Followed another period of waiting—anxious this time, for why should there be so much delay?—and then the end.
It is no easy matter for Hindus to enter this country, though there is as yet no definite Hindu exclusion act. The immigration laws already in existence can be so construed, in accordance with the desires of a certain rabid element of whites on the Pacific Coast, that it is almost impossible for a turbaned citizen of Great Britain to enter the United States. For the most part those that now drift into this country of ours land in Canada or Mexico, and straggle across the international line, running the gauntlet to escape detection.
This Kala Singh attempted. It was at Christmas time, we learned through a Hindu who had made the voyage from Shanghai with him. Landed at Salina Cruz, they had taken boat again for Ensenada; thence, working overland, had come to the American border in the vicinity of Yuma. The pair had been detected by the border patrol, pursued, captured, and locked up for the night in a small jail. Participating, before daylight, with men held for greater offenses, in a general jail break, they had been ordered to halt, and fired upon in the darkness. Kala Singh had been found by a chance bullet, and killed instantly.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” the Lady of the Castle asked me when I told her about it. “Isn’t there anything?”
I went out to where Prem Singh crouched alone over his little fire of greasewood roots under the great vault of heaven.
“Hello, Mester!” he called listlessly, as I approached awkwardly.
“Hello, Prem Singh!” I answered.
There was a pause. “I make my country bread,” he announced at length, clearing his throat, obviously manufacturing conversation in order to put me at my ease; and then, after a little: “I think maybe go back my country pretty soon.”
“Go back to India, Prem Singh?” I was genuinely surprised.
He nodded affirmation. “Next month, maybe, I go,” he said wearily. “America not very good. My country more better. Maybe bime-by been marry.”