NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
Odds and Ends in a Note Book 
Amusing and Curious Incidents of Life in the Southwest 
By M. J. BROWN 
The following little stories are 
_ odds and ends from a note book, not 
i 
, letters. 
big enough to hang stories on, but 
fitting to close this series of travel 
Some are curious bits, oth- 
ers, little human interest realities. 
On a train running into Santa Fe 
was a lady passenger in deep grief 
or distress. She was Spanish, a re- 
markably handsome woman, young, 
richly dressed and wearing hand- 
some rings and jewels of Oriental 
design. 
. The girl would sit looking out of 
the window for a long time, then 
break into passionate weeping, and 
when a cylinder on the engine broke 
and the train waited a long time, she 
would walk up and down the aisle in 
the cars. We passengers all thought 
it was a case of death, sickness or ac- 
cident and that she was frantic over 
the delay. 
Finally the engine limped along 
to the next station with one cylinder 
’ working, and there the girl got off. 
It was simply a station in a desolate 
sand country, but there were about 
twenty men and women waiting, all 
Mexicans and judging from their 
faces and dress they were the ordin- 
ary poor American class. 
The girl alighted and the Mexicans 
gathered around. The girl embraced 
one after another, throwing her arms 
around the men and patting them on 
the back (a Mexican salutation) and 
embracing and kissing the women. 
It was a strange spectacle, this con- 
trast. The girl dressed in most ex- 
pensive fashion, the Mexicans in blue 
overalls and the women in faded cal- 
ico. 
As I waited for the train to pull 
out, and as I saw her walk away with 
the little group of Mexicans, I 
thought how I would like to have 
the story of the little tragedy I had 
seen played. And it was given me. 
The engine was too badly crippled 
to pull the heavy train, and ‘it would 
take an hour to get help from Santa 
Fe. The passengers nearly all left 
the train for exercise. 
I saw a white woman and a little 
' girl some distance down the track. 
She was sitting on a log knitting and 
amusing the child. I asked her about 
the Spanish girl and while I made 
friends with the four-year-old and 
gave her my watch to play with, the 
mother told me this story. It took 
her a full hour. I will tell it in a few 
lines: 
Twenty years before a Spaniard 
came there from Spain with his 
young wife and baby. It was said he 
was connected with the best families 
of Spain but for political reasons was 
obliged to leave. He had wealth, 
bought hundreds of sections of land 
and became a cow king. The mother 
died two years after of homesickness 
for the motherland. The father 
idolized the girl and as she grew up 
she was the queen of the cow land. At 
eighteen her father sent her to St. 
Louis to school and to study music. 
She had a rare voice. Two years 
lateer a young attorney came home 
with her and remained during the 
summer vacation. He was thand- 
some, dashing, and became a general 
favorite with both American and 
Mexican cowboys. 
The following summer he came 
again, and then the engagement was 
given out. They were to marry two 
years later, when she finished school. 
The father became much interested 
in the young attorney and was in- 
duced to go to St. Louis, And to 
make the story short, there he was 
fleeced of every dollar he had, even 
to his ranch and cattle. The lawyer 
was a professional sharper, and he in- 
duced the Spaniard to speculate in 
worthless schemes until he was com- 
pletely robbed. With ruin ahead and 
hope gone, the father returned to his 
New Mexico ranch, mailed a letter to 
his daughter, telling her all, and then 
sent a .45 bullet through his heart. 
And when the train pulled out I 
looked off toward the ranch, and won- 
dered how soon the girl would fol- 
low. 
One night in Santa Fe I took off 
my collar and vest, reefed up my 
pants and went into the office of the 
Statesman to strike for a job. I did- 
n’t expect to get any further than the 
business office, but it was vacant and 
I went on into the composing room, 
alive with printers hustling on the 
morning edition. 
This looked too much like a job, so 
I shifted and told the foreman I was 
a writer and wanted to see the manag- 
ing editor. He called to a man, they 
talked a few minutes, then he asked 
me what I could write. 
Thinking it was a case of jolly I 
told him anything from what the tar- 
5 
iff effect on wool would be to New 
Mexican sheep owners to the rise and 
fall of toothpicks, and then he asked 
me if I could write three galleys of 
editorials on current topics in three 
hours, and if so to hop to it. I ex- 
piained I wanted something to eat 
first and would be back, when he told 
the boy to bring me a supper. Then I 
bluffed that I must have some notes 
and clippings from my grip, and 
would be back. I wonder if he is 
waiting. 
I learned that the editor was on a 
vacation and the substitute had just 
been taken with fever. I went in for 
the experience and had to jump side- 
ways to dodge a job. If I had really 
wanted one, I probably could not have 
gotten a pleasant word, I had half 
a notion to go back and tackle it, but 
recalled how two years ago a New 
Yorker had to beat a mob out of the 
city because of a story he wrote, and 
I lost my kidney. 
Apparently to kill time while rid- 
ing across the Arizona dry lands, a 
young fellow came to my seat and 
began a conversation. There was 
something about hig questions that 
put me wise, so I fell for it. I ans- 
wered that I was a newspaper writer, 
but Mexico was too hot, and even if 
] got a war story I couldn’t get it out. 
Where was I going? To Flagstaff. 
Had an old friend there, and perhaps 
he could help me to something. 
Understand, it took the better part 
of a day to bring all this out, and 
then he told me he lived along the 
border and had had a_ proposition 
made to him and if he could find the 
right kind of a partner he would con- 
sider it. 
In brief it was ‘‘Chink rustling,”— 
smuggling Chinamen over the border, 
at so much a John. My informant 
said he understood there was good 
money in the work; that a society in 
Mexico guaranteed the pay; that the 
price over the river was $20 a head 
and from two to four could be 
brought over in safety every night. 
He said he knew the river and a doz- 
en places a rurale or river patrol 
never saw, He could get them across 
all right, but it needed a man to ar- 
range for them tocome up. The war 
scare had driven the other fellows 
out, but there wasn’t the least dan- 
ger. | was to consider it, and if I con- 
cluded to get into the “Chink” game 
I was to come to Comstock in ten 
days. 
From San Pedro, Cal., I went over 
to the Catalina Islands, and it was a 
most interesting trip. The main is- 
land is about twenty miles long, 
