The train went on, and as we reached southward the night became warmer. The stout old man left us, and the black girl stretched out at full length, occasionally prodding me with her French heels. Presently the darkness became less opaque. A faint silhouette of low hills, and then a dim reflection from flat lands, appeared.
We stopped at another station; an unimportant wayside station with a small house for booking-office and a drinking-booth in a lean-to alongside.
"I must have a drink," exclaimed "Tweeds." "Who will come with me?"
Neither the black girl nor the cowgirl would move. We had still lemonade in our Thermos flasks. So the French girl, in her muslin _peignoir_, and "Tweeds" clambered down the carriage steps and disappeared through the door of the fonda.
Disappeared is the right word. Without warning, the train began to move. It gathered speed and clattered away southward. We never saw "Tweeds" or the French girl again. In the thinnest of _négligés_ she was left stranded upon the wayside station, to which no other train would come for at least twelve hours, and possibly not for twenty-four.
The day broke, and we pounded along through a dusty arid country. There was green in the bottom of the valley, but from the roads rose high columns of dust, while the plastered villages of box-like houses near the railroad were dried up and dust-coated. Dust blew in through the carriage windows and settled thick upon the curls which, still swinging and bobbing from the netting of the rack, were fast leaving their mistress behind. At first her companions had been anxious; now they were laughing.
"But," they said, "we wonder if she knows where to come for her things when she does arrive?"
The train became more crowded. Soon people were running up and down, looking angrily for places. Third-class passengers began to fill the corridor of our second-class carriage. A boy of about nineteen, with the half-angry intense face characteristic of some Latins, came into the carriage and demanded a seat from the dark girl who was still stretched at full length. This seat "Darkey," with her habitual selfishness, refused to give up. Suddenly, we were in the middle of a full-fledged Spanish row.