For months Rudolph Klein had been living in a little Mexican town on the
border. There were really two towns, but they were built together with
only a strip of a hundred feet between. Along this strip ran the
border itself, with a tent pitched on the American side, and patrols of
soldiers guarding it. The American side was bright and clean, orderly
and self-respecting, but only a hundred feet away, unkempt, dusty, with
adobe buildings and a notorious gambling-hell in plain view, was Mexico
itself--leisurely, improvident, not overscrupulous Mexico.

At first Rudolph was fairly contented. It amused him. He liked the
idleness of it. He liked kicking the innumerable Mexican dogs out of
his way. He liked baiting the croupiers in the "Owl." He liked wandering
into that notorious resort and shoving Hindus, Chinamen, and Mexicans
out of the way, while he flung down a silver dollar and watched the
dealers with cunning, avaricious eyes.

He liked his own situation, too. It amused him to think that here he was
safe, while only a hundred feet away he was a criminal, fugitive from
the law. He liked to go to the very border itself, and jeer at the men
on guard there.

"If I was on that side," he would say, "you'd have me in one of those
rotten uniforms, wouldn't you? Come on over, fellows. The liquor's
fine."

Then, one day, a Chinaman he had insulted gave him an unexpected shove,
and he had managed to save himself by a foot from the clutch of a
quiet-faced man in plain clothes who spent a certain amount of time
lounging on the other side of the border.