That had sobered him. He kept away from the border itself after that,
although the temptation of it drew him. After a few weeks, when the
novelty had worn off, he began to hunger for the clean little American
town across the line. He wanted to talk to some one. He wanted to boast,
to be candid. These Mexicans only laughed when he bragged to them. But
he dared not cross.

There was a high-fenced enclosure behind the "Owl," the segregated
district of the town. There, in tiny one-roomed houses built in
rows like barracks were the girls and women who had drifted to this
jumping-off place of the world. In the daytime they slept or sat on
the narrow, ramshackle porches, untidy, noisy, unspeakably wretched.
At night, however, they blossomed forth in tawdry finery, in the
dancing-space behind the gambling-tables. Some of them were fixtures.
They had drifted there from New Orleans, perhaps, or southern
California, and they lacked the initiative or the money to get away.
But most of them came in, stayed a month or two, found the place a
nightmare, with its shootings and stabbings, and then disappeared.

At first Rudolph was popular in this hell of the underworld. He spent
money easily, he danced well, he had audacity and a sort of sardonic
humor. They asked no questions, those poor wretches who had themselves
slid over the edge of life. They took what came, grateful for little
pleasures, glad even to talk their own tongue.