Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

72 an outburst from Ed Garth. He swept all things around him with a startled eye, but all seemed to be running without interrup- tion or flaw; perhaps some singular intuli- tion had brought news of disaster to the builder. “ What is it?” asked the engineer at last. ‘Don’t you hear, Harris?’ cried the big man in one of his rare bursts of impa- tience. ~ The terrific clangor of steel on steel, stone on stone, the voices of engines and men—surely it was an uproar worthy of the heart of hell, but nothing which seemed out of place at the dam. “Not a thing that’s wrong.”’ “The singing, man!” cried Garth. ‘“Damn it, don’t you hear that singing?” From the side of La Cabeza, at the base of the dam, it rose—a Mexican air which Harris did not know. “Why,” he said, “ the Mex often sing while _they’re working, don’t they? Thought it was a good sign?” “They sing when they work—some- times,” growled Garth; “ but they don’t sing in the cement storehouse! And by God, that’s where they’re singing now!” Beyond doubt that was the source of the music, now that Harris bent his ear to listen in that direction. He called up a picture of the storehouse—the sweltering heat which seemed magnified to oven in- tensity by the roof of corrugated iron-— the wraiths of white cement dust that bite the skin and eat at the lungs. It was surely impossible to conceive cheerful singing from such a place. To the cement house the unruly spirits were consigned — the most powerful and dan- gerous Yaquis, for instance—and ten days of that labor brought them forth limp of body and docile of spirit. “Tt isn’t possible!” cried Harris. “The devil himself couldn’t sing in that place!” Tequila!” said Garth. His nervous right hand balled itself into a mighty fist; the buffet of those broad, bony knuckles might have crushed plate- armor. ‘“There’s been more smuggling of the stuff,” he went on, “‘ and if I catch the men that have done it I'll make them an ex- THE ARGOSY. ample that ‘ll cry to Heaven!” He con- cluded after an instant of gloomy silence: “ Tequila!” and strode off. toward the ce- ment house with young Harris fairly run- ning to keep up with the longer legs of his chief, For if rum has been called ‘“ demon” among the whites, tequila deserves the title of “Satan” among the Mexicans. It is the super-devil among drinks. It is dis- tilled from that species of the maguey called zotol, which grows extensively in the state of Jalisco near the town of Tequila, hence its name. It is like clear water in appearance; it has the power of liquid dynamite. ‘With its peculiar and pungent odor and “ green ”’ taste, few white men like it. Even the na- tive Mexican is apt to disguise its flavor. First he sprinkles salt on his wrist, and prepares a slice of lemon. Then he tastes the salt, drinks the tequila, and sucks the lemon in rapid alternation without drawing breath between. Imbibed in this manner, the stuff is not unpleasant, and the peon loves it with a consuming passion. A wine-glass full will stagger the unin- itiated, but the natives drink it copiously with little noticeable effect. Yet the ef- fects of the intoxication last for many hours, and produce in the end a murderous and brooding depression. Mexicans drunk on tequila are like starved wolves; they turn their teeth on each other. Several times cargoes of this liquid poison had been brought ‘surreptitiously to the workers on the dam. One shipment re- sulted in a widespread strike. A second brought about a deadly knife-fight that laid up twenty men in the hospital. So the word “ tequila” had deep meaning for Garth. It had equal meaning for young Harris, and knowing the bare-handed methods of his chief, he blanched, and made sure that his revolver was loaded and ready for instant use. In this manner they hurried to the ce- ment-house, and climbed up to the broad, dirty platform. At the same time the plaintive strains of La Paloma rose from the depths of the building. It was a mo- ment before they could take in | the details of the situation. comicloool< C@