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eyed half-breeds or Mexicans, of all sizes, from the wabbling, shapeless grandmother to the latest lively heir to the name of Ortega or Ruiz or La Chapa, all chattering gaily in the highpitched, musically inflected mongrel Spanish which is their common dialect; Mexicans from "below the line," with swart, yellow, crafty faces and beady, furtive eyes, their "chuck-aluck" and "peon" outfits ready to hand, and their tough, wiry ponies all attuned to the pleasant business of separating the impulsive Gringoes and their money. Horse racing and gambling are two prime diversions at a border-town barbecue.

Another class strongly in evidence to whom the barbecue is the great social event of the year, the annual meeting of forty mile distant neighbors and and friends, the mountain ranchers, came in family groups, the farmer in store clothes, the mother and growing daughters in stiffly starched white gowns and rustling skirts, the younger children gaily be-ribboned and painfully scrubbed, with neat braids and plastered locks.

Groups of trim khaki-clad soldiers from the encampment nearby emphasized the fact that this was indeed the borderland, and that beneath the surface mingling of Mexican and white, there was a sharply defined line, a line which was daily growing more tautly drawn with the development of international complications. Another touch of this accenting coloring was the presence of the immigration and customs officers-two permanent residents guarding the winding highroad to Mexico, three miles below. These, with their corps of "line riders," were to-day among the prominent guests at the big countryside fiesta.

The Indians, primal owners of the oak-studded mountains and spreading pastures of the region, were the guests on sufferance. From their small reservation down toward the desert the handful came, their broad, good-natured faces beaming as they squatted in the scant shade of scrub willows, or against the stone wall of the store, adorned with their best cerise or scarlet handkerchiefs, knotted about their throats, or in the case of the older

ones, bound about their heads-a vividly picturesque and pathetic touch to the conglomerate picture.

High noon approached and the sun's rays beat vertically upon the clump of willows beneath whose shade rough tables and benches of lumber had been constructed. Across the open pasture where the racing course had been laid out, and where the barbecue was now being unearthed, the heat shimmered. in blurred waves, rising from the baking stubble ground. Fox-tail and tarweed distilled a warm, pungent fragrance under the ardent rays, and to step into the gray pools of shade beneath the green, drooping willows was a grateful relief from the glare.

The crowds were gathered thickly in this kindly shelter, packed about the rough tables, all who were able to, providing themselves from the generous supply of tin cups and paper plates piled high upon the boards. The beef, succulently dripping in its own juices, falling delectably from the bones in sheer tenderness, and smoking hot, was being brought from the pit in tubs, borne each by two stalwart carriers.

At the head of each table, the chief server, a genial frontiersman, with shirtsleeves rolled to his shoulders and sombrero pushed back from his damp forehead, wielded a huge carving knife with delightfully generous and impartial decision. As each plate came before him it was piled with browned and juicy cuts, and his corps of volunteer assistants added "slabs" of bread cut with the same generosity, and a handful of salt. Cups were filled from pails of steaming fragrant brown coffee

and, from the withered old Mexican crone, to the fastidious city visitor, the multitude was lavishly and impar'tially fed, without money and without price.

The early afternoon saw all filled to repletion, and the men, cowboys, soldiers, Indians, ranchers and Mexicans flocked to the race course for the big event of the day, drawing up close to the sides in two long lines. Every variety of emotion ranged down the rows of watching faces, from the crafty cupidity of the gambler to the nonchalance and bravado of the cowpuncher, tentatively jingling his six

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Old Customs House, a relic of the pioneer days of Campo.

months' wages in his pocket, as his eye appraises the favorites in the running.

To tune up the crowd, preliminary races were put on-foot races, sack races, burro races, rough and tumble affairs, made up three parts of crude good-natured fun and one part skill. Money on small bets changed hands with laughing wrangling, and finally the tracks were cleared for the crowning event of the afternoon.

"Twenty dollars on the buckskin!" came a lusty challenge from an American, whose clenched fist was raised above his head and held gold and greenbacks. "Twenty dollars on the buckskin."

The other horse, a black, was ridden by a Mexican, and mounted on the buckskin, by far the better animal, was a boy.

"Twenty dollars on the buckskin!" but a smile, flashing across the swarthy features of a long line of Mexican riders, was the only answer.

The horses started, and the Mexicans leaned from their saddles. They

were impassive, all but the intensity of their eyes. As the starting point was approached, the black horse seemed to fall behind while the buckskin shot across the line, and half way down the field before he was checked, to try again.

"Forty dollars on the buckskin!" cried the lusty American.

"Si, Senor," answered a Mexican, softly, and covered the money.

"Twenty more on the buckskin!" shouted the American. "You ain't game to take it. Twenty on the buckskin!"

Again and again the starter at the other end of the field had to call the racers back, the nervous buckskin apparently running away from her black rival before the starting point was reached. And each time the American renewed his bet, and each time too some smiling Mexican covered the money with a soft "Si, Senor."

"You want to lose your whole fool wad?" remarked a lanky cowpuncher to the other American. "You're bettin' on the best horse, but them Mexicans

know how to ride."

"Twenty more on the buckskin!" was the defiant answer.

"Si, Senor," and the Mexican who took the bet remarked to his companion in Spanish: "The buckskin's sides heave."

"Here they come," cried the American contingent.

The horses had started together and came down the field like tearing demons. They ran nose and nose until a few feet from the finishing line when the black was spurred ahead but a few inches and won the race. The buckskin was blowing.

*

The lowering sun again cast a flood of saffron light across the sky, its golden glamour tinging the air with a mellow glow. As it sank, the cool east wind crept across the greying pasture and flowed a steady stream toward the sea. The ruddy mountains turned deeply purple in the clear mountain air, and camp fires here and there began to send up small columns of smoke, their crackling flames gathering brightness with the waning of the day. Losers and winners alike, with cheerful acceptance of the day's chances, separated into small strolling groups, joining those who, loth to leave the merrymaking, were preparing campfire suppers before a more leisurely departure, or were planning to tempt Dame Fortune through the night.

For with the night came the most absorbing sport of all. The "chuck-a-luck" tables had been spread with the fateful six greasy cards, and dice were seductively rattling, as the sing-song voices of the gamblers called to the idlers to "Come and take a chance. Break the bank-break the bank!"

Already the tables were being surrounded by a motley gathering. Here an old Mexi

reaped an unexpected harvest, which he pocketed and walked away with, unconcerned by the gambler's black looks. By his side a young Indian, a boy of fifteen, was tentatively "trying the ice," on his first venture into the fascinations of the game. His nickel had won another, and he was balancing the pair in his hands, in two minds as to whether risking his fortune to double it, with the chance of losing all. Behind him, a nonchalant citizen of the seaside city below, in shirt-sleeves and with panama hat shoved well back on his head, his round face smiling, played the game with an easy indifference, his original gold piece split into ten half-dollars, which he placed here and there with the same rapidity that the gambler doubled or absorbed them -and according to the turn of the dice his holdings ran from twenty dollars to one, until, when the exact original five was again in his possession, he turned away with a laugh, seeking fresh diversion.

As the purple gloom of the night settled down the peon games were

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can, placing carefully on this Indian women chanters at the peon games.

started, and the flaring lure of the chuck-a-luck torches was rivaled by the glow of the peon camp fires. In this most primitive of Indian games, age-old custom holds strongly. Mystery, superstition, subtle craft, all mingle in the contest, the glow of the primeval camp-fire lighting brown, chiseled faces schooled to wooden impassivity, or purposely worked into deceptive mad excitement. The wailing wild chant of the women, singing the peon song, now rising to a concerted shriek, now drifting to a moan; the cautious gestures, the weary gleaming eyes of the crouching players, the in

ward invocations to the Saints one feels in the muttered breathings, and the sublime faith one knows they are holding in the charms purchased from their "Hechiceros," the tribal medicine men, furnish the most characteristic touch in the whole varied picture of the barbecue. It is the last hold on a fast-slipping past, of a people soon to be themselves swallowed up in that past.

Through all the reckless and joyous turmoil of the day, this deeper note strikes through, and rings as the dominant memory of a bordertown barbecue.

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