DOWN in Sonora's wide, white lands,

Lost in the endless waste of sands,

Lies, like a blot of gray and brown,

Nacozari, a desert town.

All day long through its narrow street

Children play in the dust and heat,

Naked of limb and dark of face,

Lithe as fawns in their careless grace,

Chattering shrill in a half-caste speech

Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach.

All day long by the doorways small

Cut through the thick adobe wall,

Or in the narrow belts of shade

Here and there by the flat roofs made,

Lounge the indolent, swarthy men,

Moving sluggishly now and then

Better to scan their dicing throws

Under their low-tipped sombreros.

But, for the most, content to lie

Drowsing the listless hours by,

Watching, each, as the thin, blue jet

Curls from his drooping cigarette.

All day long, from the dawn's first flush

When the mass is said in the morning hush

Till fall of eve, when the vesper's peal

Calls the faithful again to kneel,

Nothing rouses the quiet place,

Lulled in the desert's hushed embrace,

Save when out of the distance dim,

Over the far horizon's rim,

Sudden a purring whisper comes,

Rising swift, like the throb of drums,

And the iron track which stretches forth,

Straight as a lance from south to north,

Quivers and sings in the mighty strain

From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train

Then, for a space, as the whistle screams,

Nacozari awakes from dreams.

Women and children, boys and men

Stream to the station platform then,

Eager to gaze from its long plank walk,

With gesturing arms and rapid talk,

At the huge machine like a comet hurled

From the mystical zone of the outer world.

Thus it was on one summer's day,

While the land in its noontide slumber lay

With never a living creature near

Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear

Basking himself in the fervid heat,

Or, high aloft, like a pirate fleet,

A flock of vultures on lazy wing

Circling wide in a watchful ring,

That into the street of the desert town

A long, slow freight came rolling down,

Laden with goods of Northern yield

For Mexican mine and town and field.

Rumbling in with failing speed

It came to rest like a. tired steed,

With the mogul engine's dusty flank

Close by the massive water-tank,

As if it longed, like a living thing,

To quench its thirst at the cooling spring

Of the thousand-foot artesian well,

Sunk through the desert's crusted shell.

Just as it stopped with a grinding jar

Rattling back from car to car,

Out of the engine-cab swung clear

Jesus Garcia, the engineer,

Sooted and grimed to his finger-tips

But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips,

For he was handsome and young and strong

And love was the theme of his murmured song.

Slowly he passed his engine by

Scanning its length with a practiced eye,

Touching a polished slide-valve here.

Or there, a shaft of the running-gear,

Which done, he turned in a boyish mood

To a group of children who, gaping, stood

At the side of the track, too wonder-bound

To move a limb or to make a sound.

Into their midst Garcia sprung

And a chubby lad to his shoulder swung,

Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck

Like a sailor tossed on a rocking deck.

Perhaps to the Mexican engineer

The child suggested a vision dear

Of a little boy of his very own

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,

And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day,

Told beads for her husband, far away,

And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back,

For his mogul engine along the track.

But only a moment, with swinging feet,

The baby perched on his lofty seat,

For suddenly down by the cars in rear

There rang a shriek of unbridled fear.

Garcia turned, in amaze looked back;

A score of men from the railroad track

Were rushing away in a frantic race

As if they had looked on a demon's face,

And then, as he turned, the cause was plain

For half-way back in the standing train

A flame licked out from a box-car's side,

Yellow and spiteful, a handbreadth wide.

His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled

As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child,

Nor even forgot in his haste to place

A good-bye kiss on the upturned face;

Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed

Intent, at the spot where the fire blazed.

Barely a glance was enough to tell

It was a car which he knew full well—

Shipped in bond by a fast freight line,

Bound for a great Sonora mine—

Filled to the roof and loaded tight

With closed-tiered boxes of dynamite;

Enough, if its deadly strength found vent,

To rock the land like a billowed tent,

Sweeping the town from the desert sand

Clean as the palm of an opened hand.

What did he do, the engineer,

Face to face with this mortal fear?

Turn, as the rest, to the desert wide,

Mad with dread, for a place to hide,

Leaving the town and its helpless folk

Doomed to death at a single stroke?

No! Though only a peon born

Heart like his might a king adorn!

Waving his arms to his frightened crew,

Such as remained, a scattered few,

Garcia uttered a warning shout—

"Undile! Vamos!" ("Run! Get out!")

Leaped to his engine waiting there,

Opened the throttle, released the air,

And started the jets for the sand to run

On the glassy rails where the drivers spun,

Till, biting the steel with a spurt of fire

Sputtering back from each grinding tire,

The monster conquered its straining load

And, gathering speed on the curveless road,

It rolled from the town and left it whole.

Like death torn loose from a stricken soul.

But looking backward with stern-set face,

Throttle gripped in a firm embrace,

Garcia goaded his panting steed

Ever and ever to faster speed.

Knowing still if the blow should fall

It would shatter the village wall from wall.

Now from the sides of the car behind,

Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind,

Burst the flames in a lashing sheet

Peeling the paint with its fervid heat,

Vomiting sparks like a fiery hail

On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail.

Still the mogul, in giant flight,

Swaying drunkenly left and right,

Strained to the race, while the rails it trod

Thundered behind it, rod by rod;

Still in its cab, foredoomed, alone.

Waiting death like a man of stone,

Stood Garcia, his feet braced wide

To the pitch and plunge of the engine's stride,

With never a frown to show he knew

Regret for the task he was there to do.

Hardly a mile had his wild train fled

Into the desert straight ahead,

When a flare of light to his vision came

As if the world were engulfed in flame.

Perhaps it fell on his closing eyes

Like the great, white light of Paradise;

Perhaps, in the roar which smote him there,

Too deep for a mortal ear to bear,

He heard but the Heavenly trumpet-roll

Blown clear to welcome a hero's soul.

At least, if any have won to rest

In the fair, green land of the ever blest

By earning their right therein to dwell,

Jesus Garcia deserved it well,

For in the blast that strewed his train,

Torn in fragments, along the plain.

Only his soul went forth to meet

The final call at his Master's feet.

So it is that to-day, alone,

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,

A brown-skinned woman with sad, dark eyes

Looks on her child at his play, and sighs,

Knowing well she will hark in vain

For her husband's step at the door again.

Or watch, as the trains steam back and forth,

For his mogul engine out of the North.

So it is that when evening falls,

Draping the dull adobe walls

Fold on fold in its tender mist,

Purple and blue and amethyst,

And Nacozari kneels down to pray

At the vesper call from the chapel gray,

Many an orison of love

Is wafted up to the stars above

For the peace of Jesus Garcia's soul;

He who had saved the village whole

By the utmost gift which a man can give—

Life, that his fellow men might live.