Janice turned quickly to point from the window so that the unfortunate Rosita should not see her expression. It was a task to keep from bursting into laughter in the simple woman's face.
"Clothes like that girl over there is wearing?" Janice asked.
"Ah, señorita! not like those old clothes of Manuel Dario's daughter. But real tailaire-made gowns from the East."
"But I wish to dress like one of you Mexican girls," Janice said with subtile flattery. "My cousin and I have to go over into your country and I shall be less conspicuous if I dress like—like other girls there, shall I not?"
"Oh! but not like the common girl!" begged Rosita. "One must dress richly, señorita."
"No," Janice said. "I am on a serious mission, Rosita; perhaps a dangerous mission. My father has been wounded in a fight up beyond San Cristoval, and I must go after him and bring him over here."
Rosita made a clucking noise in her throat significant of her sympathy, making likewise the sign of the cross. "May his recovery be sure and speedy, señorita," she said. "Yes, huh?"
But now for the new clothes. Once having got it fixed in her slow brain that Janice was not in the market for the shop-made garments copied after the latest fashions, Rosita was very helpful. She made no objection to waddling downstairs and panting up again with her arms full of the ordinary cheap finery of the Mexican women. The colors were gay and the goods coarse; but Janice was not critical. She merely hoped to escape any special attention while passing through these Border towns. Likewise she hoped to disguise herself from the eyes of Mr. Tom Hotchkiss.
"If the señorita desires to travel far within Chihuahua, it would be better to advise with my father, Don José," Rosita said, revealing a relationship Janice had not before suspected. "Although he has been exiled now for many years, and is—what you say?—naturalized—yes, huh. Yet, señorita, he has many friends among all factions. Some of the lesser chiefs are personally known to him, those both of the bandits and the army of deliverance. Speak to him, señorita."
"I shall, Rosita," said Janice. "And as soon as your husband, the Señor Sheriff Morales, comes I wish to speak with him too."