Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1914-09-04
CHAPTER v.

The |jour0ey to Fortuna Is a Scant
nifty miles by measure, but Wlthl'
these eight kilometers there Is a lapse
Of centuries In standards, As Bud ana
. De Lancey rode out Of battle-scarrea
Aqua Negra they Travelled a good ROAD
well worn BY the Mexican ~Wood-Was
ons that hauled in mesquit from the
hills. Then, as they left the town ana
the wood roads scattered, the highway
changed by degrees to a broad iran,
dug deep by the feet Of pack-animal5
and marked but lightly with wheels IL
followed along the railroad, cutting
over hills and down through gulches,
and by evening they we're in the heart
of Old Mexico,
Here were men In sandals and WON
an barefoot: chickens tied up by the
legs outside Of brush %jacales; long
nosed hogs. grunting lereely as they
skirmished for food; and half-naked
children, staring like startled rabbits
al the strangers.
Inc SlnbIl VI SuIlIt ui' 30 "''
ing coffee was In the air an they drew
into town for the night, and their
room was an adobe chamber with tie
do0r and iron bars across the WIZ
dows. Riding south the next day they
met vaQueros, mounted on Wiry mus
bangs. who saluted them gravely, tax
ing no shame for their primitive wood
en- eaddletrees and pommels as broad
as soup-platcs.
As they left the broad plain and
clambered up over the back of a noun
tain they passed Indian houses, brush
built and matched with long, coarse
grasses, and by the fires the women
ground corn on stone metates as their
ancestors had done before the fall.
For in Mexico there are two peoples,
the Spaniards and the natives. and the
Indians still remember the days when
they were free,
1t was through such a land that Phil
and Hooker rode on their gallant
ponies, leading a pack-animal well
loaded with supplies from the north,
and as the people gazed from their
miserable novels and saw their outfit
they wondered at their wealth.
But II they were moved to envy, the
bulk of q heavy pistol, showing through
the swell of each coat, discouraged
them from going farther; and the cold,
searching look Of the tall cowboy as
he ambled past stayed in their mem
DRY long after the pleasant "Adios''
OF De Lancey had been forgotten,
Americans were scarce in those
days, and what few came by were rid
ing to the north. How bold, then, must
this big man be who rode in front
and certainly hS had some great re-
ward before him to risk such a horse
among the revoltosos, SO reasoned
the supplemented natives Of the noun
tains, gazing in admiration at Copper
Bottom, and for that look in their eyes
Bud returned his f%orbidding stare,
There is something about a good
horse that fascinates the average Mex,
ican-perhaps because they breed the
finest themselves and are in a position
to ~judge-but Hooker had developed &
romantic attachment for his trim little
chestnut mount and he resented theil
wide-eyed gapings as a lover resent!
glances at his lady. This, and u frontie,
education, rendered him short-spokel
and gruff with the %paisanos and it wa
left to the cavalier De Lancey to d,
the courtesies Of the road.
AS the second day wore on the
dipped down into a rocky canyon. wit
huge cliffs Of red and yellow sandston
glowing In the slanting un, and 500
they broke out into a narrow vale!
well wooded with syCamores and me.
quits and giant blackberry trees.
The shrill toots of q dummy engin
came suddenly from down below an
. mantle OF black smoke rose MAZE
ucally against the sky-then, at a tur
Of the trail, they topped the last hi
and Fortuna lay before them.
In that one moment they were s,
back again fifty miles-clear BAG
across the line-for Fortuna WI
American. from the power-house
the creek bank to the mammoth co
contractor on the hill.
All the buildings were Of ston
square and uniform. First a centr
plaza, fanked with Offices and war
houses, then behind them barrac'
and lodging houses and trip cottag
In orderly rows; and over across L
canyon doomed the huge bulk of the M
and the concentration with its aeri
tramway and endless row of glidi1
buckets.
Only on the lower hills, where t
rough country rock cropped up IL
nature was at its worst. only there
the real Mckee creep in and assert
self in a crude huddle of half.lndi
huts: the dwellings of the care-free
tives.
We'll, by Jovc!" exclaimed De L;
cey. surveying the scene with an
prsisins eye this doesn't look We