The Huttig news., 1914-06-27
CHATTER V.

CHAPTER V.
 The journey to Fortuna is a scant fifty miles by me- sure, but within tAese eight kilometers there is a lapse of centuries in standards As Bud and De Lancey rode out of battle-searred Agua Negra they travelled good road. we'll worn by the Mexican wood.wag- ons that hauled in mesquit from the hills. Then, as they left the town and the wood roads scattered, the highway changed by degrees to a broad trail, dug deep by the feet of pack-animals and marked but lightly with wheels. It followed along the railroad, cutting over hi and down through gGaches, and by evening they were in the heart of Old Mexico.
 Here were men in sand Is and wom- en barefoot, chickens tied up by the legs outside of brush jacales: long, nosed hogs, grunting iercely as they skirmished for food; and halfnaked children, staring like startled rabbits at the strangers.
 The smell of garlic and fresh-roast- ing coffee was in the air as they drew into town for the night, and their room 7Se. an adobe chamber with tile 1 floor a,,d iron bars across the yin i dows. RidiHs south the next day they met vaqueros, mounted on wiry mus l tangs, who saluted them gravely k 1 ing no shame for their primitive wood- en saddle-trees and pommels as broad as soup plates
 As they left the broad plain and elambered mp over the back of mouD l tain they passed Indian heuses, brush- l built and thatched 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 ei the natives. and the Indians still remember the days when they wefe free
 It was through such a land that Phil and Hooker rode on Their gallant ponies, leading pack.anmal 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 if they were moved to envy the bulk of 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 ory 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 he had some great re- ward before him to risk such a horse among the revoltosos! So rca asoned the smple-minded natives of the noun tains, gazing in admiration at Copper Bottom, and for that look in their eyes Bud returned his forbidding stare. There is something about a good horse that fasciDates the. average Mex I ican-perhaPs because they breed the finest thems elves and are in position to judge-but Hooker had developed & romantic attachment for his trim little chestnut mount and he resented their wide-eyed gapings as lover resents glances at his lady. This, and frontier education, rendered him shortspokeu and gruff with the paisanos and it was left to the cavalier De Lancey to do the courtesies of the road.
 AS the second day wore on they dipped down into rocky canyon. with huge cliffs of red and yellow sandstone glowing in the slanting sun. and soon | iufo we'll wooded with sycamores and mes- quits and giant hackberry trees.
 The shrill toots of dummy engine came suddenly from down below and mantle of black smoke ref~s majes- ticaliy against the sky-then, at turn of the trail, they topped the last hill and Fortuna lay before them.
 In that one moment they were set back again fifty miles-clear back across the line--for Fortuna was American from the power-house on the creek bank to the mammoth con eentrator on the hill.
 All the buildings were of stone. square and uniform. First central plaza. flanked with offices and ware houses then behind them barracks and lodging houses and trim cottages in orderly rows; and over across the canyon loomed the huge bulk Of the mill and the concentrator with its aerial tramway and endless row of gliding buckets.
 Only on the lower hills. where the rough country rock cropped up and nature was at its worst, only there did the real Mexico creep in and assert it. self in crude huddle of half-fndisn huts; the dwellings of the earc-free na- tiyc=.