Adair MacKenzie was quick to note the change in their mood. “Wells Fargo and Co., Madero 14.” He gave instructions to the chauffeur, and then turned to Nan. “It’s the American Express of this country,” he explained in a tone that indicated that they had no right to call it other than the “American Express”. “We’ll pick up mail there. You see.”
“What have you done to the old man?” Walker Jamieson questioned as he helped Nan out of the car a few minutes later. “Why, Alice,” he continued, assisting her too, “he’s practically putty in her hands.”
“I know,” Alice smiled as she took Nan’s arm and walked along beside her. “It is amazing and I’m almost jealous. I thought that I was the only one in the world that could manage him.” She looked fondly in the direction of Adair MacKenzie who had already passed through the door and was at the counter inside demanding his mail.
“See, what did I tell you?” He asked triumphantly when they all entered together. “There’s a whole bunch of mail here. See.” He held up a truly large package of letters, letters from home for each of the girls. As they all crowded around him, he teased them by delaying the process of handing them out.
“Let’s see, this one looks interesting, mighty interesting.” He lingered over the address. “But the writing isn’t very clear.”
Alice reached for it as though to help him out. He raised his arm high. “No, it’s not for you,” he shook his head at her. “This mailman always delivers his mail to the proper person. Now, stand back all of you, while I look again.”
“This is as bad or worse than it is at school when they distribute mail, isn’t it?” Laura nudged Nan. “But look, isn’t the old duck getting a kick out of it all?”
Nan nodded. There was only one thing that she was really impatient about. She wanted to know now, right away, whether there was any word from Rhoda. She felt as though she couldn’t stand it a moment longer not to know.
“Please, Cousin Adair,” she begged, “is there anything there at all from Rhoda?”
“Yes, father, tell us quickly,” Alice chimed in.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Adair MacKenzie was immediately all contrition. “H-m-m, wait.” He leafed quickly through the pack.
“Yes, there is something,” he admitted at last. “It’s addressed to Nan.” With this he handed a yellow telegram over to her. “Take it easily,” he advised, while they all waited anxiously for Nan to open it. She tore the seal, pulled the message out, dropped it in her nervousness, and then when it was restored to her hands, read it slowly to herself.
At long last she looked up. “It’s—” she caught her breath before she could continue—“all right. Rhoda’s mother is going to get well.” Saying this, she passed the telegram over to Bess and Laura, and then, before she realized at all what was happening, her eyes welled up with tears.
“Why, Nan, darling!” Alice exclaimed, “don’t cry. Everything’s all right now. Come,” she drew from her own purse a pretty white handkerchief and wiped Nan’s tears away, “you’ll have us all in tears.”
Nan took the handkerchief away from her and wiped her own eyes, hard. Then she smiled. “Don’t mind me,” she laughed. “I’m just an old silly. Please, cousin Adair, what’s in the rest of that package.”
“Yes, what’s in it?” Even Adair MacKenzie sounded as though he had lost possession of himself for a moment. Now, he collected himself again and took the party in his hands, as he had had it before. “Too much stalling around here,” he grumbled to no one in particular, and then went on with the distribution of the mail.
The letters from home were fun to get, fun to read, and fun to share. Each one was read and re-read a dozen times by the girl that received it, and then it was passed around and enjoyed by all the others. There were letters from their mothers and fathers and letters from their friends. There was a round robin from their pals at school.
Though all of them had news, this last had the choicest bits.
“Do you know that,” it began, “Professor Krenner and Dr. Beulah Prescott are going to be married before the summer is over?”
“Nan,” Bess stopped Nan who was reading the bit aloud to the others, “is it true? Did I hear you right?”
“I guess you did,” Nan’s eyes looked merry now. She of all the girls had been the only one who knew that this announcement was coming. Beloved by Dr. Beulah and the best student and most wide-awake person that had ever come to Dr. Krenner’s attention, she had been in their confidence before school had closed.
The romance between the Principal of Lakeview and one of its most scholarly instructors had blossomed the summer the two had escorted the present group of girls on their European trip. Professor Krenner joined the party in London, just before the coronation. There he and Dr. Prescott learned of the million and one things they had in common. Nan knew of this, knew too that the wedding was to take place in the chapel at Lakeview just before school opened. Already, she had planned to attend.
Now, she went on with the reading of the round robin. “Do you know,” she continued, “that the old boathouse where we had that grand party on Bess’s twenty-five dollars, is going to be pulled down and a big new one built?
“That the dormitories are being redecorated and that corridor four where we have rooms is going to have all the walls done over and that serapes will look especially nice hanging on them?
“And that, and this is the biggest piece of news of all, Linda Riggs is someplace in Mexico?”
“No!” the exclamation was Bess’s. If it was possible to say that one girl in the room disliked the proud Linda more than the rest, Bess was that girl.
“I hate her. I just hate her.” Bess had said vehemently many times. And well she might, for often in the days that followed the registration of Bess and Nan at Lakeview, Linda had purposely embarrassed and humiliated them. At first, Bess, because she naturally coveted wealth, and Linda was a very wealthy girl, had tried to make friends with “Her Highness” as Laura dubbed Linda. But her efforts always ended disastrously.
Nan, as all those who have followed the fortunes of the young girl know, time and again tried to help Linda. Once or twice she was instrumental in saving her life. But despite this, whenever Linda was in a position to do so, she managed to belittle Nan, to snub her rudely, to make her just as uncomfortable as she possibly could.
So Nan and Bess had particular reasons for disliking the girl who had even been expelled from school for one bit of meanness that caused an explosion which might easily have cost the lives of many of the Lakeview Hall students. Linda, in other words, was cordially hated by most of the students of the fashionable boarding school.
Now, the news that she was in Mexico brought consternation to the group.
“It’s just as I’ve always said,” Bess fumed. “It’s impossible to go anyplace without having her turn up.”
“Probably likes you and just won’t admit it.” Laura could well afford to add fuel to the flame. Linda generally avoided her.
“She doesn’t like me and you know it, Laura Polk,” Bess exclaimed. “Why she had to come down here when there’s all the rest of the world for her to travel in, I don’t know. But you can just be sure of this, no good will come of it.”
“Sh! Bess,” Nan warned as she looked over to one side where Adair MacKenzie, Alice, and Walker Jamieson were deep in consultation.
“I’m sorry, Nan,” Bess lowered her voice, “but I just don’t seem to be able to control myself when that girl comes to mind. She’s caused us so much unhappiness that I can’t stand her.”
“I know,” Nan was genuinely sympathetic, “but don’t you worry, we probably won’t see her at all. Mexico, after all, is a pretty big place.”
“Yes, it has twenty-seven states, besides the Federal District and the Territory of Lower California.” Laura quoted the guidebook glibly.
“Doesn’t make any difference,” Bess said firmly. “If she’s anywhere in the country, there’s no escaping her. We’ll meet her.” She ended positively.
How truly Bess spoke, the crowd was soon to find out, but the circumstances and the far-reaching results must be left to other chapters.
“Well, what’s on the program this morning?” Adair MacKenzie was in a genial mood the day after the telegram had informed the girls that Rhoda’s mother was going to recover.
He had had a good night’s sleep and a generous well-cooked breakfast in the fashionable hotel where he had chosen to take his brood. Though he had complained about the coffee in no uncertain terms, as is the custom of most Americans traveling in foreign countries, the rest of the food had seemed good and now he acted as though he was entirely at the disposal of his guests.
“What do you say, Jamieson?” He turned to the young newspaper man. “Got any ideas?”
“Only those that we talked over at Wells Fargo’s yesterday.” Walker Jamieson assumed a mysterious air.
“Oh, that, that has to wait until the afternoon,” Adair MacKenzie looked mysterious too.
“Then we might just explore the city, take the buses and street cars and find out how the natives get around. We might let the girls get a glimpse of The Cathedral, one of the most important in all of the Americas. It was built over the old Aztec Templo Mayor and it took two and a half centuries to build.”
“Two and a half centuries to build a church!” Laura exclaimed.
“What can you expect?” Adair MacKenzie asked in a tone that indicated he was not the least bit surprised, “of a nation that has ‘mañana’ for its motto?”
Walker Jamieson laughed heartily at this. “Well, maybe you are right,” he admitted, “but I don’t think you’ll find your interpretation in any guidebook. They say merely that the Indians contributed a third of the cost and all the work and that ‘many died each day due to the long hours of unaccustomed strenuous work.’”
“That’s right, they’ll never admit they are wrong,” Adair shook his head as though this fact grieved him deeply. “Never be afraid, you Nan,” he pointed his finger sternly at his young cousin, “to admit you are wrong. Best medicine in the world. If you are wrong say so. It’s good for you.” Adair MacKenzie had a habit of talking thus in circles, agreeing with himself over some great truth. Now he nodded his head with great satisfaction as though he himself made a practice of admitting his mistakes.
Walker looked at Alice. Alice looked at Walker. They both laughed. Both knew that the old man had never in his life admitted that he had made a mistake. Both at this moment thought him charming and lovable.
“Well, shall we leave The Cathedral out then?” Walker Jamieson was always willing to give in in little particulars. “There’s plenty else to see, palaces, parks, markets. Why, there’s a whole new city to explore.”
“Won’t leave anything out,” Adair MacKenzie looked at his watch as he spoke, “but we’ve got to do everything up in a hurry. Haven’t got much time to stay in this city. Got a telegram this morning from the caretaker at the Hacienda. Expects us there within the next couple of days.”
“Oh, daddy,” Alice laughed. “That’s the way you always are. Always wanting to move on just as soon as we arrive at a place.”
“And you,” he twitted, “mañana is always good enough for you. You’re just a lazy beggar. Now, what do you want to do today.”
“Oh, everything, just everything,” Alice looked as though she would like to do it all and do it now. She had that happy faculty that some people have of always having a good time no matter what happens.
Nan had it too. The word “bore” which slips so easily from the tongues of many young people who really shouldn’t know what boredom is, had never crossed her lips. Life seemed too full of adventure, too full of a number of things to do for her to even think of applying it to herself. Linda Riggs might have used the word, but never Nan, and never Alice.
“Well, there’s your answer,” Adair MacKenzie turned to Walker when Alice answered that she wanted to do “just everything.” “It’s a typical woman’s answer. Now, do what you want to with it.”
“O-kay.” Walker Jamieson assumed the responsibility willingly enough. “Now, listen here,” he turned to the girls and assumed a serious air and a stern one that unfortunately didn’t impress them at all, and said, “we’ve got just about four hours in this day to do with as you want to do.”
“Four hours!” Nan exclaimed, “why, how short the days are here! It’s only nine o’clock now, or is Amelia’s watch slow?” She had been looking at Amelia’s wrist as she spoke.
“I said four hours.” Walker repeated, still sternly.
“He said four hours.” Adair MacKenzie was equally stern.
“Then, why don’t you get started,” Alice teased.
“Come on, here. We are.” Walker pretended that he was angry and that Alice’s remark was just the last straw. He took her by the arm and with the others following after, they all left the dining room, walked through the lounge and then out into the morning sunshine.
The four hours flew by. They shopped in the busy Mexican markets, bartered with natives, dressed in brilliantly colored blankets and huge sombreros, bought serapes, beautiful Indian pottery, some opals that were sold by the dozen, handwoven baskets and a million and one little things that Walker declared would fill a trunk.
Nan took her camera along and snapped pictures of everyone, pretty Mexican señoritas selling flowers, little Mexican boys who were boot-blacks, proud of the American slang they had learned in the movies, and whole families complete with shawls, squatting over low fires making tortillas for whomsoever would buy.
She took pictures until in her enthusiasm she forgot herself entirely and asked Adair MacKenzie if he would please hold a little Mexican baby while she photographed it.
As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she realized that she had made a mistake.
What a torrent it brought forth! Adair MacKenzie blustered as he had never blustered before. He would see himself tied and hung before she would ever find him even touching one of those kids. Why, the idea. Did she think he was an embassador of good will, that he was down there to kiss babies and wear serapes to show that he was just one of the people. Did—d—did she think he was—why, what did she think he was? He stuttered in his surprise.
Finally, Nan and Walker and Alice and all the rest broke down in laughter, for Adair MacKenzie was certainly outdoing himself.
With this, he stopped in amazement. And they were laughing at him! “No respect any more at all,” he muttered and then he laughed too.
“You, Walker, you,” he took the remaining bit of his impatience out on that able young man, “you’ve no sense at all in that head of yours. Let the girls get out of hand all the time. Now, I’m going to take charge of the party. Had enough of your nonsense. Come on, you,” he turned to Nan and the rest with this, “there’ll be no more pictures today. We’re going back to the hotel now.”
“And then what?” Alice ventured to ask.
“You’ll see. Just wait. You’ll see. This is my party now.” So, he right-about-faced and went striding from the market with the others following him.
“A bullfight, Bess, we’re going to a bullfight,” Nan exclaimed as she and Bess dressed for the afternoon excursion with Adair MacKenzie.
“Why, Nancy Sherwood, I never in all the world thought you were the bloodthirsty creature that you are,” Bess laughed at her pal.
“Oh, you are just the same, Elizabeth Harley,” Nan returned. “When Cousin Adair told us at the luncheon table what we were going to do this afternoon, you were just as excited as the rest of us.”
“I know it,” Bess confessed. “But I expect to hold my ears and close my eyes through the worst parts. They do say they can be very gory spectacles with blood streaming all over everything.”
“That’s right,” Nan admitted. “It scares me to think of that part, but I want to see it anyway.” As the girls talked, they dressed, combed their hair, and then tidied up the room.
“Ready?” Laura stuck her head through the door and asked. “Amelia and Grace are already downstairs. We better get started, or Grace will be backing down. Really, I think she’s scared to death, but is afraid to admit it. Me, I’m going to love this.”
“Me, too,” Nan admitted. “I can hardly wait. I’ve read about them so often. Remember the lecturer at Lakeview who had all those slides about bullfights in Spain. I’ve wanted to see one ever since then.”
“Yes, Mrs. Cupp was so angry over that. She didn’t think it was the proper sort of thing for young ladies to see. She thought it would coarsen them,” Laura finished primly. “Wait until we get back to Lakeview, will we ever have some tales to tell her that will make her hair stand on end! She’ll have to go to bed for a week to recover.”
“Oh, Laura,” Nan laughed, “you sound as though you’d be brave enough to tell her all about it yourself.”
“Well, if I’m not,” Laura joined in the laughter, “because we aren’t exactly bosom pals, you know, she’ll find out. Nothing escapes her.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Nan agreed as she adjusted her hat in front of the mirror. “Come on, now, I’m ready. Are you, Bess?”
“Just a second.” Bess was rummaging through her purse. “There’s everything here except the thing I want.”
“Looks almost like an over-night bag,” Laura commented as Bess poured the contents out on the dresser.
“What in the world are you looking for?” Nan asked somewhat impatiently. Bess never could find things in her purse because she had a habit of saving everything and never cleaning the pocket-book out.
“Oh, my passport—I mean my visitors’ pass.” Bess really did look worried. “I had it this morning. I know I did.”
“All I can say is,” Laura commented dryly, “if you’ve lost that, you might just as well go out and drown yourself, because if you don’t, Mr. MacKenzie will roar so loud when you tell him that the earth will just open up and swallow us all.”
“I know it.” Bess was almost in tears. She didn’t like to be roared at. She took scoldings harder than anyone else in the crowd, because at home she had always been made to feel that what she did was right.
“Bessie, you’re such a silly,” Nan laughed. “You’ve got the wrong pocket-book. That isn’t the one you had with you this morning. You had the little black one and that’s over there on your trunk. Remember, you put it there when you came in so that you would be sure to know where it was when you wanted it again.”
Bess laughed too now. “Isn’t that just like me, always hunting for something and always finding it just where it ought to be?”
“I do that too,” Laura sympathized as they three left the room. And so does everyone, but Bess had a habit of getting confused and impatient as soon as things went wrong and using all her energy in getting excited. Nan generally remained calm and found things. Laura was calm too and that because she never took anything very seriously. If she couldn’t find one thing, another would do, and so she always went happily on her way.
Bess was thinking of this, as Nan pushed the button for the automatic elevator. “But you couldn’t have substituted anything for the visitors’ pass.” She directed her remark to Laura as though they had been talking over the thing she was thinking about.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Laura laughed. “Or, is it a secret? You know what happens to people in this country who go around talking to themselves? They throw them to the bulls. Now, come on, Bessie,” she finished. “You may be a harum-scarum child, but we love you. Cheer up.”
At this, the elevator jolted and settled to its place on the first floor and the three girls stepped out to find Adair, Alice, Walker Jamieson and the rest all waiting for them.
“Thought you had cold feet, and were backing out.” Walker Jamieson greeted them with this sally as they all walked down the entrance stairs and out to their waiting car.
“Look!” Nan pointed at a street car they were passing.
“At what?” Laura questioned.
“Oh, you were too late,” Nan answered while she adjusted her camera so that it would be ready for her to take pictures when she wanted to. “There was a sign on that car which said, ‘Toreo.’”
“What does that mean?” Grace questioned.
“Bullfight, darling, that’s where you are going now,” Laura answered. “See, there’s the sign that Nan saw again. It’s on the front of that bus that’s stopped across the street. This must be a holiday. Practically everyone seems to have dusted off his best sombrero and come out on the streets.”
“It’s a holiday everyday here.” Adair MacKenzie turned around to join in the conversation. “Saw a calendar of festivals posted in the hotel lobby. No end to it. No wonder the people never get anything done.”
“I saw that too,” Walker Jamieson remarked. “Saw something else posted on a bulletin board that was interesting. It was a warning to everyone to take good care of his visitor’s pass. Right beside it was the announcement of a reward being offered to anyone who could give information as to the whereabouts of one Antonio Mazaro, an American citizen and former aviator, who is suspected of being an accomplice in an international smuggling ring.”
“They must be the smugglers Mr. Nogales told us about at the border,” Nan remarked.
Walker Jamieson said nothing further. The truth, was, however, that he had just an hour before received an assignment from a big New York newspaper to cover certain aspects of this smuggling ring story, and he was already wondering whether or not it was going to be possible for him to go on to the Hacienda as he had planned.
“These Mexicans will never catch anyone, much less a band of American crooks.” Adair MacKenzie looked around again. “Need a couple of good G-men down here, if they’re going to find out anything at all.”
“Think so too,” Walker agreed, “they are sending some down, I understand.”
“You got your nose in the story?” Adair MacKenzie asked abruptly, and everyone looked at Walker, waiting for his answer.
“Oh, always interested in whatever goes on,” Walker answered off-handedly. “You know how it is. See a story breaking, you want to be in on the kill. Just can’t help yourself. Gets in your blood, after you’ve worked on any paper for a while.
“Back four years ago, I went up into northern Canada for a vacation. Chose that spot because I thought it would be far away from newspapers and stories of all kinds. I guess I was feeling rather disgusted with everything and wanted to get away, so when an old newspaper buddy who had struck out a claim for himself asked me to go up and do a little prospecting for gold with him, I jumped at the chance.
“It looked like an ideal set-up. We were to go alone to his cabin which was miles away from civilization and stay there for the summer. We stocked up with plenty of food, some books I had been wanting to read for a long time, and took a radio along.
“I had a book I wanted to write, something I had started and never found time to finish. Oh, it was nothing,” he added as Nan and the rest looked impressed. “All newspaper people think that some day they’ll write a book that will take the world by storm.
“Well, I thought I would finish that, do some prospecting and just have a nice quiet time for myself. The chap I was going up with was a nice sort of fellow, quiet like myself.
“We went by train as far as we could go, and then got an old Indian to paddle us the rest of the way in a canoe. It was nice going. We took it leisurely, stopped and fished along the banks of the river, and camped for three days in a gorgeous spot that seemed as remote from civilization as any place could possibly be.
“Things went along quite perfectly until one night—this was after we had been in the camp for a couple of weeks—there was a radio call ‘Plane carrying doctor and infantile paralysis serum to Canadian outpost in Northwest down. Position approximately’—Oh, I’ve forgotten what it was now, but it was not far from our camp.
“The next morning we were up at daybreak and by the next afternoon we had located the plane. The pilot was dead, but the doctor, though suffering from a broken leg and shock, was still living. After we had fixed him up, we spent the night trying to get the plane’s radio to the point where it would function, so that we could get the news back to civilization.
“But things were so radically wrong with it, that my pal finally decided that he would set out for the nearest outpost, traveling as we had when we came, walking and by canoe. In the meantime, the doctor was fretting and stewing because he couldn’t get to the station that was in such urgent need of medical aid, so partly on this insistence, partly because I’m a stubborn fool when I start out to do anything, I kept tinkering around with the radio.
“Finally, the thing came to life, and we were able to get in touch with the outside world. You know as well as I what happens in such cases. It wasn’t long before I was up to my neck, sending exclusive stories back to my old sheet and then, when another plane came to take the doctor and brought with it a whole flock of reporters, I was swamped with work.
“I grumbled, but I loved it, and when the story died down and I was called back to work on an assignment that I was more than proud to accept I was like a kid with a new toy. Never so glad to get back into harness in my life.
“I feel now, a little the way I did then. Mexico and the land of mañana spelled romance and rest to me in the city room where I do my daily stint. But now I want neither of them. I smell a story.”
With this, he sniffed the air as though he was actually trying to get the direction of the scent. Alice laughed and held her hand on the handle of the door. “Maybe you do,” she said, “but you’re not leaving us today, at least not this minute. Walker Jamieson, we’re headed for a bullfight and you’re going along with us whether you want to or not.”
There was no protest, and Walker was glad afterwards when he pieced the little sections of the plot together that he hadn’t struck out on the trail of the story before that memorable bull-fight.
“And what’s the man with the wheelbarrow doing in the parade?” Nan asked the question of Walker Jamieson.
They were all sitting now in the huge arena, “Plaza de Toros,” the most important bull-fighting ring in all Mexico. The place was packed and Nan thought as she looked out over the people that she had never in her life seen such a gay colorful crowd, nor one in such an excited mood.
They were sitting on the shady side of the ring, “Sombra” it was called, the seats of which cost twice the price of those on the sunny side, or “Sol.”
It was four o’clock exactly and the cuadrilla or parade that precedes every bull-fight had just entered the arena. Everyone was standing up shouting, waving his sombrero, and cheering for his favorite.
“That’s a secret, not to be divulged until later,” Walker answered Nan’s question.
“I didn’t know it would be like this,” Grace, generally so quiet and shy, said. Her face was all alight and she was waving the pillow that had been bought for her to sit on, as were all the rest of the girls and women in the place. Laura was waving hers too, and so were Bess and Nan and Amelia.
Down in the ring below them the parade was marching around. First came a man on a spirited horse that pranced and danced and bowed its head to the ground again and again as the rider circled the ring. Then followed the matadores or bullfighters themselves in brilliant costumes that proclaimed to everyone that they were the heroes of the hour. It was for them that pillows were waved and cheers echoed back and forth across the ring.
“Oh, they’re gorgeous, simply gorgeous,” Nan was carried away with the excitement. “What are they called?” she pointed her finger to a number of men now riding on horseback and directed her question to Walker.
“And look, what are they?” Laura turned to him at the same time. She was pointing to men in white suits, red sashes, and caps who came in on mules.
“One at a time, please,” Walker laughed at their excitement. “Nan’s first. Those men on horseback are the picadores. Watch them later. And you, Señorita,” he turned to Laura, “you asked about the wise monkeys, ‘monosabios’ we Mexicans call them. When the fight’s over they’ll drag out the dead bull.”
“Oh!” The exclamation was Grace’s. She had forgotten that a bullfight meant that there would be blood and killing.
Walker looked at her questioningly and then at Alice. “Here was a girl,” the glances they exchanged said, “that would have to be watched at the killing.”
Now, below them, the horseman leading the procession bowed before the judge of the bullfight, the formation disbanded, and the ring cleared for the entrance of the first bull.
It came in, charging from a door that was opened below the ring, went bellowing madly across the arena, and charged straight into a target that maddened it further.
Now the prettiest, most graceful part of the whole spectacle began.
Two helpers carrying lovely bright capes stepped from the side into the arena. One of them waved his cape, attracting the attention of the bull which came rushing toward the bright moving object. The helper danced gracefully aside. The bull turned and rushed at him again, putting his head down and going for him with his horns. But the man was graceful and daring and teasing and avoided him.
Now the other helper waved his cape and was equally provocative and the bull went for him with the same lack of success.
So they played back and forth, tantalizing the bull, attracting it with one cape and distracting it with another until it was thoroughly maddened.
Then the rider came in on his horse and the rider and the horse teased the bull further. So it went until the climax when the third and most important part of the fight began—the actual killing of the bull.
The ring was in a furor when Bess clutched Nan’s arm. “Look, Nan, look,” she said. “It’s she. It’s Linda. Look, Nan.”
Nan’s eyes were riveted on the ring, where the bullfighter with his spear was waiting for a propitious moment to plunge it into the mad bleeding animal that was lunging at him.
“Just a minute, Bess,” Nan hadn’t heard what her friend had said. The horror and cruelty and yet the excitement of the scene before her was holding all her attention.
Down there before her the bullfighter was fighting a championship fight. He was playing with the bull, teasing him toward him and then skillfully dancing away. The end was imminent. The fighter was waiting only for an opportunity to make the clean, quick plunge that would finish the fight with one stroke.
Now, the moment seemed near and everyone, Nan and her friends, and the more than twenty thousand other people in the great ring stood up, cheering for the finish.
The fighter closed in and then drew back to make the lunge, but there was blood on the ground beneath his feet and he slipped. The bull gave a mighty roar and went toward him, his horns lowered. The fight had turned. There could be only one possible end now. Death for the fighter.
But wait. That fighter is clever. He gracefully pulls aside so the menacing horns glance across his arm. He jumps up from the ground, pulls his arm back, and before the bull has had a chance to recover from his surprise, that fighter is, with one mighty thrust, plunging the spear straight through the bull’s heart.
There, it’s over now. The fighter has fought the fight that will surely bring him the trophy, a pair of little gold ears. The throng, wild with excitement, throws hats, scarfs, pillows, everything loose that it can lay its hands on into the ring as the hero of the hour slowly walks around and bows with arms thrown out wide as though to embrace the whole cheering multitude.
Everything is gay and happy now. Even the man that follows after the hero and picks up the hats, scarfs, and pillows that litter the ground and tosses them lightly back to the owners above is laughing. Yes, even the man that pushed the wheelbarrow in the grand opening procession is happy, basking in reflected glory, as he trundles his burden around the ring, sprinkling sawdust over the blood spots.
It was not until the monosabios, “wise monkeys”, came to drag out the bull, destined now for food for a nearby hospital, that Bess again tried to attract Nan’s attention.
“Nan, I tell you that that’s Linda Riggs down there below us,” she said insistently this time. “Look at the way she’s tossing her head and talking to that man that’s next to her. You would think that he was a prince, a handsome prince, the way she is acting.”
“Why, Bess, you’re right. That is Linda.” Nan at last drew her eyes away from the ring and looked at the girl Bess was pointing to.
“Yes, and I’m sure she saw us a while ago,” Laura contributed. She too had been watching the girl that the Lakeview crowd had grown to dislike so cordially. “You know the way she always looks around her to see whether there is anyone she really ought to be decent to, anyone that might be able to do something for her. Well, she did that when she first came in. I saw her, but I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn’t want to spoil the fun we were having.”
“I’ll bet she sneered when she saw us,” Bess said. “She’s always hated us and especially since we had the laugh on her on the boat last summer.”
“Oh, Bess, that wasn’t exactly a laugh,” Nan protested. “The girl almost drowned.”
“Yes, and you went and saved her. And what thanks did you get?” Bess could always be indignant when she thought of Linda Riggs. “You should have let her alone. I would have. I would have enjoyed seeing the waves wash her over-board. I would have looked over the rail and laughed when I saw her screaming and waving her arms and trying to keep herself from going under.”
“You little fiend!” Nan exclaimed. “How can you say such things?”
“Because they are true,” Bess retorted. “People like her shouldn’t be allowed to clutter up things. She makes everybody that knows her unhappy, so what good is she anyway? Her father is always trying to get her out of trouble. Look at her down there now. You can see by the way she’s holding her head that she’s mean and proud and deceitful.”
“Bess, be quiet!” Nan warned. “You’ll have everyone looking at you. Linda is a little prig and she does make trouble and I don’t like her any more than you do, but there’s no use making things unpleasant because she’s happened to turn up here where we are. Forget her.”
“Forget her!” Bess exclaimed. “You can’t forget a thorn that’s forever sticking in your flesh. Trying to forget her doesn’t do any good. She always makes trouble. It’s best to watch her so that you will be prepared for what happens.”
Perhaps Bess was right. Certainly, if at other times Nan and Bess had been more watchful they might have been able to avoid trouble. But Nan always believed that there was some good in everyone and she was always trustful. She felt often that Linda, because of her wealth and the fact that her mother was dead and her father tried to give her everything she wanted, was not entirely to blame for her actions. And Bess, well, Bess’s attitude toward Linda had changed considerably since their first meeting.
Then Bess had thought that the daughter of the railroad magnate would be a nice person to have for a friend, for Bess was decidedly impressed by her wealth, by the way she ordered people around, and the way she dressed. Bess had even written home in the first days at school and told her mother that she didn’t have at all the proper kind of clothes to wear, if she was going to chum around with people that amounted to something. She had Linda in mind when she wrote it, Linda’s clothes and Linda’s social position. But Linda had soon shown Bess that there was no room for her in her world.
Girls that Linda called friend, if there was any such word in her vocabulary, had to bow to all her wishes. She liked them only if they thought everything she did and said was right. No girl could be her friend and have a will of her own. No girl could be her friend and have other friends too. Linda wanted to be the very center of everyone’s attention. As a consequence she had no real friends at all.
Bess never analyzed this to herself, but after one or two attempts to go around with Linda, she gave up entirely and grew to dislike her very much, as all the readers of the Nan Sherwood series know. She disliked her particularly because of the mean things she had done to Nan, for if Bess had no other outstanding characteristic, she did have a sense of justice that was almost as strong as Nan’s.
This she had although her sympathies were not as deep nor as understanding as Nan’s. Bess was apt to accept or reject things and people on account of appearances. Nan never did this. She liked everyone and had always had some sort of sixth sense that made her look beneath surfaces and find the true person. Thus she made friends with all sorts of people.
This was the reason that Nan led such an adventurous life. This was the reason everyone liked her. Everyone called Linda snobbish. A few people called Bess the same. But no one ever thought of applying the word to Nan.
And Nan seldom talked about people. So now, as the girls sat in the arena in Mexico City waiting for the next bullfighter to come into the ring, Nan was doing her best to quiet her friend.
“There’s no reason whatsoever to get so excited,” she said in an undertone to Bess. “She’s sitting way down below us so we won’t have to even talk to her when we go out. We’ll be up the stairs and out the exit before she does. We’ll probably never even see her again while we’re here.”
“That’s right,” Laura agreed, talking in a whisper too. “And though you might think that you could prepare yourself for what might happen if you did encounter Linda, you never could. No one ever knows what that girl might do. And, Elizabeth Harley, you’re not smart enough to guess.” Laura being Laura with her red hair and her love for battle couldn’t resist adding this thrust.
“Well, I could try anyway,” Bess retorted.
“Say, what are you people all talking about so quietly?” Amelia leaned over and asked now. “Why, you didn’t even pay any attention when Mr. Jamieson took Grace out.”
“Took Grace out!” Nan exclaimed, noticing now for the first time that two in the party were missing. “Why?”
“She almost fainted when she saw all the blood streaming from the bull, so just before he was killed, Walker Jamieson took her by the arm and said they were going for a walk and would be back soon.”
“I don’t blame her,” Bess said emphatically. “I would have fainted myself—”
“—if you had been watching the bullfight instead of Linda Riggs,” Nan supplied the end of the sentence.
“I guess you are right,” Bess laughed. “That girl certainly does have a habit of getting in my hair. I’m always on pins and needles whenever she is around.”
“There, Bessie,” Nan tried to smooth her friend’s ruffled feelings. “Just you sit quietly and watch the next fight and you’ll feel better. We’ll see that Linda doesn’t cross your path.”
“She hadn’t better,” Bess replied and then did try to devote herself to watching the next fight on the program.
“Sit quietly and watch a bullfight!” Adair MacKenzie had heard Nan’s counsel to Bess. “Never heard of such a thing. Never saw such a thing happen. Couldn’t possibly sit quietly and watch a bullfight. Too exciting. Too much blood and gore. No place to bring a woman.”
Adair had been upset by Grace’s fainting spell and now he was sorry he had ever brought the girls here. Already he was casting about in his mind for something else to do that would wipe the memory of the unpleasantness of the spectacle out of their minds. He was oblivious of the fact that none of them outside of perhaps Nan and Amelia had witnessed the fight with their whole attention. He didn’t yet know the story of Linda. The fact that her presence distracted them consequently had gone unobserved.
“Got your things? Come on. We’re going now.” Abruptly he made up his mind and plunged into action without further ado.
“Don’t ‘but’ me,” Adair answered. “We’re going to get out of this outlandish place right away. Can’t have you all fainting on my hands. Ready?” He was already halfway out the row and effectively blocking the view of the ring of all the people who had seats behind his party. But it didn’t matter to him. In fact, he was so concerned with his own immediate problem that no one else in the world existed. Now he turned around again to see if the girls were following him.
“Fine spectacle for civilized people to put on,” he muttered. “Hurry, you people. Can’t be all day getting out of here.”
“That’s right.” The voice that agreed with him was an American voice and it startled him. Adair looked up. “What’s that?” he asked the question gruffly.
“I said, ‘that’s right,’” the stranger answered. He was sitting about three rows behind where Adair was standing.
“What do you mean?” Adair looked more belligerent than ever.
“I mean you can’t be all day getting out of here.” The voice in back answered positively.
“W-w-why, you old—old—old,” Adair spluttered. He could think of no epithet appropriate and yet forceful enough to call his critic in the presence of the girls. So his spluttering died away as he brandished his cane and just stood and looked.
“Daddy, daddy,” Alice put a soft hand on his arm. “Do come. We are blocking the view.”
“Nothing to see down there anyway,” Adair returned. “These Americans,” he went on talking loudly and looking back at the man above him, “come down here and think they can run everything. Want to tell us to move on. Who do they think they are anyway?”
“Sh, daddy.” Alice was worried for fear her father would start a fight, even while she was secretly amused that he was accusing a fellow countryman of doing the very thing that he was guilty of. “We must get down and out so that we can find how Grace is,” she added tactfully.
“Well, I’m hurrying just as fast as these Mexicans will let me,” Adair answered. “I always said they were the slowest, most inconsiderate people in the world.”
Adair was wrong in what he said, and he knew it. As he was now sputtering about them being inconsiderate, so often he had sputtered because of their patient consideration for other people. Then he had said that they were too polite.
However, Adair prided himself on his willingness to change his mind. “Only dunces never contradict themselves,” he often said.
Now, Alice and the girls were themselves moving along as fast as they could behind him, so, though he continued to mutter and even brandish his cane at others whom he suspected of calling at him in Spanish, he was soon safely out in the aisle and they all hurried up the stairs and out.
“O-o-ooh, but that was close,” Laura’s eyes were dancing at the recollection of the scene in the stands as she and Nan stepped out into the street.
“Wasn’t it though?” Nan was laughing too, now, though at the time, she, like Alice, had been worried for fear Adair would come to blows with the American.
“Two Americans come to blows at a bullfight,” Laura said, “and the bullfight is forgotten.”
“That’s just what I was afraid of,” Nan whispered. “These people in this country are so hot-headed that I was afraid there would be a general riot, before we got out of there. They were all worked up so over the first fight that they would have entered our private little fray without any question.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Laura agreed. “And did you see the expression on Bess’s face?”
“No,” Nan returned, “but I can just imagine what it was like. She hates scenes of any kind. I do too, but this one was almost funny. Cousin Adair is so quick tempered that he glides in and out of trouble with the greatest of ease.”
“Doesn’t he though?” Amelia contributed. “It fascinates me when I see one of his explosions coming. Every time he opens his mouth, he gets in deeper.”
“That is funny when you see it happen to someone else,” Laura agreed somewhat ruefully. “But when it happens to you, if you have a sensitive soul, like mine, it’s pretty embarrassing.” Laura was in earnest, for her quick tongue often did its work before she had a chance to stop it. “Oh Laura,” her mother had more than once shaken her head over her daughter’s failing, “you need to count to a hundred at least when you feel your cheeks flushing and your head getting hot with anger. And you need to button your mouth up tight, or you’ll always be terribly unhappy.”
Laura thought of this now, and giggled.
“Well, I don’t know what’s so funny,” Bess remarked. She still felt irritated at what had happened. “Maybe if you had seen Linda Riggs looking around at us, you wouldn’t be giggling the way you are. I wish I could have just gone right through that floor.”
“But it was concrete and you couldn’t.” Laura pretended to be very practical.
“That is, not without hurting herself,” Amelia appended.
“Oh, it isn’t funny.” Bess was genuinely upset. She would have hated the scene anyway, and when it occurred in Linda’s presence, she hated it doubly. “You should have seen the look of pity and disgust and triumph on her face when she saw that it was our party that was making all the fuss,” Bess went on, growing more vehement the more she talked. “It was positively humiliating.”
More than any of the others, Bess cared about what other people thought of her. Always conscious of herself and eager to make a good impression, she was always upset when things went wrong at all. When they did not run just according to the way she thought they should, in public especially, she felt like hiding her head and running. “It’s the way I am and I can’t help it,” she retorted once when Nan accused her of being over-sensitive, and so she never made the proper effort to overcome her failing.
“Who cares what Linda thinks?” Laura said airily as Walker and Grace joined the party, and the incident was forgotten, for the moment, while everyone made a fuss over Grace.
“You’re just a sissy,” Laura teased. “See a little bit of blood and you go off in a faint. What will you do when we start dissecting things in biology at school next fall?”
“I don’t know.” Grace looked worried as though she was going to have to do the dissecting right away.
“Tut! Tut! We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Adair MacKenzie answered as though it was his problem to be handled in due course. “How are you now?” He looked at Grace closely while he asked the question. “Feeling all right again, are you?” He spoke gently, as he might have spoken to Alice, his daughter, and a warm feeling of sympathy toward him went through all those standing around.
“Why,” Nan said afterward, and Bess had to agree, “I believe he was irritable up in the stands because he was worried about Grace.”
“I suppose so.” Bess was much less tolerant of other people’s failings than her friend. “But that was no excuse for him to get all riled up. I can’t forget the way Linda looked.”
“Bessie, forget it.” Nan spoke sharply. “It’s not important at all. It doesn’t matter what Linda thinks of us. And it is important that we not criticise Cousin Adair. After all, we are his guests.”
“You are right,” Bess agreed. She could, on occasion, be generous in yielding when she knew she was in the wrong.
As they talked these things over, the whole party walked toward the waiting car. Again, it was a voice from the United States that arrested them, but one more softly spoken than that they had heard in the grandstands.
“I beg your pardon,” it said. Nan and her Lakeview Hall companions looked up startled. The speaker who had accosted them was accompanied by none other than Linda Riggs!
“I beg your pardon.” Linda Riggs’ companion spoke again, “but could you direct us to Avenida Chapultepec?”
Before anyone could answer Linda rushed over to Nan and took her by the arm. “Why, Nancy Sherwood!” she exclaimed as though Nan was the best friend she had in the world. “I’m so surprised to see you here. When did you arrive? Isn’t this city just perfectly gorgeous? More quaint, don’t you think, than anything we saw in Europe?”
Nan was at a loss as to what to say. Deep within her she was entirely out of patience with the situation. Linda was being disgustedly affected. She was talking slowly, dragging her vowels and gesturing with her hands, acting as a person twice her age might act and even then be nauseous. But Linda disregarded Nan’s coolness.
“And you, Bess,” Linda turned to Elizabeth Harley. “Imagine seeing you here. Isn’t it all too romantic for words, a whole crowd of Lakeview Hall people meeting in this far-off corner of the globe. The most astounding things do happen, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do,” Laura remarked dryly, looking Linda up and down as she did so.
“And you, Laura Polk. Why, you are all together, I do believe.” Linda acted as though she had made a brilliant observation. She was having a difficult time, even for her, in the situation, for her effusions were being received rather coldly to say the least.
“I’d like to have you meet my friend, Arthur Howard,” she went on, forcing Nan to introduce her and her companion to her cousin and Alice.
“Hm! Glad to meet you.” Adair MacKenzie said abruptly. “Got to be going now. Sorry, don’t know the way to Avenida whatever-it-was-you-said. Can’t keep any of these streets straight in my mind. They’re all mixed up.” With this, he summarily herded his daughter, Nan, Laura, Bess, and Amelia toward the car where Walker Jamieson and Grace who had gone on alone together were waiting. Linda and her companion were thus left behind.
“Nan,” Grace hardly waited until the girls were in the car beside her before she asked the question, “was that Linda Riggs that you were talking to out there?”
“None other,” Laura answered. “And why are you giggling so, Bess. A few moments ago you were all hot and bothered about Linda and now you’re laughing. Will you please make up your mind about what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, it’s so funny.” Bess was off again. “Did you see the way she looked when Mr. MacKenzie walked away so suddenly. I do believe that she thought we would fall all over her the way she was falling all over us. Oh, dear, did that do my heart good!” Bess sounded positively gleeful.
“Mine too.” Laura was laughing with her.
“And do you remember,” Bess went on, “how, when Mr. MacKenzie analyzed all of us when he first met us, we wished that some day he would have the chance to do it to Linda. Well, that wish almost came true down there. I do believe that if we had stayed a moment longer he would have done it. I was hoping—”
“Elizabeth Harley! I thought you didn’t like Cousin Adair,” Nan, too, was tickled at the whole situation.
“Oh, I do now,” Bess capitulated. “I just love him. Do you know that’s the first time since we’ve known her, that we’ve seen her as embarrassed as she makes us sometimes. How I wish we had stayed just a moment longer.”
“What’s this about your just loving someone?” Adair turned around to join in the conversation.
Bess blushed.
“Well, all I can say is,” he went on when she failed to answer. “I hope it’s not that girl back there that we just met that you’re being so enthusiastic about. Don’t like her at all myself. No character. She’s snippy. She’s deceitful. Can’t even talk without putting on airs. Can’t stand her. Hope she’s no friend of yours.” He turned to Nan as he said this last.
Nan shook her head and said nothing further. She felt, and rightly so, that it was unnecessary to discuss Linda among people who did not know her. This was a consideration that Linda would never have shown Nan. In fact, time and again, Linda had purposely attempted to blacken Nan’s character in front of strangers. This was one reason that Bess, loyal as she was to Nan, disliked Linda so much.
“Can’t tolerate people who are affected,” Adair MacKenzie went on blustering as the car drove out into the street. “And didn’t like that man she was with either. He didn’t have a very honest look about him.”
“But he was nice-looking.” Bess let the words out before she realized what she was doing, and the wrath of Adair MacKenzie descended upon her.
“Nice-looking! That’s all you think of. Nice-looking, bah! Can’t judge people by their looks. It’s what’s in their eyes and their hearts that counts. Have to see that before you can accurately decide what they are. Anybody can dress up and make a good appearance. You, Bessie,” he lowered his tone at a look from Alice, “you’ve got to learn something about true values before you get much older. You’re a nice sort of girl, but you put too much emphasis on money and worldly goods. You’ll have to be taught sometime that they are not so important as you think.
“That goes for all of you,” he ended, sweeping them all with his glance. “You’ve all had easy lives, so you don’t know yet, really, what’s worth while and what isn’t.”
“Now, that girl back there,” he resumed his talk after a few moments of silence, “she has no conception what-so-ever of worth. What’s her name, anyway?” he asked.
“Linda Riggs,” Nan answered.
“Not the daughter of the railroad king?”
“That’s right.” Nan nodded her head.
“Knew him, when he was a young fellow,” Adair paused, remembering his own youth. “He was a nice chap then. Can’t understand how he could have reared such a poor excuse for a daughter. We belonged to the same college fraternity. He was president of it at one time I think. Always helping people out. Everybody liked him. That’s how he happened to get on in the world the way he did. Met up with someone who had lots of dough and no son to carry on the family name. Riggs seemed to fill the bill, so the wealthy old codger took him into his business and taught him the ropes.
“Riggs wore well, and when the old man died he inherited the fortune. Sounds like a fairy story, but those things happen. Jamieson here must know the tale.”
Walker nodded in agreement. “Do. Interviewed the old bird one time under particularly difficult circumstances. There was a big railroad merger story about to break, and nobody wanted to talk. I got wind of it through a hot tip from a stooge in New York. Tried everything in order to get the story, and finally in desperation went to Riggs himself. It was rumored that he had the controlling interest in the stock. I had to go through a dozen secretaries before I finally got to him.
“Then he didn’t want to talk either. However, some little thing I said in passing, captured his fancy, and before I knew it, I was laying all my cards on the table and he was putting them together so that they made sense. When we were finished, I realized that I had one of the biggest stories of the year and was about to grab my hat and run out to put it on the wires, when he put out a restraining hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I must ask you to keep this quiet for twenty-four hours longer. If you promise, I assure you that no one else will get the release until your paper has the scoop all sewed up.’
“In a way I was up a tree, because I knew that if the story had leaked out to me, someone else was very likely to get wind of it too. I hesitated. He stuck out his hand as though to shake mine and he did it in such a frank friendly fashion, that I agreed to what he asked, even though I knew it was a dumb thing to do under the circumstances.
“But there was something about the man that inspired confidence and regard.”
“Lived up to the agreement, didn’t he?” Adair said positively.
“Sure did,” Walker assented, “and under difficulty too. Just as I suspected, some other paper did get wind of the story and sent one of their ace men out to get the details. Riggs let him in, quizzed him to find out what he knew, excused himself, and then called me to tell me that the time was up, that I’d better shoot the yarn right through if I wanted to scoop the rest of the dailies.
“Well, after he did that, he went back into his office and told the other reporter the whole story he had told me. It took him three hours to tell it, and when my competitor came out of the office our extras were already on the street.”
“That was the Midwestern merger, wasn’t it?” Adair questioned.
“Right!” Jamieson agreed. “Remember it, don’t you? But you chits,” he turned his attention to the girls who had been listening with their customary attention to his tale, “you wouldn’t remember. You were hardly out of your cradles then. Nan here was probably still creeping around in rompers. Bess, well, Bess probably didn’t creep, that was too dirty for her, but she was probably beginning to put her hands up to her father and saying, ‘gimme’.”
This brought a laugh from everyone, including Adair MacKenzie.
“Can’t understand,” he returned to the question of Linda, “how a girl with a father like Riggs could be such an obnoxious person.”
“Oh, there are lots of explanations,” Walker answered. “I happen to know that his wife died when the girl was just a baby. He was all broken up and turned to the child for comfort. Guess he lavished all his attention on her and spoiled her.”
“Sounds plausible,” Adair agreed, and then looked at Alice. “See how I ruined my daughter with kindness,” he twitted. “Let her get out of hand completely. Now I can’t do anything with her.”
“Want to get rid of her?” Walker winked at Alice, as he asked the question.
“What’s that?” Adair was startled.
“Oh, nothing, dad,” Alice frowned at Walker. “Where are we going now.”
“Don’t know.” Adair took out his watch as he shook his head. He frowned. “Guess we can make it though,” he continued, laughing with the others at his own inconsistency.