“But I’m most through now,” Jo Ann replied meekly. “In a few minutes I’ll have my dress finished.”
“But just suppose the manager should knock on the door and catch you on top of the bed like this?”
As Miss Prudence was still worrying when Florence had finished dressing, she decided to see for herself what the hotel rules said about ironing. She walked over and began glancing at the printed rules hanging on the wall by the telephone.
A few moments later she stopped reading and burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, girls!” she exclaimed after she had checked her mirth a little. “This is rich! Funniest thing I’ve ever heard. The rules say——” She stopped and broke into uncontrollable laughter again.
Peggy ran over to read the rule that was causing Florence so much amusement. Then she too began to laugh, stopping only long enough to exclaim, “Oh—this is killing!”
“What’s the joke? What on earth does that say?” Jo Ann demanded.
Peggy checked her laughter long enough to answer, “It says when a guest—wishes to iron—to call the office, and ironing board—and iron’ll be sent up immediately.”
Jo Ann’s jaw dropped, as did Miss Prudence’s. Their expressions were so ridiculous that Florence and Peggy continued laughing till the tears rolled down their cheeks.
After an amazed, “And to think I could’ve had a real iron and board for the asking!” Jo Ann began laughing equally merrily.
They were all still smiling broadly several minutes later when they went down to the lobby to meet Lucile and her mother, who were waiting for them there.
The dinner party turned out to be a great success, and the girls did not return to the hotel till almost eleven o’clock.
“It’s my turn to sleep with Miss Prudence,” Peggy remarked on entering the other girls’ room, “but I’m scared to go in there and wake her up this late. She’d think it an unearthly hour.” She stopped talking and smiled over at the girls. “Aren’t you going to be polite and ask me to sleep with you? You’d better, because I’m going to, invitation or no invitation.”
With a mock groan Jo Ann looked at the double bed and then at Peggy. “Say, Florence,” she remarked finally, “I feel sorry for ourselves, don’t you?”
“Put her in the middle where she can take the consequences,” suggested Florence, her eyes twinkling.
Jo Ann grimaced. “The consequences’ll probably be that you and I’ll be out on the floor before the night’s over.”
After much subdued giggling and chatter the three girls finally climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep.
About five o’clock the next morning they were aroused by someone knocking at the door.
Peggy waked with a start. “Someone knocking! Maybe the hotel’s afire and they’re trying to rouse us!” darted through her mind.
She flung off the covers, tumbled over the sleeping Jo Ann, and rushed to the door to find an anxious-faced Miss Prudence.
“Thank goodness you’re here, Peggy,” Miss Prudence exclaimed. “I just woke up and found you weren’t in my room, and I was so alarmed! Are the other girls here?” She snapped on the light and stood blinking at the frightened Florence and Jo Ann, who by this time were sitting up in bed, trying to figure out what had happened.
“Now that you’re all awake you might as well dress, so we can get an early start,” Miss Prudence announced crisply.
Jo Ann groaned audibly and sank back in the bed.
“Isn’t it only about two or three o’clock?” Florence asked hesitatingly.
“Mercy, no! It’s after five. It takes you girls so long to dress that it’ll be six or half past before you’ll be ready.”
“Oh, but I’m so—so sleepy!” Peggy yawned. “Five o’clock’s an awful hour to get up.”
Miss Prudence eyed her severely. “You stayed up too late last night, probably. Just dash some cold water in your face—that’ll wake you.” She added with a whimsical note in her voice, “Perhaps I’d better do it for you—and sprinkle some on Florence and Jo Ann, too.”
“Oh, have a heart, Miss Prudence!” Jo Ann begged, burrowing her head under the covers.
Seeing that Miss Prudence was in earnest about the early start and was going to stay there to see that they did get up and dress, Florence and Jo Ann reluctantly slipped out of bed.
“When we reach the mine, I’m going to sleep and sleep to make up for all this lost time,” Jo Ann murmured to the girls between yawns as she was dressing.
“Maybe you’ll even sleep through the siesta hour—you couldn’t learn that trick last summer, it seemed,” Peggy replied. “I take to sleeping the way Miss Prudence does to getting up with the chickens. Maybe the tropical heat’ll make her more sleepy-headed down there.”
Florence smiled. “Here’s hoping it will.”
Once they were in the car and on their way, winding along the Rio Grande and breathing in the fresh, invigorating morning air, they felt better about having had to start so early.
“We’ll make the city early this afternoon, at this rate,” Peggy remarked. “That’ll give us time to do a little sightseeing. I wish we didn’t have to go clear to Laredo before we cross the river. I’m eager to get on Mexican soil right away.”
“That’s the way with me,” Jo Ann added. “I wish there were a short cut somewhere. It seems as if there ought to be.”
When, two hours later, they stopped at a filling station in a little town to get some gas, and Jo Ann made this same remark to the service man, he looked puzzled and merely nodded his head. Florence, realizing that he understood little English, began questioning him in Spanish.
All smiles on hearing his native language, he answered at once, “Sí, there is a bridge you can cross here. They are putting in a new highway across the desert, which joins the main highway from Laredo.”
“Bien.I think we shall go that way,” Florence replied. “It will save us much time, will it not?”
“Sí—a little. It is about a hundred kilometers less, that way.”
Florence smiled. “That is very good.” Now that she was so close to the country where her parents lived she was growing more and more eager to get home.
“That desert road doesn’t sound good to me,” Miss Prudence put in, shaking her gray head vigorously. “It’s probably impassable. Ask him if it’s any worse than this one. I certainly don’t want to get stranded in the desert.”
Florence obediently relayed her question.
“If there isn’t any rain”—the man grinned and shrugged his shoulders—“you can drive through all right.”
Florence translated to Miss Prudence what he had said and added, “The rainy season doesn’t begin till September. We’re not likely to have rain. Look at the sky!” She gestured to the cloudless expanse of blue above them.
“It’s so dry and hot now it’s hard to believe it ever rains in this forsaken country.” Miss Prudence hesitated a moment, then went on, “If we’ll save that much distance through this awful country, maybe we’d better try it.”
“Grand!” ejaculated all three girls together.
“Ah, how good!” sang out Carlitos in Spanish.
While Miss Prudence was still pointing out the country’s bad points, Jo Ann followed the man’s directions and turned into the side road leading across the toll bridge. With little difficulty she steered the car down the narrow road, not stopping till they reached the bridge.
As soon as they had passed over the middle of the bridge, the girls and Carlitos, to Miss Prudence’s evident disapproval, exclaimed joyously, “We’re in Mexico now!VivaMexico!VivaMexico!”
As both Florence and Carlitos spoke Spanish fluently, it did not take them long to answer the questions asked by the customs officials on the Mexican side, and so they were soon permitted to drive on. They had not left the river far behind before the vegetation began to change again to the typical desert varieties, mesquite, chaparral, cacti—especially the prickly pear and many other thorn-bearing kinds.
Miss Prudence expressed her opinion by saying in a disgusted tone, “Desolation itself. I never saw so much land going to waste.”
“But just think how fertile and productive the land is after it’s irrigated,” observed Florence.
Miss Prudence passed over Florence’s comment without a word and went on to scold about the condition of the road. “And that man called this a good road. I’d call it a series of gullies. It’s practically impassable. If it should rain——”
“It won’t, don’t worry,” comforted Florence.
On account of the many washed-out places in the road, Jo Ann found that she had to drive in low gear frequently. As a result the engine soon became overheated and steam began to pour out in jets from the radiator.
“Oh, gee!” she ejaculated. “I’ll have to stop now and get some water and put it in the radiator.” She drew her brows together into a frown. “Where’ll I get the water? We haven’t a drop with us. Of all the tenderfeet, I’m the biggest and greenest.”
“We’ll have to drive all the way back to the river—or maybe we can find a water hole down toward the river. We might walk down that gully a piece and see.” Florence pointed to the deep cut leading toward the river.
“All right.” Jo Ann drew the car up to one side of the road and stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Miss Prudence called out anxiously.
“Nothing except our radiator’s thirsty. I’m going down here and see if I can find some water for it.” She reached down and picked up a tin bucket off the floor. “Who wants to go with me?”
“I’ll go,” Florence replied.
After eying the thick thorny vegetation on all sides, Peggy shook her head. “Not I. I’d feel as if I were being electrocuted, walking through all those thorns and stickers.”
As Jo Ann and Florence were picking their way gingerly along the rocky gully, Jo Ann exclaimed, “Why, look! Here’re some automobile tracks, and here’s one that looks as if it’d been made just recently. I can’t imagine anyone’s being able to get much farther down here.”
“Nor I.”
When they had gone several yards farther, Jo Ann noticed that the car tracks led up the sloping left side of the gully. All at once she spied a car hidden behind some bushes up on the edge of the gully.
“Look, there’s the car!” she exclaimed, low-voiced, pointing to it. “Up there behind that mesquite. Looks as if someone’s tried to hide it there. Something queer about that—suspicious. I’d like to go up and peek inside it.”
“Well, I for one am not going up to investigate.” Florence caught Jo Ann by the hand and pulled her along as fast as she could through the maze of thorny plants. “You have entirely too much curiosity.”
“It’s enough to make anyone wonder, to find a car hidden in such a desolate spot. Maybe”—she whispered her next word—“smugglers’ve hidden it there. I’m going up and——”
“Oh, please don’t—please——” Florence tugged at Jo Ann’s arm, but in vain.
Jo Ann turned back and started up the slope.
“Well, if you’re bound to go, I might as well go, too. I’m not going to stay here alone.” After this whispered reply Florence began following her.
Without speaking another word the two girls climbed on up the slope. Cautiously they peeked through the mesquite and chaparral to see if they could notice anyone in or around the car.
As soon as they were satisfied that there was no one in sight, Jo Ann made her way up to the old Ford and peered inside, Florence close behind.
Both girls opened their eyes wide on seeing the quantities of pottery and baskets piled in the back of the car.
Just as Jo Ann was about to whisper to Florence that she believed the car belonged to smugglers, she suddenly noticed that there was steam jetting out from the radiator. She pointed meaningly to the steam.
Florence caught the point immediately. Since the engine was still hot the car must have been hidden there only a few minutes before. Without saying a word she indicated to Jo Ann that they must hurry away.
Jo Ann lingered for one long keen-eyed look at the battered old car and especially at the license tag. She was determined to be able to identify the car if she should see it again. She felt that there was something mysterious about its being hidden there. A moment later she followed Florence back down the slope. Silently they continued on down the gully.
On noticing a path leading upward a few yards ahead on the left, Jo Ann opened her lips to remark about it. Before she could utter a word, a man’s angry voice floated down, speaking rapidly in Spanish. What was it he was saying? Something about——
Florence caught hold of her hand in a convulsive clutch, and she turned to see Florence’s eyes dilated in terror.
Simultaneously a second voice sounded, with an even more angry ring in it.
“Hurry! Let’s run!” Florence breathed.
To Florence’s consternation, Jo Ann darted straight up the path. Just before reaching the top she halted and peered cautiously in the direction of the men’s voices, then scurried silently back.
Together the two ran up the gully, not even halting when thorns tore Florence’s skirt and scratched a red gash in one of Jo Ann’s legs.
“Those men must’ve said something terrible to scare Florence this way,” Jo Ann thought as she ran. “All I could make out were the words ‘money’ and ‘thief.’”
On the two rushed, with only a hurried glance backward now and then.
When at last, panting and puffing, they reached the road, Jo Ann gasped, “What’d—they say?”
“The first one said—‘he’s a thief—cheating us—I’m going to kill him.’”
“Wh-ew!” Jo Ann ejaculated while Florence was catching her breath. “The other—what’d he say?”
“He said, ‘I’ll help—you kill him.’ Then he said—something about some packages weighing more than his enemy had paid them for.”
“Did he say what was in the packages?”
“No.”
“I believe those men are smugglers, don’t you?”
Florence nodded. “I feel sure they are.”
“Do you suppose they belong to that gang of smugglers the mystery man was after?”
“Hard to say.”
“I believe I’ll know those men if I ever see them again—their car, too.” Jo Ann threw another hasty glance over her shoulder. “We’d better get away from this place soon as possible.”
“But the engine’s so hot—and we haven’t any water.”
“Here’s hoping the engine’s cooled off by now.”
When they reached the car, Jo Ann glanced anxiously to see if the steam were still rising.
“Thank goodness!” she murmured as she saw there was no sign of misty vapor rising from the radiator. “We’ll get away from this spot in a hurry.”
When they reached the car, Peggy called out, “We’d decided you’d tumbled into a water hole or the Rio Grande and drowned. What kept you so long?”
“Er—we——” began Florence.
Jo Ann broke in hurriedly with, “We couldn’t find any water.”
“What’ll we do?” Miss Prudence spoke up quickly. “We can’t go on without water, can we?”
“Yes, the engine’s cooled enough by now.”
“But it would be the height of folly to start out on a desert road without water.”
By that time Jo Ann had started the car, but not before both she and Florence had looked anxiously toward the gully.
“Something happened down in that gully that scared them,” Peggy told herself knowingly on noticing their anxious side glances and the excited expression in their eyes. “As soon as I get them off to themselves, I’m going to find out.”
It was with the keenest relief that Jo Ann managed to start the car and drive away before the men appeared. She was not alone in feeling relieved.
Florence’s taut body relaxed, and she remarked, in a low tone, “That was a narrow escape. If those men’d seen us, no telling——” She left her sentence unfinished.
Jo Ann nodded understandingly. Those men would have been more angry than ever if they had known that she and Florence had been listening to them and peeking into their car. It was too bad she and Florence couldn’t have got some water, but she would far rather run the risk of finding water elsewhere than for those men to have discovered them there.
Florence seemed to have read her thoughts as she remarked the next moment, “Surely we’ll be able to find some water soon. We’ve just got to get some before we go much farther.”
The engine soon began to boil again, and Jo Ann was almost in despair. “Now what’ll we do?”
The next instant Florence cried excitedly, “There’s a water carrier! We can get water from him.”
“You mean that donkey cart jogging ahead there with the barrel on it?”
“Yes. The Mexican’s carrying water to some ranch house or village, and maybe we can get him to sell us some.”
In a flurry of dust Jo Ann stopped the car beside the cart, and Florence called out in Spanish to the old wrinkled water carrier, “Buenos tardes, señor. Will you sell us a little water?”
At the sound of Florence’s voice the lazy burro promptly stopped, and the man stood peering at them from under his big sombrero.
“See,” Florence went on, “we need water for our car. Will you sell us some?”
“Muy bien.” He nodded his head and reached for the bucket Jo Ann was holding out to him.
“Thank my stars someone knows where to get water in this awful desert!” Miss Prudence exclaimed, feeling relieved at sight of the water. “Do you suppose that is the only way the people have of getting water out here, Florence?”
“Probably so.”
“Well, I’d certainly hate to live here! Imagine having to drink that water! And washing dishes and clothes in a thimbleful of water wouldn’t suit me at all, either. I have the whole Atlantic Ocean right at the edge of my home in Massachusetts.”
Florence smiled at the contrast of life in the desert and on the seacoast.
After they had filled the radiator and their thermos jug with the precious fluid, they drove off, the girls and Carlitos all calling a smiling “adios” to the water carrier.
A little later, at the old stone house on the edge of the village, they were halted and their passports examined. As they were waiting for one of the men to look over the papers Carlitos and Florence talked in Spanish to the other man. Jo Ann half smiled to herself as she noticed Miss Prudence’s evident disapproval at seeing Carlitos’s delight on finding someone with whom to speak Spanish.
Catching Jo Ann’s expression, Miss Prudence remarked crisply, “I can’t get used to having a foreigner for a nephew. I have my doubts if he’ll ever get to be a genuine American.”
“I wish I knew Spanish as well as he does. I love the language—it’s beautiful,” Jo Ann replied. “I’d be glad, if I were you, that he knows it; maybe he’ll soon be speaking English as easily as Spanish.”
“I hope so.”
As Jo Ann drove the car slowly through the narrow streets of the quaint old village, the girls gazed interestedly at the adobe and stone houses and the picturesque church with its bell tower. From behind half-closed doors they caught glimpses of dark, eager faces peering at them. A moment later the road sloped down an abrupt hill, and there was nothing to be seen but the bleak expanse of desert.
“There’s a weird beauty about the desert,” Peggy commented thoughtfully to Florence as she gazed at the vast stretch of silvery grays and tawny browns which were rolled out before them and silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky.
“I’ve decided there’s no spot on earth where there isn’t beauty of some description. I agree with you that the desert has its share of loveliness.”
“And it has its share of washes and gullies too,” spoke up Miss Prudence as the car suddenly dipped into a deep cut which jolted them vigorously from side to side.
About an hour later, Carlitos suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, look—the mountains! See, over there!”
The other four stared in the southwesterly direction in which he was pointing, and soon all were able to distinguish the low irregular purple line of mountains.
“The sight of those mountains thrills me,” declared Florence with a joyous exultation that the other girls and Carlitos shared. “Just think! Back of that line there’s another higher range, then another.”
From then on they watched the mountains become more and more distinct, the deep purple changing into a soft, mauve-tinted gray, while the distant ranges gradually came into view, their lofty majestic peaks cloud-wreathed.
When at last they reached the main paved highway, Miss Prudence’s expression brightened. “Thank my stars we’re on a good road at last!”
“Oh boy! What a road!” cried Jo Ann as she turned into the smooth-paved highway.
The miles seemed to fly by, and almost before she realized it they had reached the first mountain range and begun to climb the walled-in highway which wound back and forth up the mountain side.
So intent was Jo Ann upon keeping the car close to the cliffs, she could catch only fleeting glimpses of the valley below and of the road beyond as it threaded its way higher and higher. The other four, however, had plenty of time to drink in the majestic beauty of the scenery.
Several times Miss Prudence became alarmed over Jo Ann’s ability to manage Jitters and started to caution her, but each time Peggy broke in with such warm praises of Jo Ann’s driving that she subsided. “Jo never lets her nerves run away with her,” Peggy declared. “She always keeps her head in emergencies, like the good scout that she is.”
“She may be able to keep her nerves from running away, but can she keep this old Ford from running amuck?” Miss Prudence came back sharply.
“Sure. Jitters is hitting on all four—humming along like a—well, maybe not like a Cadillac, exactly, but at least like a much better car.”
In spite of Peggy’s encouragement Miss Prudence did not cease to be nervous till they reached a more level stretch.
When at last they came in sight of the city, the girls’ and Carlitos’s excitement reached the boiling point.
“Now I can speak de Spanish in de city,” exulted Carlitos, oblivious of Miss Prudence’s frown.
“Oh, don’t you hope the band plays tonight so we can promenade around the Plaza?” exclaimed Peggy. “That’s the most fun! The lovely music—those beautiful dark-eyed señoritas—and, oh, those handsome men! Light of my eyes! Pride of my heart!” Peggy placed her hand over her heart in a ridiculously exaggerated gesture that sent Florence into peals of laughter.
Suddenly remembering that Peggy’s exaggerated acting might have been misunderstood by Miss Prudence, Florence hastily checked her mirth and remarked, “Peggy doesn’t mean anything by her raving. She’s perfectly harmless.”
On nearing the outskirts of the city Miss Prudence suggested to Florence that, as she was familiar with the hotels, she choose the best one and drive directly to it. “When I say choose the best one, I mean the most modern one,” she explained.
“There’s a beautiful new one just built recently that I know you’ll like,” Florence replied, then added, “I’d better drive the rest of the way, as I’m familiar with the city and the narrow one-way streets.”
Jo Ann stopped the car saying, “I’m glad to turn the wheel over to you. I’d get all mixed up on the one-way streets and go in the wrong direction every time, since all the signs are in Spanish.”
With eyes eager and shining, the four young people viewed the streets, the shops and houses, and the crowds in the downtown section.
When Florence stopped the car in front of the city’s most modern hotel, Miss Prudence went with Florence and Peggy to see about rooms while Jo Ann stayed in the car with Carlitos.
A smiling little black-eyed Mexican newsboy ran up to the car to try to sell them a paper, and Carlitos promptly bought one; not that he wanted to read it, but because he wanted to talk to a real Mexican boy once more. He was still chatting with him in a lively flow of Spanish when Miss Prudence came back. At first she frowned in disapproval, then began to smile. “I might as well be resigned to having a little Mexican for a nephew,” she remarked to Jo Ann. “Carlitos loves Mexican people and their language.”
“I do, too,” Jo Ann replied. “Spanish is such a beautiful language, and the people here—why, there aren’t any friendlier, more smiling people anywhere in the world.”
As soon as they had gone up to their cheerful, airy hotel rooms, bathed and dressed, it was time for supper. At Florence’s suggestion they went to an old restaurant with a more distinctive Mexican atmosphere and cookery than the hotel had. The girls, as well as Carlitos, thoroughly enjoyed ordering from a menu card written in both Spanish and English.
Miss Prudence smiled whimsically as she glanced at the card and remarked to Florence and Carlitos, “You two may order your food in Spanish, but not I.” Her smile suddenly disappeared on noticing the high prices: “Scrambled eggs—forty cents,” she read. “Why, that’s terrible!”
“But that’s in Mexican money,” laughed Florence. “That’s only about thirteen cents in American.”
Miss Prudence nodded. “O-oh! I see. I’d forgotten about that.”
It was a delicious meal that the alert, polite waiter brought them, and even Miss Prudence, who at first was dubious about Mexican cookery’s comparing favorably with New England’s, praised it enthusiastically.
Florence and Carlitos, though, enjoyed it most of all.
“Thatchocolatéis the best I’ve had since I left Mexico last fall,” Florence declared, while Carlitos was all smiles over thefrijolesandchile con carne.
When they left the restaurant, it was twilight, and they could hear the band in the little park, or plaza, as it was called, playing an old Mexican air.
“Oh, let’s go to the Plaza now and promenade!” exclaimed Peggy eagerly. “I adore walking around and around the square with the crowds.”
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Florence. “You want to go, too, don’t you, Jo Ann?”
“Of course. I may let you girls do the strolling around while I sit on one of the spectators’ benches and——”
“Pooh!” scoffed Peggy. “You’re no Methuselah. You’ll have to promenade too. When you’re in Mexico, do as the Mexicans do, my dear.” Realizing that Miss Prudence had not given her consent to their plan, she began explaining how the Mexican girls walked slowly round and round the square, while the boys walked equally as slowly on the inside in the opposite direction, exchanging smiles and a few words now and then but not stopping. “And chaperons! I never saw so many. You won’t have seen Mexico unless you see this scene.”
Miss Prudence smiled. “That being the case, I’ll have to go with you.”
As soon as they had reached the Plaza, Miss Prudence and Carlitos found seats, and the three girls joined the laughing, dark-eyed señoritas, mingling with them and feeling a warm kinship—a oneness with them.
Jo Ann, having been the one on the outside, found her attention centered on the spectators sitting or standing near the curb rather than on the boys on the inside of the Plaza.
Just as she reached one of the corners, she caught a sudden glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd in the background. Her heart leaped. There was the mystery man! The very man to whom she had listened in the hotel in Houston. Thank goodness, he hadn’t lost his life!
As she slowed her steps to look over her shoulder at him to assure herself that she was not mistaken, Florence pulled her along saying, “No fair stopping—you’re blocking the line.”
“Yes, but I just saw the mystery man on that corner, and I——”
“Jo! I declare you must have that man on your mind. You’re probably imagining that it’s he. Someone resembling him, perhaps it was.”
“No—no! It was he. When we get back around to that corner I’ll point him out to you.”
“Who’s that you’re going to point out, Jo?” broke in Peggy.
“The mystery man! I’ve just seen him. I wish you didn’t have to keep going in the same direction.”
Jo Ann could scarcely wait to get back to that corner. It seemed miles around the square to her this time. When at last she reached the corner again, she gazed eagerly about for the stalwart, keen-eyed stranger, but he was not to be seen anywhere.
“Oh, shoot! He’s gone!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “And I wanted to tell him about those smugglers we saw back there in the desert.”
Peggy stretched her eyes wide. “Smugglers! You actually saw some smugglers in the desert?”
“Sh! Not so loud,” Jo Ann warned, low-voiced. “We think they were smugglers, but of course we can’t be absolutely certain.”
“So that was what you and Florence were so excited about when you came back to the car out there in the desert. Hurry up and tell me all about it.”
“We can’t—not here, with all these people around. Wait till we get to the hotel; then we’ll tell you everything, won’t we, Florence?”
Florence nodded assent.
After a second time around the Plaza without seeing the mystery man, Jo Ann was more disappointed than ever.
When they reached the place where Miss Prudence and Carlitos were sitting, Miss Prudence gestured to them to step from the line and come to her side. “Girls,” she began as soon as they walked over, “I think we’d better leave now and go on back to the hotel. You know the trip tomorrow up the mountains to the mine is bound to be a very hard one. We must get an early start in the morning.”
On hearing these familiar words, “get an early start,” the girls exchanged swift glances but succeeded in keeping sober expressions on their faces.
Peggy protested lightly, “This music is so lovely, I hate to leave it.”
“You’ll be able to hear it from your room at the hotel—it’s so close by,” Miss Prudence replied.
“Peggy likes to promenade as well as to hear the music,” Florence put in, teasing.
“She’ll have other opportunities to promenade, probably.”
“Yes,” put in Florence. “The mine is not so far away but what we can come back here at least a few times this summer.”
Miss Prudence rose from the bench and started toward the hotel, the girls following, but not without several backward glances at the fascinating Plaza and the gay young crowd.
Peggy would not have followed as meekly if it had not been that she was eager to hear Florence’s and Jo Ann’s tale about the smugglers. Jo Ann, too, would not have been so willing to go if it had not been that the mystery man had disappeared and she now felt that she would not get a chance to tell him about the smugglers.
When they reached the hotel, Florence, who was to be Miss Prudence’s roommate, went on with Jo Ann and Peggy to their room, explaining to Miss Prudence that she would come to bed shortly.
As soon as Peggy had closed the door of their room, she ordered, “Tell that tale about the smugglers from beginning to end. I knew something exciting had happened to you back there in the desert, and I don’t know why I forgot to ask about it sooner unless it was because I was so interested in getting to the city.”
Jo Ann, with Florence’s frequent promptings, quickly recounted the details about the hidden car, its contents, and the men’s angry conversation.
“Wh-ew, I’m glad I didn’t go with you after the water,” Peggy exclaimed when they had finished. “I’d have been sure to have shrieked or squealed, and they’d have discovered me. One thing I don’t understand, though, is what makes you so certain they were smugglers. The fact that they had baskets and pottery in their car doesn’t prove that they were trying to take them across the border without paying duty, does it?”
“No,” Jo Ann replied. “Think what a good blind the pottery and baskets would be! It would look as if the men were regular merchants buying Mexican wares for the trade in the States, wouldn’t it?”
Peggy nodded.
“Then think how easy it’d be to conceal dope or gold in the jars and vases and baskets. It’s dope or gold—or both—they’re probably smuggling. The chances are the packages the men complained about not being weighed correctly held one or both of those articles.”
“That’s so. Those are the things the coast guard said were smuggled most frequently.”
“I’m not going to be satisfied till I see my mystery man again,” Jo Ann went on earnestly. “I could tell him the exact spot where we’d seen that hidden car, and that might be the very bit of information he needs to be able to catch the men.”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if those men belong to the gang that man’s trying to break up. I wish, Jo, you could see that mystery man and tell him all this, but in this big city”—Florence shook her head dubiously—“your chances of seeing him again are small.”
Jo Ann’s chin took on a determined little tilt. “I’m coming back here as soon as I can and look for him. I believe this main plaza is a good place to look for him, too. It’s a sort of central meeting place for everybody.”
Florence nodded. “That’s true. Everybody naturally gravitates toward the Plaza. It’s the very heart of the city.”
Long after Florence had left to go to Miss Prudence’s room and Peggy was sound asleep, Jo Ann lay wide awake pondering over plans for getting back to the city and for finding the mystery man. She had to leave early tomorrow with the others, as all arrangements had been made for Florence’s father and Carlitos’s uncle, Mr. Eldridge, to meet them at a small village on the way to the mine.
It was well that they did get an early start the next morning, as the nearer they approached the high mountain range beyond the city, the steeper and more dangerous the road became.
“I think we’ll have to leave our car at the village and go the rest of the way to La Esperanza by oxcart or horses,” said Peggy. “That’s the way Mr. Eldridge said they had to do last summer.” She smiled over at Miss Prudence. “Which will you choose, the oxcart or a horse?”
“A horse every time,” came back the quick reply. “I love to ride horseback.”
“Grand!” approved Jo Ann.
“I’ll feel safer—more comfortable, too—on a good horse than in this car.” Miss Prudence added whimsically, “I beg your pardon for knocking Jitters that way.”
Jo Ann smiled broadly. Miss Prudence was a good scout after all. She could ride horseback and condescended now and then to a bit of slang, such as the word “knocking” just then.
When they neared San Geronimo where they were to meet Dr. Blackwell and Mr. Eldridge, the faces of all five began to glow with anticipation. Florence could hardly wait to see her father, and Carlitos his uncle Mr. Eldridge, who was Miss Prudence’s only brother.
As soon as she caught sight of the flat-roofed adobe houses of the village Florence began exulting, “I’ll soon see Dad now! He’ll be waiting at old Pedro’s store.”
“We’ll hate to give you up,” put in Peggy. “We’ll miss you so much!”
“It won’t be long till I’ll be coming over to see you, and then you can come over and visit with me and see our city again.”
“So we’ll end up in spending the summer together after all,” laughed Jo Ann.
Florence nodded so emphatically that Peggy’s face brightened again.
In a few more minutes Florence stopped the car in front of the little store, then leaped out and into the arms of a tall, distinguished, gray-haired man, crying, “Daddy! Oh, Daddy! I’m so glad to see you.”
Just then a tall thin man and a small black-eyed Mexican boy rode up on horses and leaped off.
At sight of them Carlitos shouted joyfully, “My uncle and Pepito! My Pepito!” He sprang out of the car, ran over and greeted his uncle hastily, then flew over to the grinning little Mexican and threw his arms affectionately about him.
“Who is that child?” Miss Prudence demanded of Jo Ann after they had all exchanged greetings with Mr. Eldridge.
“That’s Pepito, his foster brother—the son of the nurse who took care of Carlitos so many years. They love each other like real brothers.”
“We-ell, I suppose they should feel that way,” Miss Prudence said slowly. “After all, all the peoples of the earth are ‘of one blood’—so the Good Book says.”
“We believe that in theory but don’t always practice it, as Carlitos and Pepito do,” put in Mr. Eldridge, secretly amused at his sister’s inward struggle to accept this relationship between her nephew and the little Mexican.