These frijoles were soft and well seasoned and the cakes, tortillas, were tender, too. The coffee was delicious and there was a sweet cake which Janice thought was made of ground bean-flour, but was not sure.
She began to worry about Marty's absence. After Rosita had descended the stairs everything was silent about the store and hotel. It was the hour of siesta—though why one hour should be considered more somnolent than another in this place the girl from Vermont could not imagine.
Through the open, unscreened window she could see down the street. At its far end, across the railroad, was a pole from which a faded American flag drooped. This she knew indicated the post telegraph office. The army post was a little more than a mile away.
Where could Marty be all this time? It was two hours since he had darted out of the hotel to send the night letter to Uncle Jason. Surely he was not still at that telegraph office?
Here and there along the dusty, sunny street figures in broad hats, striped cotton, suits, with colored sashes, many of them barefoot or shod only in home-made sandals, leaned against the adobe walls, or lay on their backs in the shade. Groups of shawl-headed, gossipy women with innumerable babies playing about them likewise spotted the gray street with color.
Those males who were awake were smoking the everlasting cigarette or rolling a fresh one. Not a few of the women were smoking, too. Just one of these male figures, lolling against the wall directly opposite her window, did not expel the incense of nicotine through his nostrils. This lad did not smoke.
Janice, for some reason, looked at him more attentively. His high-crowned, gayly banded hat was quite like the headgear of the others; so, too, was the glaringly striped suit he wore of "awning cloth" such as the girls were having sport skirts made of in the North—"too loud for an awning, but just right for a skirt!"
He wore a flowing necktie and shoes and socks—an extravagance that few of the Mexicans in sight displayed. Or was he a Mexican? He was tanned, but not to the saddle color of the native.
Yes! he waved his hand to her. Now that he knew he had caught her eye he raised his hatbrim and revealed—Marty's face, all a-grin, beneath it!
"Goodness! what is that boy doing? He has attempted to disguise himself again," murmured Janice Day.