“I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself announced and craved an audience, I reckon,” was Bucky's ironic retort; and swiftly on the heels of it he added. “You make me tired, kid.”
O'Connor was destined to be “made tired” a good many times in the course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as to his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of embarrassment to brush his teeth before his fellow passengers. Nor did it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of innocence in the lad tied his tongue.
“Blame it all, I'm getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest,” he admitted to himself ruefully. “Just when something comes up that needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his, and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. I've got to quit trailing with him, or I'll be joining the church first thing I know. He makes me feel like I want to be good, confound the little swindle.”
Notwithstanding the ranger's occasional moments of exasperation, the two got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in delving into the other's unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into one of those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and man. Some subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the hearts of each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have explained what lay at the roots of it, but O'Connor admitted that he was “buffaloed” when he attempted an analysis of his unusual feeling.
From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them to Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso. Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded in their object.
At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their chances.
“It isn't a very gay outlook,” Bucky admitted cheerfully to his companion, “but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican officials weren't slower than molasses in January it might have been better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of Hardman's confession. But it would take them two or three years to come to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at the last, then. Course I've got the law machinery grinding, too, but I'm not banking on it real heavy. We'll get him out first any old way, then get the government to O. K. the thing.”
“How were you thinking of proceeding?”
“I expect it's time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon you happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there's usually a revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those for the government and those ferninst. The 'ins' stand pat, but the 'outs' have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there's mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody has to be shot, and it's always so much to the good if they can line up gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it's an Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens to be Mickey O'Halloran, an old friend of mine. I'm going to put it up to Mick to find a way.”
“But it isn't any affair of his. He won't do it, will he?”
“Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish.”
“Well?”
“And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his fist out of the hive when there's such a gem of a chance to get stung?”
It had been Frank's suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The reason for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as soon as they were alone Frank explained.
“It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well, we'll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we shall be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors. It will give us a great deal more liberty.”
“Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less. What's your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?”
“We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we could easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes.”
“You would be a gipsy lad?”
The youngster blushed. “A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband.”
“I'm no play actor, even if you are,” said Bucky. “I don't want to be your husband, thank you.”
“All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy enough.”
“And you think you could pass for a girl? You're slim and soft enough, but I'll bet you would give it away inside of an hour.”
The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O'Connor under his long lashes. “I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years. Nobody ever suspected that I wasn't.”
“We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part.”
“Leave that to me. I'll buy some to-day while you are looking the ground over for our first assault an the impregnable fortress.”
“I don't know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the things, and we'll see how you look in them. Better not get all the things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around.”
They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials he needed, and O'Connor to look up O'Halloran and get a permit to visit the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.
“I'm altering this to fit me and fixing it up,” he explained.
“Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?” asked Bucky, in surprise.
“My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?”
“You bet I did, and didn't. Mickey was out, but I left him a note. The other thing I pulled off all right. I'm to be allowed to visit the prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure There's nothing like a pull, son.”
“Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.
“No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery made?”
“A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I'm just making a few changes. Do you want to try on your suit?”
“Is THIS mine?” asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt the rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.
“Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we'll see how it fits.”
Bucky returned