Frontier Guards--so this is La Morita.”

”Why did they gather us in? We didn't spoil any greasers.”

”No, but we fired the gra.s.s.”

”It was not their gra.s.s--we set fire to Arizona.”

”I don't think they mind,” says Jim, ”whose gra.s.s we burned. They've got us, and they won't worry about the details. You see, they've got to make a play at being useful, old chap, or else their Government would get tired and forget to send their wages.”

”What will they do to us?”

”Keep us three days to cool, then find us guilty, and send us down to Fronteras.”

”I remember,” says Curly, ”when I was riding that year for Holy Cross I saw----”

”The little wayside crosses?”

”Yes, everywhere on the Mexican side of the line--the little wooden grave signs by the trail.”

Curly and Jim sat there in the dark, and thought of the wooden crosses.

They understood, but I believe it's up against me to explain for folks who don't know that country. You see, there used to be only two industries in old Mexico, silver mining and stealing, but most of the people made a living by robbing each other. Then the great President Diaz came along, who had been a robber himself. He called up all the robbers he'd known in the way of business, and hired them as a sort of Mounted Rangers and Frontier Guards to wipe out the rest of the thieves.

That made the whole Republic peaceful, but when there were no more robbers to shoot, the Rangers and Guards began to feel monotonous, the country being plumb depleted of game.

Well, thanks to Diaz, Mexico has gone so tame that life ain't really worth living, and the Frontier Guards are scared of being disbanded because they're obsolete. Likewise the Mexican people are so humane that they don't allow capital punishment, and the Guards feel a heap discouraged about what few prisoners they catch. They're fearful pleased if they get a thief who doesn't happen to be their own cousin, most especially if he's a white man, real game and in season. That's why they lash him hands and feet to a horse, trot him off into the desert, and take pot shots at him by way of practice. Afterwards they report him for 'attempted escape.' His relations are allowed to bury him comfortable, and put up a cross to his memory. That is why the trails along the Mexican frontier are all lined with neat little crosses.

”You reckon,” says Curly, ”that we'll have little crosses?”

”It's beastly awkward,” says Jim, ”but we've got to take our medicine.”

”And yet I dunno,” says Curly, thoughtful about those crosses; ”if we get spoilt that way, the United States won't be pleased. You see, there's a reward out for me, and yo're wanted bad, so Uncle Sam will be asking Mexico, and say, 'Why did you shoot my meat?'”

The voices in the guardroom had quit muttering, but now a horseman pulled up at the front door.