Other automobiles were streaming across the Bridge. The bull fight was to be of more than customary interest, for two famous matadors were to display their prowess in opposition to each other. One was Juan Salento, idol of Mexico, and the other, Estramadura, famous Spanish matador, who, fresh from triumphs in Madrid, was touring Mexico.
Through the crowded, dusty, ill-paved streets of Nueva Laredo went the taxi. The crowd grew denser. On the sidewalks, a pushing, jostling, eager mass of Mexicans with a thick sprinkling of Americans. Boys running in the streets, barefoot, ragged, dark, darting in and out between automobiles. Several times the hearts of the party were in their mouths as little shavers seemed to escape being run over merely by a hair’s breadth. Motor cars shot by them or darted from side streets with reckless disregard, but fortunately no accidents occurred, although time and again the members of the party expected to hear sounds of a crash.
As they neared the huge amphitheatre, Captain Cornell ordered the taxi driver to drive to the shady entrance.
“On the shady side it costs four dollars a seat,” he said. “On the sunny side it costs two. A big difference—but it’s worth it.”
They disembarked, passed through the gate in the middle of a swarming crowd, and then mounted to the topmost tier of seats.
Under the midafternoon sun the huge amphitheatre was literally baking. Heat waves shimmered above the sandy arena in the middle. Yet more than ten thousand people were already seated in the banked-up tiers of seats, while others were crowding up by every stairway.
“Look at the colors,” commented Jack. “I didn’t know there were that many in existence.”
The peons on every hand were, in truth, arrayed as the lilies of the field—in the most gorgeous raiment they possessed. They were out to make holiday, and they were dressed for the part. The tiers, under the glaring sun, looked like a vast flower display.
While the others were busied gazing here and there upon the strange and unfamiliar scene, and laughing at the many laughable incidents which kept constantly coming to their attention, Frank quietly went about a certain task. He had brought with him his receiving set on a belt. He opened up the box in which it was arranged, took it out, buckled it on, adjusted the headphones, and then hooked up to the little loop aerial. Sitting as he did on the top row of seats, with none behind him, and flanked on either side by other members of his party, he was unobserved by outsiders.
Jack and Bob on one side, Captain Cornell and Mr. Hampton on the other, were all craning forward, gazing at the scene below, and paying him no attention.