"No. But I will for Uncle Brocky—if I have to. And you won't stop me," he declared. "'Sides, it isn't goin' to be so dangerous as you think if we go about it right."
"How do you know?"
"Why, up North there we thought that the Border was like a barbed-wire fence that you had to climb through ev'ry time you went from the United States into Mexico an' back again, and it was lucky if you didn't ketch your pants on the barbed wire an' get 'em tore, too!" and the boy was grinning broadly again.
"But 'tisn't nothing like that. You'd think from what you read in the newspapers that the towns on the northern side of the Border was spang full of Americans—white folks that talk English, you know—while every town over the Border and in shootin' distance of it, as you might say, was all populated with nothin' but greasers."
"Well?" Janice asked faintly.
"Why, 'tisn't nothing like that. Lots of Texas towns along the Border ain't got anybody in 'em but Mexican folks, and Mexican-Spanish is the official language. Yes, sir!" said Marty, proud of his acquired acknowledge.
"The officers of the town are Mexs like everybody else. They're peaceable enough and law-abiding enough and they go back and forth over the river and into Mexico just as they please.
"Now, what we want to do is to pick out one of these little squash-towns along the bank of the Rio Grande, drive over to it in an automobile from the railroad, and make a dicker with some greaser to ferry us across the river to some town on the other side."
"And then what, Marty?" asked Janice, made all but breathless by the manner in which her cousin seemed to have grasped the situation.
"Why, then we'll get another automobile, or a carriage, or something, and steer a course for this San Cristoval place. It's on a branch railroad, but the railroad ain't running, so they tell me. We can't hoof it there, for it's too far from the Border; but there must be roads of some kind and we'll find something to ride in—or——"