章节正文
was with her, and that Lite did not dream of what she
had in her mind to do. At any rate, she watched him
stalk away on his high-heeled riding-boots, and she
thought that his mind was perfectly at ease. (Jean, I
fear, never will understand Lite half as well as Lite
has always understood Jean.)
She caught the next down-town car and went straight
to the information bureau of the Southern Pacific,
established for the convenience of the public and the sanity of
employees who have something to do besides answer foolish
questions.
She found a young man there who was not averse to
talking at length with a young woman who was dressed
trimly in a street suit of the latest fashion, and who had
almost entrancing, soft drawl to her voice and a most
fascinating way of looking at one. This young man
appeared to know a great deal, and to be almost eager
to pass along his wisdom. He knew all about Nogales,
Mexico, for instance, and just what train would next
depart in that general direction, and how much it would
cost, and how long she would have to wait in Tucson for
the once-a-day train to Nogales, and when she might
logically expect to arrive in that squatty little town that
might be said to be really and truly divided against
itself. Here the nice young man became facetious.
"Bible tells us a city divided against itself cannot
stand," he informed Jean quite gratuitously. "Well,
maybe that's straight goods, too. But Nogales is cut
right through at the waist line with the international
boundary line. United States customhouse on one
corner of the street, Mexican customhouse in talking
distance on the other corner. Great place for holdups,
that!" This was a joke, and Jean smiled obligingly.
"First the United States holds you up, and then the
Mexicans. You get it coming and going. Well,
Nogales don't have to stand. It squats. It's adobe
mostly."
Jean was interested, and she did not discourage the
nice young man. She let him say all he could think of
on the subject of Nogales and the Federal troops
stationed there, and on warring Mexico generally. When
she left him, she felt as if she knew a great deal about
the end of her journey. So she smiled and thanked the
nice young man in that soft drawl that lingered pleasantly
in his memory, and went over to another window
and bought a ticket to Nogales. She moved farther
along to another window and secured a Pullman ticket
which gave her lower five in car four for her comfort.
With an impulse of wanting to let her Uncle Carl
know that she was not forgetting her mission, she sent
him this laconic telegram:
Have located Art. Will bring him back with me.
JEAN.
After that, she went home and packed a suit-case and
her six-shooter and belt. She did not, after all, know
just what might happen in Nogales, Mexico, but she
meant to bring back Art Osgood if he were to be found
alive; hence the six-shooter.
That evening she told Muriel that she was going to
run away and have her vacation--her "vacation"
hunting down and capturing a murderer who had taken
refuge in the Mexican army!--and that she would
write when she knew just where she would stop. Then
she went away alone in a taxi to the depot, and started
on her journey with a six-shooter jostling a box of
chocolates in her suit-case, and with her heart almost
light again, now that she was at last following a clue that
promised something at the other end.
It was all just as the nice young man had told her.
Jean arrived in Tucson, and she left on time, on the
once-a-day train to Nogales.
Lite also arrived in Tucson on time, though Jean did
not see him, since he descended from the chair car with
some caution just as she went into the depot. He did
not depart on time as it happened; he was thirsty, and
he went off to find something wetter than water to drink,
and while he was gone the once-a-day train also went
off through the desert. Lite saw the last pair of wheels
it owned go clipping over the switch, and he stood in the
middle of the track and swore. Then he went to the
telegraph office and found out that a freight left for
Nogales in ten minutes. He hunted up the conductor
and did things to his bank roll, and afterwards climbed
into the caboose on the sidetrack. Lite has been so
careful to keep in the background, through all these
chapters, that it seems a shame to tell on him now. But
I am going to say that, little as Jean suspected it, he
had been quite as interested in finding Art Osgood as
had she herself. When he saw her pass through the
gate to the train, in Los Angeles, that was his first
intimation that she was going to Nogales; so he had stayed
in the chair car out of sight. But it just shows how
great minds run in the same channel; and how, without
suspecting one another, these two started at the same
time upon the same quest.
Jean stared out over the barrenness that was not like
the barrenness of Montana, and tried not to think that
perhaps Art Osgood had by this time drifted on into
obscurity. Still, if he had drifted on, surely she could
trace him, since he had been serving on the staff of a
general and should therefore be pretty well known.
What she really hated most to think of was the possibility
that he might have been killed. They did get killed,
sometimes, down there where there was so much fighting
going on all the time.
When the shadows of the giant cactus stretched
mutilated hands across the desert sand, and she believed
that Nogales was near, Jean carried her suit-case to the
cramped dressing-room and took out her six-shooter and
buckled it around her. Then she pulled her coat down
over it with a good deal of twisting and turning before
the dirty mirror to see that it looked all right, and
not in the least as though a perfect lady was packing a
gun.
She went back and dipped fastidious fingers into the
box of chocolates, and settled herself to nibble candy and
wait for what might come. She felt very calm and self-
possessed and sure of herself. Her only fear was that
Art Osgood might have been killed, and his lips closed
for all time. So they rattled away through the barrenness
and drew near to Nogales.
Casa del Sonora, whither she went, was an old, two-
story structure of the truly Spanish type, and it was
kept by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and
a bloated, purplecountenance and the palsy. As much
of him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish;
and Jean, after the first qualm of repulsion, when she
faced him over the hotel register, detected a certain
kindly solicitude in his manner, and was reassured.
So far, everything had run smoothly, like a well-
staged play. Absurdly simple, utterly devoid of any
element of danger, any vexatious obstacle to the
immediate achievement of her purpose! But Jean was not
thrown off her guard because of the smoothness of the
trail.
The trip from Tucson had been terriblytiresome; she
was weary in every fibre, it seemed to her. But for all
that she intended, sometime that evening, to meet Art
Osgood if he were in town. She intended to take him
with her on the train that left the next morning. She
thought it would be a good idea to rest now, and to
proceed deliberately, lest she frustrate all her plans by
over-eagerness.
Perhaps she slept a little while she lay upon the bed
and schooled herself to calmness. A band, somewhere,
playing a pulsing Spanish air, brought her to her feet.
She went to the window and looked out, and saw that
the street lay cool and sunless with the coming of dusk.
From the American customhouse just on the opposite
corner came Lite Avery, stalking leisurely along in his
high-heeled riding-boots. Jean drew back with a little
flutter of the pulse and watched him, wondering how he
came to be in Nogales. She had last seen him boarding
a car that would take him out to the Great Western
Studio; and now, here he was, sauntering across the
street as if he lived here. It was like finding his bed
up in the loft and knowing all at once that he had been
keeping watch all the while, thinking of her welfare and
never giving her the least hint of it. That at least was
understandable. But to her there was something
uncanny about his being here in Nogales. When he was
gone, she stepped out through the open window to the
veranda that ran the whole length of the hotel, and
looked across the street into Mexico.
She was, she decided critically, about fifteen feet
from the boundary line. Just across the street fluttered
the Mexican flag from the Mexican customhouse. A
Mexican guard lounged against the wall, his swarthy
face mask-like in its calm. While she leaned over the
railing and stared curiously at that part of the street
which was another country, from the hills away to the
west, where were camped soldiers,--the American
soldiers,--who prevented the war from slopping over the
line now and then into Arizona, came the clear
notes of a bugle held close-pressed against the lips of a
United States soldier in snug-fitting khaki. The boom
of the sundownsalute followed immediately after. In
the street below her, Mexicans and Americans mingled
amiably and sauntered here and there, killing time during
that bored interval between eating and the evening's
amusement.
Just beyond the Mexican boundary, the door of a
long, adobe cantina was flung open, and a group of men
came out and paused as if they were wondering what
they should do next, and where they should go. Jean
looked them over curiously. Mexicans they were not,
though they had some of the dress which belonged on
that side of the boundary.
Americans they were; one knew by the set of their
shoulders, by the little traits of race which have nothing
to do with complexion or speech.
Jean caught her breath and leaned forward. There
was Art Osgood, standing with his back toward her and
with one palm spread upon his hip in the attitude she
knew so well. If only he would turn! Should she run
down the stairs and go over there and march him across
the line at the muzzle of her revolver? The idea
repelled her, now that she had actually come to the point
of action.
Jean, now that the crisis had arrived, used her
woman's wile, rather than the harsher but perhaps less
had in her mind to do. At any rate, she watched him
stalk away on his high-heeled riding-boots, and she
thought that his mind was perfectly at ease. (Jean, I
fear, never will understand Lite half as well as Lite
has always understood Jean.)
She caught the next down-town car and went straight
to the information bureau of the Southern Pacific,
established for the convenience of the public and the sanity of
employees who have something to do besides answer foolish
questions.
She found a young man there who was not averse to
talking at length with a young woman who was dressed
trimly in a street suit of the latest fashion, and who had
almost entrancing, soft drawl to her voice and a most
fascinating way of looking at one. This young man
appeared to know a great deal, and to be almost eager
to pass along his wisdom. He knew all about Nogales,
Mexico, for instance, and just what train would next
depart in that general direction, and how much it would
cost, and how long she would have to wait in Tucson for
the once-a-day train to Nogales, and when she might
logically expect to arrive in that squatty little town that
might be said to be really and truly divided against
itself. Here the nice young man became facetious.
"Bible tells us a city divided against itself cannot
stand," he informed Jean quite gratuitously. "Well,
maybe that's straight goods, too. But Nogales is cut
right through at the waist line with the international
boundary line. United States customhouse on one
corner of the street, Mexican customhouse in talking
distance on the other corner. Great place for holdups,
that!" This was a joke, and Jean smiled obligingly.
"First the United States holds you up, and then the
Mexicans. You get it coming and going. Well,
Nogales don't have to stand. It squats. It's adobe
mostly."
Jean was interested, and she did not discourage the
nice young man. She let him say all he could think of
on the subject of Nogales and the Federal troops
stationed there, and on warring Mexico generally. When
she left him, she felt as if she knew a great deal about
the end of her journey. So she smiled and thanked the
nice young man in that soft drawl that lingered pleasantly
in his memory, and went over to another window
and bought a ticket to Nogales. She moved farther
along to another window and secured a Pullman ticket
which gave her lower five in car four for her comfort.
With an impulse of wanting to let her Uncle Carl
know that she was not forgetting her mission, she sent
him this laconic telegram:
Have located Art. Will bring him back with me.
JEAN.
After that, she went home and packed a suit-case and
her six-shooter and belt. She did not, after all, know
just what might happen in Nogales, Mexico, but she
meant to bring back Art Osgood if he were to be found
alive; hence the six-shooter.
That evening she told Muriel that she was going to
run away and have her vacation--her "vacation"
hunting down and capturing a murderer who had taken
refuge in the Mexican army!--and that she would
write when she knew just where she would stop. Then
she went away alone in a taxi to the depot, and started
on her journey with a six-shooter jostling a box of
chocolates in her suit-case, and with her heart almost
light again, now that she was at last following a clue that
promised something at the other end.
It was all just as the nice young man had told her.
Jean arrived in Tucson, and she left on time, on the
once-a-day train to Nogales.
Lite also arrived in Tucson on time, though Jean did
not see him, since he descended from the chair car with
some caution just as she went into the depot. He did
not depart on time as it happened; he was thirsty, and
he went off to find something wetter than water to drink,
and while he was gone the once-a-day train also went
off through the desert. Lite saw the last pair of wheels
it owned go clipping over the switch, and he stood in the
middle of the track and swore. Then he went to the
telegraph office and found out that a freight left for
Nogales in ten minutes. He hunted up the conductor
and did things to his bank roll, and afterwards climbed
into the caboose on the sidetrack. Lite has been so
careful to keep in the background, through all these
chapters, that it seems a shame to tell on him now. But
I am going to say that, little as Jean suspected it, he
had been quite as interested in finding Art Osgood as
had she herself. When he saw her pass through the
gate to the train, in Los Angeles, that was his first
intimation that she was going to Nogales; so he had stayed
in the chair car out of sight. But it just shows how
great minds run in the same channel; and how, without
suspecting one another, these two started at the same
time upon the same quest.
Jean stared out over the barrenness that was not like
the barrenness of Montana, and tried not to think that
perhaps Art Osgood had by this time drifted on into
obscurity. Still, if he had drifted on, surely she could
trace him, since he had been serving on the staff of a
general and should therefore be pretty well known.
What she really hated most to think of was the possibility
that he might have been killed. They did get killed,
sometimes, down there where there was so much fighting
going on all the time.
When the shadows of the giant cactus stretched
mutilated hands across the desert sand, and she believed
that Nogales was near, Jean carried her suit-case to the
cramped dressing-room and took out her six-shooter and
buckled it around her. Then she pulled her coat down
over it with a good deal of twisting and turning before
the dirty mirror to see that it looked all right, and
not in the least as though a perfect lady was packing a
gun.
She went back and dipped fastidious fingers into the
box of chocolates, and settled herself to nibble candy and
wait for what might come. She felt very calm and self-
possessed and sure of herself. Her only fear was that
Art Osgood might have been killed, and his lips closed
for all time. So they rattled away through the barrenness
and drew near to Nogales.
Casa del Sonora, whither she went, was an old, two-
story structure of the truly Spanish type, and it was
kept by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and
a bloated, purplecountenance and the palsy. As much
of him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish;
and Jean, after the first qualm of repulsion, when she
faced him over the hotel register, detected a certain
kindly solicitude in his manner, and was reassured.
So far, everything had run smoothly, like a well-
staged play. Absurdly simple, utterly devoid of any
element of danger, any vexatious obstacle to the
immediate achievement of her purpose! But Jean was not
thrown off her guard because of the smoothness of the
trail.
The trip from Tucson had been terriblytiresome; she
was weary in every fibre, it seemed to her. But for all
that she intended, sometime that evening, to meet Art
Osgood if he were in town. She intended to take him
with her on the train that left the next morning. She
thought it would be a good idea to rest now, and to
proceed deliberately, lest she frustrate all her plans by
over-eagerness.
Perhaps she slept a little while she lay upon the bed
and schooled herself to calmness. A band, somewhere,
playing a pulsing Spanish air, brought her to her feet.
She went to the window and looked out, and saw that
the street lay cool and sunless with the coming of dusk.
From the American customhouse just on the opposite
corner came Lite Avery, stalking leisurely along in his
high-heeled riding-boots. Jean drew back with a little
flutter of the pulse and watched him, wondering how he
came to be in Nogales. She had last seen him boarding
a car that would take him out to the Great Western
Studio; and now, here he was, sauntering across the
street as if he lived here. It was like finding his bed
up in the loft and knowing all at once that he had been
keeping watch all the while, thinking of her welfare and
never giving her the least hint of it. That at least was
understandable. But to her there was something
uncanny about his being here in Nogales. When he was
gone, she stepped out through the open window to the
veranda that ran the whole length of the hotel, and
looked across the street into Mexico.
She was, she decided critically, about fifteen feet
from the boundary line. Just across the street fluttered
the Mexican flag from the Mexican customhouse. A
Mexican guard lounged against the wall, his swarthy
face mask-like in its calm. While she leaned over the
railing and stared curiously at that part of the street
which was another country, from the hills away to the
west, where were camped soldiers,--the American
soldiers,--who prevented the war from slopping over the
line now and then into Arizona, came the clear
notes of a bugle held close-pressed against the lips of a
United States soldier in snug-fitting khaki. The boom
of the sundownsalute followed immediately after. In
the street below her, Mexicans and Americans mingled
amiably and sauntered here and there, killing time during
that bored interval between eating and the evening's
amusement.
Just beyond the Mexican boundary, the door of a
long, adobe cantina was flung open, and a group of men
came out and paused as if they were wondering what
they should do next, and where they should go. Jean
looked them over curiously. Mexicans they were not,
though they had some of the dress which belonged on
that side of the boundary.
Americans they were; one knew by the set of their
shoulders, by the little traits of race which have nothing
to do with complexion or speech.
Jean caught her breath and leaned forward. There
was Art Osgood, standing with his back toward her and
with one palm spread upon his hip in the attitude she
knew so well. If only he would turn! Should she run
down the stairs and go over there and march him across
the line at the muzzle of her revolver? The idea
repelled her, now that she had actually come to the point
of action.
Jean, now that the crisis had arrived, used her
woman's wile, rather than the harsher but perhaps less
- bureau [´bjuərəu]
n.局；编辑部；事务所 (初中英语单词) - wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
- instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
- mexican [´meksikən] n.&a.墨西哥人(语)的 (初中英语单词)
- discourage [dis´kʌridʒ] vt.使泄气，使沮丧 (初中英语单词)
- federal [´fedərəl] a.联邦的，联邦制的 (初中英语单词)
- mexico [´meksikəu] n.墨西哥 (初中英语单词)
- impulse [´impʌls] n.推动(力)；冲动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- mission [´miʃən] n.代表团；使馆vt.派遣 (初中英语单词)
- freight [freit] n.运货 vt.运送；充满 (初中英语单词)
- background [´bækgraund] n.背景；经历；幕后 (初中英语单词)
- channel [´tʃænəl] n.海峡；航道；途径 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- structure [´strʌktʃə] n.结构，构造；组织 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- countenance [´kauntinəns] n.面部表情；脸色；面容 (初中英语单词)
- register [´redʒistə] n.&v.登记簿 (初中英语单词)
- achievement [ə´tʃi:vmənt] n.完成；成就，成绩 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- sometime [´sʌmtaim] ad.曾经 a.从前的 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- welfare [´welfeə] n.福利(事业) (初中英语单词)
- boundary [´baundəri] n.界线，边界 (初中英语单词)
- curiously [´kjuəriəsli] ad.好奇地；稀奇古怪地 (初中英语单词)
- salute [sə´lu:t] n.&v.招呼；行礼；敬礼 (初中英语单词)
- interval [´intəvəl] n.间隙；(工间)休息 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- convenience [kən´vi:niəns] n.方便；适当的机会 (高中英语单词)
- murderer [´mə:dərə] n.杀人犯，凶手 (高中英语单词)
- caution [´kɔ:ʃən] n.&vt.小心；告诫；警告 (高中英语单词)
- switch [switʃ] n.开关 v.转换 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- smoothly [´smu:ðli] ad.光滑地；顺利地 (高中英语单词)
- obstacle [´ɔbstəkl] n.障碍(物)；妨碍 (高中英语单词)
- deliberately [di´libərətli] ad.故意地；慎重地 (高中英语单词)
- frustrate [frʌ´streit] vt.挫败；破坏 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- arizona [,æri´zəunə] n.亚利桑那(州) (高中英语单词)
- complexion [kəm´plekʃən] n.肤色；情况；局面 (高中英语单词)
- crisis [´kraisis] n.转折点；危机 (高中英语单词)
- montana [mɔn´tænə] n.蒙大拿 (英语四级单词)
- nibble [´nibəl] v.啃 n.轻咬，啃 (英语四级单词)
- tiresome [´taiəsəm] a.令人厌倦的；讨厌的 (英语四级单词)
- leisurely [´leʒəli] a.从容地，慢慢地 (英语四级单词)
- muzzle [´mʌzəl] n.枪口，炮口 (英语四级单词)
- revolver [ri´vɔlvə] n.左轮手枪；旋转者 (英语四级单词)
- averse [ə´və:s] a.反对的，不乐意的 (英语六级单词)
- wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)
- devoid [di´vɔid] a.无...的，缺...的 (英语六级单词)
- calmness [´kɑ:mnis] n.平静；安静 (英语六级单词)
- sundown [´sʌndaun] n.日落 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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