The thought which she had put into his head made the long ride back to Los Andes pass very quickly.
The town had resumed its normal appearance. The loafers were again stretched upon the steps of the little stores or on the pavements. Those who were not rolling cigarettes were comfortably asleep.
“Los Americanos vamos,” was the answer to Stephen’s inquiries.
After leaving his borrowed horse at a stable, he wandered idly towards the plaza. Now that the reaction had come, he felt very tired. Spying a bench beneath some palm trees, he stretched himself upon it, and in the security of him who has nothing, dozed peacefully.
A mosquito, buzzing vapidly about his head, caused him to exert himself to the extent of a few useless blows. A wagon, rumbling down the street, caused him to look up. Then after these two exhibitions of energy, he fell soundly asleep.
CHAPTER XII
Towards ten o’clock in the evening Stephen directed his steps to the railroad station, and seating himself on a side-tracked flat car, kicked his heels over the edge, and smoked his last pipeful of tobacco. He jangled some keys in his pocket, pretending to himself that they were money. It was bad enough, he reflected, to be “broke” in the States, where he could talk the language; but here—He looked disconsolately at the throng of Mexicans who were on the platform. “Buenos dies, and que hora? although I am sure I pronounce them well, will not take me very far in the world,” he thought. “It does not matter much where I go; but I certainly must go somewhere. I will board the first freight train that appears, whether it is going north, south, east or west.”