The bandit’s chorus gathered in an interested if puzzled group about the camera, and looked as if they were waiting for me to do a trick proving that the hand is quicker than the eye. After a few repetitions, aided by liberal gestures, they got our meaning and laughed, showing dazzling sets of teeth.
“Take your pictures?” we added, at this sign of clemency. The Latin in them rejoiced at our tribute to their beauty. Two senoritas coming all the way from the Estados Unidos, passportless, braving the wrath of Carranza entirely because the gringoes were not handsome enough to snap! They straightened their uniforms, and curled their mustaches and flashed their teeth so brilliantly that Toby had to use the smallest diaphragm of her kodak. Before they could unpose themselves, we were back in the United States. They started after, as if to assess us for ransom, or something, but too late.
The U. S. official met us. “Why didn’t you stop when I signaled?”
“We didn’t see you. We thought the brick building was the United States customs,—it’s so much grander than yours.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” he said. “They could a held you there for months, confiscated your baggage, and made things pretty unpleasant generally. They’re doing it all the time, under the name of official business. I tell you, I was scared when I saw you go through there.”
Grateful to him for taking this humane view rather than arresting us, we said good-by and went our way, exhilarated at having triumphed over the custom departments of two nations in one short hour. It offset the morning’s gloom, and the two horrible sandwiches (fried egg) with which Douglas had affronted our digestions.
At three o’clock we reached Rodeo, which means “round-up.” We should have been there at ten. The town faced the desert, and seemed permanently depressed at its outlook. It contained a few Mexican shanties, a garage and general store, and a poison-green architectural crime labeled “Rooms,” surrounded by a field reeking with dead cattle. Even our Optimist, when he laid out our route, had exclaimed, “If your night’s stop is Rodeo, Lord help you!” The next town, Deming, lay a hundred miles beyond, with no settlement between. We looked once at the hotel, bought gas at fifty cents the gallon, and pushed on.
Whether we would reach Deming that night, we had no idea. Nearly a day, as desert travel goes, lay between us and food, drink and shelter. We had an orange apiece, and our folding tent, stove and lantern. We had a guidebook which, to escape a libel suit, I shall call “Keyes’ Good Road Book,” though it was neither a good road-book nor a good-road book. We had an abounding faith in guardian angels. Lastly, we had Toby’s peculiar gift at reading guide-books, whereby she selects a page at random, regardless of our route, telescopes paragraphs together, skips a line here and there, and finishes in another state.
For this reason, as I pointed out with some heat, we took a road which led fourteen jolty miles out of our way. It came out that Toby had been reading the Colorado section. So chastened was she by this misadventure that at the next doubtful corner, where a windmill marked two forks, she kept her nose glued to the page and read with meticulous faithfulness, “Pass wind-mill to the left.”
Now the left led through a muddy water-hole, while an excellent road apparently trailed to the right of the windmill.