American fiction -- 20th century; Arizona -- Fiction; Western stories
One of the trainmen directed the girls' attention to a green, sloping
mountain rising to a bold, blunt bluff of bare rock; and, calling
it Starvation Peak, he told a story of how Indians had once driven
Spaniards up there and starved them. Bo was intensely interested, and
thereafter she watched more keenly than ever, and always had a question
for a passing trainman. The adobe houses of the Mexicans pleased her,
and, then the train got out into Indian country, where pueblos appeared
near the track and Indians with their bright colors and shaggy wild
mustangs--then she was enraptured.
“But these Indians are peaceful!” she exclaimed once, regretfully.
“Gracious, child! You don't want to see hostile Indians, do you?”
queried Helen.
“I do, you bet,” was the frank rejoinder.
“Well, I'LL bet that I'll be sorry I didn't leave you with mother.”
“Nell--you never will!”
They reached Albuquerque about noon, and this important station, where
they had to change trains, had been the first dreaded anticipation of
the journey. It certainly was a busy place--full of jabbering Mexicans,
stalking, red-faced, wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the
confusion Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness,
with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the other train to
find; but the kindly brakeman who had been attentive to them now helped
them off the train into the other--a service for which Helen was very
grateful.
“Albuquerque's a hard place,” confided the trainman. “Better stay in the
car--and don't hang out the windows.... Good luck to you!”
Only a few passengers were in the car and they were Mexicans at the
forward end. This branch train consisted of one passenger-coach, with a
baggage-car, attached to a string of freight-cars. Helen told herself,
somewhat grimly, that soon she would know surely whether or not her
suspicions of Harve Riggs had warrant. If he was going on to Magdalena
on that day he must go in this coach. Presently Bo, who was not obeying
admonitions, drew her head out of the window. Her eyes were wide in
amaze, her mouth open.
“Nell! I saw that man Riggs!” she whispered. “He's going to get on this
train.”
“Bo, I saw him yesterday,” replied Helen, soberly.
“He's followed you--the--the--”
“Now, Bo, don't get excited,” remonstrated Helen. “We've left home now.
We've got to take things as they come. Never mind if Riggs has followed
me. I'll settle him.”
“Oh! Then you won't speak--have anything to do with him?”
“I won't if I can help it.”
Other passengers boarded the train, dusty, uncouth, ragged men, and
some hard-featured, poorly clad women, marked by toil, and several more
Mexicans. With bustle and loud talk they found their several seats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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