How Janice Day Won | Page 6

that the military authorities now in power in
this district have refused him the privilege of sending or receiving mail.
Yet, fear not, sweet Señorita; while the undersigned retains the boon of
breath and the power of brain and arm, thy letters, if addressed in my
care, shall reach none but thy father's eye, and his to thee shall be safely
consigned to the government mails beyond the Rio Grande.
"Faithfully thine,
"JUAN DICAMPA."
Who the writer of this peculiar communication was, Janice had no
means of knowing. In the letter from her father which she immediately
opened, there was no mention of Juan Dicampa.
Mr. Day did say, however, that he seemed to have incurred the
particular enmity of the Zapatist chief then at the head of the district
because he was not prepared to bribe him personally and engage his
ragged and barefoot soldiery to work in the mine.
He did not say that his own situation was at all changed. Rather, he
joked about the half-breeds and the pure-blood Yaquis then in power
about the mine. Either Mr. Broxton Day had become careless because
of continued peril, or he really considered these Indians less to be
feared than the brigands who had previously overrun this part of
Chihuahua.
However, it was good to hear from daddy and to know that--up to the
time the letter was written, at least--he was all right. She went down to
supper with some cheerfulness, and took the letter to read aloud, by
snatches, during the meal.
A letter from Mexico was always an event in the Day household. Marty

was openly desirous of emulating "Uncle Brocky" and getting out of
Polktown--no matter where or how. Aunt 'Mira was inclined to wonder
how the ladies of Mexico dressed and deported themselves. Uncle
Jason observed:
"I've allus maintained that Broxton Day is a stubborn and foolish feller.
Why! see the strain he's been under these years since he went down to
that forsaken country. An' what for?"
"To make a fortune, Dad," interposed Marty. "Hi tunket! Wisht I was in
his shoes."
"Money ain't ev'rything," said Uncle Jason, succinctly.
"Well, it's a hull lot," proclaimed the son.
"I reckon that's so, Jason," Aunt Almira agreed. "It's his money makin'
that leaves Janice so comfterble here. And her automobile----"
"Oh, shucks! Is money wuth life?" demanded Mr. Day. "What good
will money be to him if he's stood up against one o' them dough walls
and shot at by a lot of slantindicular-eyed heathen?"
"Hoo!" shouted Marty. "The Mexicans ain't slant-eyed like Chinamen
and Japs."
"And they ain't heathen," added Aunt Almira. "They don't bow down to
figgers of wood and stone."
"Besides, Uncle," put in Janice, softly, and with a smile, "it is adobe
not dough they build their houses of."
"Huh!" snorted Uncle Jason. "Don't keer a continental. He's one foolish
man. He'd better throw up the whole business, come back here to
Polktown, and I'll let him have a piece of the old farm to till."
"Oh! that would be lovely, Uncle Jason!" cried Janice, clasping her
hands. "If he only could retire to dear Polktown for the rest of his life
and we could live together in peace."

"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Marty, pushing back his chair from the supper
table just as the outer door opened. "He kin have my share of the old
farm," for Marty had taken a mighty dislike to farming and had long
before this stated his desire to be a civil engineer.
"At it ag'in, air ye, Marty?" drawled a voice from the doorway. "If
repetition of what ye want makes detarmination, Mart, then you air the
most detarmined man since Lot's wife--and she was a woman, er-haw!
haw! haw!"
"Come in, Walky," said Uncle Jason, greeting the broad and ruddy face
of his neighbor with a brisk nod.
"Set up and have a bite," was Aunt 'Mira's hospitable addition.
"No, no! I had a snack down to the tavern, Marthy's gone to see her
folks terday and I didn't 'spect no supper to hum. I'm what ye call a
grass-widderer. Haw! haw! haw!" explained the local expressman.
Walky's voice seemed louder than usual, his face was more beaming,
and he was more prone to laugh at his own jokes. Janice and Marty
exchanged glances as the expressman came in and took a chair that
creaked under his weight. The girl, remembering what her cousin had
said about the visitor, wondered if it were possible that Walky had been
drinking and now showed the effects of it.
It was true, as Janice had once said--the expressman should have been
named "Talkworthy" rather than "Walkworthy" Dexter. To-night he
seemed much more talkative than usual.
"What were all you younkers out o' school so early for, Marty?" he
asked.