José shrugged his shoulders expressively. “That I do not know. Me nosabe. Señor Eldridge say he no understand.”
All at once the thought flashed into her mind that perhaps the smuggler was at the bottom of this accident. Maybe that was his way of getting even.
The next three days were busy ones for the girls. Miss Prudence had bought scores of yards of gay-colored cretonnes and other materials, and she now set all three to work making couch and pillow covers and draperies.
“I’ve got to have draperies to hide the iron bars at the bedroom windows,” she had said. “I don’t like to see those iron bars. They make me feel as if I’m in prison.”
When she escorted the girls to her bedroom and showed them the heaps of materials, Jo Ann remarked with a whimsical smile, “I didn’t realize what I was getting us into when I suggested brightening up this house with draperies and cushions. It looks as if we’ll be running the sewing machine instead of Jitters for the next week or two.”
Florence and Peggy both laughed. They knew Jo Ann did not like any task that kept her in the house, and especially one of the sitting-still kind, like sewing.
“‘Outdoor action and plenty of it,’ is Jo Ann’s slogan,” Peggy explained a moment later for Miss Prudence’s benefit. “She says sitting still and sewing make all her muscles feel cramped and her head ache and her mind tired.”
“Well, it does,” Jo Ann defended. “I feel as if I’m getting petrified. I’d rather climb mountains any time.”
“I’ll let you run the machine, then,” Miss Prudence spoke up briskly. “That’ll keep your feet moving up and down as if you’re climbing.”
“A poor substitute,” Jo Ann returned, smiling.
“Before you begin sewing, I’ll give you an active job that’ll bring into use more of your muscles—measuring windows. Be sure to get the exact length. Nothing looks worse than draperies that’re too short.”
After Jo Ann had finished measuring windows, she set to work basting and stitching the hems in the draperies. By this time her thoughts had wandered from sewing to the mystery man and the smugglers. Was that smuggler still lurking around the mine and had the other one reached the border without being caught? And was the mystery man still safe and sound? She must get word someway to him when the smugglers were to make their next trip, so he could follow them. If only he could catch those ringleaders and break up that gang!
So engrossed was she in these thoughts that she did not heed Peggy’s sudden outburst of laughter several minutes later till Florence called out a merry, “Jo! Will you look what you’ve done! You’ve hemmed all your draperies upside down, so that the parrots or parrakeets—or whatever kind of birds they are in the design—are all standing on their heads.”
“They’ll look comical with their tails perpetually in the air,” giggled Peggy. “I’m getting dizzy already even at the thought of those poor birds hanging head downward that way.”
“Oh dear!” groaned the discomfited Jo Ann on viewing her mistake. “Now I’ve got to rip out every hem. Oh, woe is me!”
“I’ll help you,” Florence offered, taking one of the draperies from her.
“Next time concentrate on your sewing instead of on the mystery man and those——” Peggy stopped talking abruptly on seeing Miss Prudence enter the room.
As soon as José came to the house that evening, Jo Ann slipped to the kitchen to ask him if he had seen the smuggler hanging around the mine.
At his reply that he had not, Jo Ann felt relieved till the next moment, when he added, “We have much trouble at the mine today. No get out much ore.” He went on to explain that the tram-car wrecked the previous day had torn up the track badly and that there had been trouble with some of the mine machinery.
“Have they found out who wrecked the car?” she asked.
“No. One man told me he saw Luis, a bad workmanEl Señordischarged last week, near the track before the wreck.” José shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know who did it. Maybe it was Luis—maybe it was the strange man you saw.”
“Why did Mr. Eldridge discharge this Luis?”
“He steal ore.”
As Miss Prudence entered the kitchen just then and sat down, Jo Ann could not question José further. She left the room wondering if after all she had not been wrong in her surmise about the smuggler’s having wrecked the car. He might have become alarmed after she and Florence had seen him and have left immediately. She certainly hoped that was the case.
By the time the girls had finished sewing, Jo Ann was thoroughly weary of staying in the house. “If I don’t get outside for a long horseback ride or a climb up the mountains today, I’ll go raving crazy,” she said.
Peggy laughed at this exaggerated speech, and Florence remarked smilingly, “Well, by all means let’s get out and explore the country this afternoon. I’m fed up with staying inside, too.”
“To tell you the truth,” Peggy put in, “I’ve been rather glad to stay inside. Ever since I heard about that smuggler’s hanging around here, the house looks good to me.”
“Oh, he’s gone away by now, surely,” Jo Ann answered. “José says no one else has said a word about having seen a stranger around, and in a small camp like this a stranger surely couldn’t escape being noticed. I feel sure he’s gone back to join the other man. If that man returns for the pottery the same time that he did last week, he’ll be back at the village Friday. I’ve got to get word to the mystery man what day they’re starting for the border.”
“The woman promised me to save some of the pottery for me, but I want to select the best designs from the entire lot before she sells any of them,” Florence put in.
“That means we’ll have to go and get the pottery before those men come,” Jo Ann remarked. “That suits me to a T. You’ve already written to your friend in St. Louis that you’re sending the pottery in a few days, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that settles it. We’ll go to the village to get the pottery Thursday morning and take it to the city and ship it from there. That’ll give me a fine chance to find out from the woman when the smugglers’re coming and to see the mystery man and tell him when to look out for them.”
“I see where you’re headed for more trouble,” Peggy spoke up. “You’d better keep your fingers out of this whole affair. You’re too adventuresome.”
Jo Ann half smiled. “Oh, skip it—the lecture, I mean. Let’s get the horses and go for a ride now.”
“There’s one thing I’d like better than to go for a long ride, and that’s to go through the mine,” Florence said. “Mr. Eldridge promised me he’d take us through it while I’m here this time. When he comes in to lunch, let’s beg him to take us down into it this afternoon.”
“Fine!” approved Jo Ann. “I’ve been eager to see how themalacateworks now that it’s run by electricity.”
“What’s amalacate, and what does it do?” Peggy asked curiously.
“It’s a windlass arrangement that draws the ore up out of the mine. A rawhide bag is tied to the end of a long cable and let down into the shaft. Using electricity is a vast improvement over the old way.”
“Did the peons have to work the windlass—wind it by hand?” Peggy asked, puzzled.
“No, burros were used for that purpose. But before they used a windlass, back in primitive times, they made the Indians carry the ore up in bags, and they had to climb all the way up out of the mine on dangerous notched logs for ladders. Many and many of those Indians have fallen into the deep shafts, to their death.”
There was silence for a moment; then Florence spoke up: “I have my doubts if Mr. Eldridge’ll take us into the mine in the daytime. The miners are very superstitious about women going into the mine, he said. They think every time a woman goes in, something terrible always happens—an awful explosion or a cave-in, killing one or more of the miners.”
Jo Ann nodded understandingly. “That’s so. I’d forgotten about that. We’ll ask him to take us tonight, then.”
As soon as Mr. Eldridge came in to lunch, all three girls greeted him with requests to show them through the mine that night.
“We-ell, I don’t know quite what to say to that,” he replied slowly. “There’ve been two peculiar accidents lately that make me somewhat reluctant to take you down into the mine. Those accidents haven’t been accounted for to my satisfaction yet.”
“But they were both outside the mine, weren’t they?” asked Jo Ann.
“Yes.”
“And two days have passed by without any more trouble,” Florence added.
Mr. Eldridge smiled. “Well, I might as well say you may go. When three girls pounce upon one poor defenseless man, he has to agree to their plans. There’s no night shift working tonight, so this’ll be a good time. Be ready by eight o’clock.”
“All right,” the girls chorused in reply.
That afternoon the three, accompanied by Carlitos and Miss Prudence, took a long horseback ride over a beautiful mountain trail.
Miss Prudence refused, however, to go with them on their trip to inspect the mine that night or to let Carlitos go. “Carlitos is tired and sleepy from the long ride, and bed’s the best place for him,” she said. “I should think you girls would’ve had enough exercise, too.”
By a quarter of eight the girls were ready and waiting. Knowing that the mine was damp and cold, they had put on their sweaters and heaviest oxfords, and Jo Ann and Peggy had prepared themselves for darkness as well, as they had their flashlights.
When Mr. Eldridge and they reached the shaft, he switched on the electricity to work themalacateso they could go down into the mine.
No sooner had the machinery started running than the Mexican night watchman came running to investigate, an alarmed expression on his face. “Ah, it is you!” he exclaimed in a relieved tone on seeing Mr. Eldridge.
Mr. Eldridge smiled. “You are a good watchman, Manuel. I am taking the señoritas down to show them how we mine the ore. Do not tell anyone the señoritas have been in the mine.Sabe?”
“Sí.Isabe,” Manuel replied quickly, knowing at once whyEl Señorhad given this order.
“Don’t turn off themalacate. See that nobody comes near it. Stay close by.”
Manuel nodded assent. “I stay here.”
“Manuel is the best watchman we’ve ever had,” Mr. Eldridge told the girls. “I can trust him not to go to sleep.”
When Jo Ann found herself in the rawhide bag tied at the end of the long cable and being dropped down into the shaft’s eerie darkness, she felt a queer sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach, as if she were falling through bottomless space. “It’s breath-taking—scary,” she thought.
It was with a gasp of relief that she stepped out of the bag and onto the rocky bottom of the shaft. She knew exactly how Peggy felt when she scrambled out of the bag a little later and exclaimed, “Wh-ew! My heart’s up here!” She was clutching her throat dramatically.
Together they waited for Florence’s descent. By their flashlights’ gleam they could see that her eyes were dilated and her lips tightly closed.
“It scared you speechless,” grinned Peggy after waiting a moment for her to speak.
Florence nodded and managed a “Took my breath!”
It seemed to all three that of all the cold, damp, terrifying places to work, a silver mine was the worst. Mr. Eldridge led them through low narrow tunnels and into several black, cavernous recesses opening from these passageways and showed them the different mining processes.
Peggy became decidedly nervous on learning that the ore was dynamited down. “There might be some dynamite around here now, and it might explode and blow us into smithereens,” she whispered to Jo Ann.
A few minutes later she bumped into something against the wall that made her leap back in haste. When Mr. Eldridge told her it was a dynamite box, her heart began leaping faster than ever.
“He means an empty dynamite box,” Jo Ann explained hastily as her flashlight’s beam showed her the ghastly pallor of Peggy’s face. “Some miners are using it as an altar,” she added comfortingly. “See, there’s a picture of the Virgin inside.”
“I believe I’m ready to leave this murky gloom and get back up into the good fresh air,” Peggy said, her voice still shaky.
“Well, I believe you’ve seen all the most interesting things.” Mr. Eldridge smiled. “We’ll go on up.”
When they came back to the shaft, to Mr. Eldridge’s amazement, themalacatewas not working. “Now what’s the matter!” he exclaimed, annoyed. “I told Manuel to keep themalacaterunning so we could get back.”
For several minutes they stood waiting in vain for the cable and bag to appear.
Finally, in an exasperated tone Mr. Eldridge remarked, “Never had anything like this happen before. Can’t imagine what’s the matter. Manuel’s always been so dependable. We may have to walk all that long distance to the entrance of the workings. And you’re all so tired already.”
Just then there sounded an excited cry that reverberated uncannily through the shaft.
“Why, that’s José’s voice!” Jo Ann exclaimed. “What’s——”
The next instant the words, “Manuel’s—killed!” echoed down to them.
A moment’s stunned silence fell; then Mr. Eldridge gasped, “Manuel—killed! Start themalacateat once, so we can get up there!”
“No can—the wires all broke,” came back the wailing answer.
“Wires broken—and Manuel killed and——” Mr. Eldridge’s voice trailed off into silence.
Jo Ann cut in, “José’s so excitable! Manuel may have only fainted or been shocked unconscious.”
“That’s true. All the more reason I must get up there at once. It’ll take us so long to walk to the entrance.”
“Can’t José attach burros to themalacateand pull us up that way?” put in Jo Ann.
“Yes, he could. That’d take lots less time.” Mr. Eldridge called immediately to José to attach the burros to themalacateand start it working, ending with the usual, “Sabe?”
“Sí,” José called back. “I go now.”
While they were anxiously awaiting for José to start themalacate, Mr. Eldridge remarked that he had better go up first to see about Manuel. “I hate to go ahead of you, though.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Jo Ann said, more confidently than she felt. “There’s nothing here to harm us.”
“Nothing at all,” agreed Florence in a voice that quivered unconvincingly.
Just then Peggy’s hand clutched Jo Ann’s convulsively. “Poor Peg’s scared stiff at the idea of his leaving us,” thought Jo Ann as she grasped the cold hand in a comforting pressure. Her mind, however, flew back to Manuel. Surely he couldn’t have been killed. He must’ve fainted. But he was so strong-looking. What could have happened in that short time? If only José would hurry faster and let down that cable. “Oh, surely Manuel can’t be dead!” she kept repeating to herself.
After what seemed to Jo Ann an interminable time the cable appeared, and Mr. Eldridge was pulled up the shaft.
“I feel better now that he’s up safely,” Jo Ann said, breathing more freely.
“I don’t know which I dread worse—going up in that awful bag or staying down here in this terrible dark,” Peggy groaned.
Noticing that Peggy’s flashlight was not on, Florence asked, “Why don’t you switch on your flashlight? That’ll help some.”
“It won’t turn on. When I bumped against that dynamite box, I got so scared I dropped it. It must’ve got broken then.”
So worried over Manuel was Jo Ann that she paid little heed to Peggy’s continued laments. If only this awful suspense about him was over! Surely he must be only unconscious. If he were, when they got out they could help give him first aid. She’d had first-aid training in her scout work. “I wish I could go up first and see if I could do anything for him,” she told herself.
Just then she heard Peggy say, “I believe I’ll go up first. I can’t stand this creepy darkness. I keep thinking that smuggler’s hidden down here and——”
“Peggy’s so upset and nervous, she’d better go up first,” Jo Ann admitted to herself reluctantly. Aloud she said, “All right, Peg, you go next. See what you can do to help Manuel.”
“But, Jo, Manuel’s dead!” she wailed.
Jo Ann shook her head as she answered, “I can’t believe that he is.”
Shuddering, Peggy went on: “I’d planned to wait for you two before I took a step when I got up. The lights are off up there. Whoever killed Manuel must’ve cut off the lights.”
“Mr. Eldridge’ll have some kind of a light, surely. If Manuel’s breathing—I can’t help feeling that he is—do everything you can for him.”
Soon the quivering Peggy was inside the bag and being slowly pulled up the shaft. When, however, she had ascended only a short way, something went wrong with the cable, and the bag hung suspended—motionless.
Peggy’s terrified shriek echoed and re-echoed through the shaft.
“Horrors!” gasped Florence. “I hope the cable’s not stuck. Sometimes it’ll get stuck that way for an hour or more.”
“You’ll be all right in a minute,” Jo Ann called up to Peggy. “Don’t get scared.” In a low voice she added to Florence, “I hope I’m telling the whole truth.”
To their vast relief, in a few minutes the bag began to move upward once more.
“Thank goodness!” Florence ejaculated. “Which one of us had better go up next? I’d like to, but if you——”
Jo Ann’s impulse was to speak up, “Let me go,” but, instead, she replied, “You go on. I have a flashlight, and you haven’t.”
Several minutes later, with mingled feelings of relief and fear, she watched Florence being pulled up till she was above the reach of the flashlight’s beam. All was eerie blackness now. The shadows began to take on weird ghostlike shapes. Was that a man crouching over there? The smuggler?
An involuntary shudder shivered through her body. She must not let her imagination run riot this way. She steadied her lower lip to prevent its trembling.
At last the bag loomed into view, and after an anxious wait she got inside it. Slowly—painfully slowly she began to ascend.
When she was about halfway up, the cable suddenly spun around, knocking the bag against the rocky side of the shaft. She felt a stinging sensation in her right arm as it struck the rocks. Clutching her flashlight more tightly and cringing with pain, she lifted her arm to protect her light. It was too late. The flashlight had been broken—badly smashed.
In another moment she had forgotten about her injured arm and broken flashlight in a more serious trouble. The bag was stuck—not moving either up or down. She stifled a shriek that was threatening to escape her lips. No wonder Peggy had cried out. And it was worse this time. There was utter darkness below. No one to call up comfortingly from the bottom of the shaft. No one at the top either. Both girls were probably hovering over Manuel now, if he—— Had they found by now that he really was dead?
She must shut out that terrifying picture from her mind. It seemed, though, to be outlined against the darkness in a glaring light that refused to be blotted out. How long would she have to hang this way in midair, seeing this horrible picture?
“Better to hang suspended than to be dashed to the bottom on those rocks,” she told herself. “Peg was in the same plight, and now she’s up safely. But then she was stuck only two or three minutes, and you’ve been here ten or fifteen at least,” she reminded herself discouragedly.
Endless ages dragged on, it seemed to her, as she hung there. Would this suspense never end? Had anything happened to José? Had he been killed, too?
At last, when her hopes had almost ebbed away, she felt the bag moving upward. Actually going up now. As she neared the top and drew in deep breaths of the fresh air, a great wave of gratitude swept over her.
Once safely out on the ground, she began feeling her way through the darkness toward the light on her left. José hurried up just then with a lantern in his hand.
“Tell me about Manuel—he is not dead, is he?” she asked him quickly.
“I think he is. He look dead when I see him,” José answered brokenly. “That wicked Luis—he knock him down. I catch Luis and tie him to a tree.” He gestured to the right.
“Luis! That miner Mr. Eldridge discharged for stealing?”
“Yes.”
“But why did he want to hurt Manuel? Manuel didn’t discharge him.”
“Manuel tell him to keep away.” José went on to explain that Luis had thrown a crowbar back of the switchboard, so themalacatewould not work, and that when Manuel had tried to grab him Luis had knocked him down. There was a triumphant tone in his voice as he added, “I catch Luis. I fix him.”
“How did it happen that you came up here? You didn’t come with us.”
José hesitated a moment, then replied, “I saw you come up here, and I thinkEl Señorneed me. He tell me to take Luis down to the big house now. I leave you now.”
On nearing themalacateJo Ann could see Manuel’s inert figure lying on the ground, Mr. Eldridge bending over him, and the girls standing near by.
“Is he——” Jo Ann left her question unfinished, but both girls knew what she meant.
“He’s still alive,” Florence whispered. “Unconscious. I could feel his pulse. His skin is a clammy cold. I wish I had some hot-water bottles to put around him.”
“Thank goodness he’s still alive!” Jo Ann exclaimed softly.
“We’ve put our sweaters over him,” Peggy added, gesturing to the sweaters on Manuel’s body. “I can’t think of anything else to do.”
“We might heat some rocks or bricks and put around him,” Jo Ann suggested eagerly.
“Good idea,” approved Mr. Eldridge, who had overheard her. “I’ll help you. We must do something to help him, since it’ll be hours before we can get a doctor here.”
They hurried about gathering wood and soon built a small fire on some flat stones. As soon as the stones were hot, they pushed them out of the fire, then covered them with some old pieces of a torn blanket.
“We must be absolutely certain these rocks’ll not burn him,” Jo Ann cautioned. “Persons suffering from shock are more easily burned than usual. My scout book said never to put anything hot next the patient till it could be held against your face for a minute without feeling too hot.” She tested each stone before passing it on to Mr. Eldridge to place next to the unconscious figure.
After that was done, Jo Ann began rubbing his arms toward the body.
“Why’s she doing that?” queried Peggy in a low voice.
“I think it’s to restore the circulation.”
When Jo Ann was still rubbing his arms, Manuel’s eyelids began to flicker.
“He’s beginning to become conscious,” Mr. Eldridge said, low-voiced. “As soon as José comes back he and I’ll carry him down to the house. There isn’t any serious bleeding, so I feel sure it’ll be safe to carry him now. We’ll have to make a stretcher.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Jo Ann dashed away, returning shortly with two poles. Mr. Eldridge immediately jerked off his coat and pulled the poles through the sleeves, then tied a piece of blanket securely to the poles also. By that time José was back from taking Luis to the house. With Mr. Eldridge’s help José tenderly lifted the injured man upon the improvised stretcher and set off down the trail, careful to hold the poles as steady as possible.
The girls followed close behind, Jo Ann bringing up the rear.
“Do you know where José took the prisoner?” Peggy asked Jo Ann.
“Yes. To our house.”
“Gracious! That’s awful. I’ll never be able to sleep a wink tonight, knowing he’s in the same house that we are.”
“It’s the safest place to keep him in the camp. The walls are as thick as a regular prison’s, and there’re iron bars to all the windows. Besides, José’ll guard him.”
“It makes me shivery all over to know he’s under our roof.”
“I don’t believe even a Houdini could escape from that house,” Jo Ann assured her. “You’ll be safe. Don’t worry.”
Although Peggy had vowed she would never be able to close her eyes all night with that prisoner in the house, she was so tired that she was not long in dropping off to sleep. Exhausted by their exciting experiences, all three slept till late the next morning.
“For a welcome change,” as Florence expressed it afterwards, Miss Prudence had not wanted to get an early start to go somewhere or to do some housework, and so had allowed them to drowse on undisturbed.
The first thing Jo Ann saw on waking was the smiling Maria carrying in a tray of food.
As Maria set the tray on the small table between the beds, she remarked, “Miss Prudencia say you may have your breakfast in bed. You were so brave—so good to help Manuel last night.”
“Muchas gracias,” replied Jo Ann, eying delightedly the golden toast, oranges, crisp brown bacon, and cups of steaming chocolate.
Peggy and Florence chimed in with their thanks; then Peggy put in quickly, “Florence, ask her if the prisoner is still in the house.”
Florence promptly relayed this question.
Maria nodded. “Sí.José watch good all night.” She went on to add that José had just come into the kitchen and had said he wanted to tell the señoritas something about Luis.
“Don’t you know what it is?” Florence asked curiously.
“No. Miss Prudencia send me out of the kitchen then, and José leave.”
“Is José going to the village to get theruralesto come after Luis this morning?”
“Sí.”
“Tell him when he comes back that we want to go with him. Tell him to have the horses ready for us.”
With a nod of assent Maria left the room.
Jo Ann began eating an orange, a thoughtful expression in her dark brown eyes. A moment later she remarked, “I shouldn’t wonder if that Luis was hired by the smuggler to do all the damage he could.”
“Why, what makes you think that?” asked Peggy in surprise. “You haven’t seen them together, have you?”
“No.”
“And you’ve never seen that smuggler here again since that first time, have you?”
“No.”
“Then why this sudden idea?”
“Because two men in the same small mining camp who have a grievance against the mine owners would be likely to get together. They’d have a common interest—to get even.”
Peggy smiled. “Oh, you Miss Sherlock!”
“Your mentioning the smuggler reminds me that the pottery woman said she’d have the pottery ready for us today,” put in Florence. “I want you girls to help me select the finest pieces as samples to send to my friend in St. Louis for her curio shop. It’ll be quite a job to get them packed right. I was in hopes José would have time to help me pack them. His having to get the officers this morning might interfere.”
“I don’t think it will,” Jo Ann replied. “Do you think you could get a crate in the village and pack your pottery there?”
“I doubt it. They’ve never shipped any pottery by train. I believe I’ll take the pottery to Jitters’ House, and José can hunt up something around there to make a crate out of.”
By the time the girls had finished eating and had dressed in riding outfits, José was waiting for them with the horses.
As soon as they came out, Florence asked José what it was that he had to tell them about the prisoner, Luis. After he had explained in a rapid flow of Spanish, Florence passed the news to the eager Jo Ann and Peggy. “He said Luis had told him that some strange man had promised to give him a fewpesosif he would wreck the mine machinery. He believes, judging by Luis’s description, that this stranger was one of the men the pottery woman warned us about.”
“So I guessed right,” Jo Ann spoke up.
“It doesn’t seem fair for Luis to get a prison sentence and for the smuggler to go free,” Peggy said, low-voiced, to Jo Ann.
“Both of those smugglers’re going to get caught yet—you’ll see.” Jo Ann’s head bobbed up and down emphatically.
“Does that mean you’re going to try to catch them?” Peggy asked, an anxious note in her voice.
“Wait and see,” Jo Ann replied teasingly as she leaped on her horse.
On reaching the village José went in search of the officers while the girls drove to the pottery woman’s shack to buy theollasand vases.
With the greatest care Florence, with the girls’ help, selected the most artistic designs and shapes from the piles of pottery. “If my friend likes these pieces as well’s I do,” she said, “I know she’ll buy regularly from these villagers and take a large per cent of their output. They’ll get ever so much more money, too, than they have been getting. We’ll be doing them a good turn, as well as my friend.”
At Jo Ann’s urging Florence then began adroitly questioning the woman about when she was expecting the men to come after the pottery this week.
“They send me word they come in two days,” she replied.
“That’ll be Friday, then,” commented Jo Ann, who had caught the woman’s words.
After they had finished choosing the pieces of pottery, they packed them in the back of the car.
“I’d like to know where José’s going to sit now,” observed Peggy as she crowded into the front seat with Jo Ann and Florence.
“He’ll manage someway,” Jo Ann smiled.
On reaching Pedro’s store they found José waiting for them.
“Did you find therurales?” Florence asked him.
“Sí, I find two. They have gone to the mine to get Luis. They say they do not need me to help.”
“Good,” Florence approved. “Now you can help me pack theseollasand vases.”
After José had squeezed into the back seat and they were driving off, Peggy remarked to Florence, “What puzzles me is how are you going to get the pottery shipped after you get it packed? There’s no railroad and no truck service here. Someone’ll have to take it to the city. How’re you going to get it to the city?”
“I thought we’d drive in ourselves if—if——”
“We can’t let there be any ifs about it,” broke in Jo Ann crisply. “We’ve got to get to the city tomorrow. I’ve got to get word to the mystery man to be on the lookout for the smugglers Friday.”
“Couldn’t you write to him?” Peggy asked.
“It wouldn’t reach him in time. They take the mail in to the city every other day. I asked at the store, and the mail’s already been sent, and no more’ll be sent till Friday. That’d be too late.”
“But Miss Prudence’ll probably say ‘nothing doing’ when we tell her we want to drive to the city,” persisted Peggy. “She said she didn’t like riding in Jitters well enough to take another trip to the city soon.”
“I heard her say yesterday that she had to have some more supplies—that she just couldn’t keep house without a larger variety of food,” Florence remarked. “She said we’d all be having scurvy and beri-beri and all sorts of diseases if we didn’t have a greater variety.”
Jo Ann smiled. “That sounds good to me—not the diseases, of course. We’ll tell her we’ll bring her a load of good eats—fresh fruits and vegetables and anything she asks for. I’m going to get word to the mystery man—or bust.”
Both girls laughed, and Peggy added a moment later, “Puff out your cheeks and prepare to bust, Jo, ’cause Miss Prudence won’t let you go.”
“You underrate my persuasive powers, and you don’t realize how tired she is of preparing the same menus, day after day. I heard her say the other day that about the only thing Pedro sold at his store was beans, beans, beans.”
When they reached Jitters’ House, José set to work at once to make a crate. The girls wrapped each piece of pottery with the paper they had brought for that purpose and carefully placed the smaller jars inside the larger ones. When the crate was finished, they packed excelsior around the jars and in every inch of space. That done, José carried the crate over to the house across the road, for safe-keeping.
With a wide smile Jo Ann remarked, “We’ll have to get an early start tomorrow morning to take our crate to the city. We’ll have to promise to make the trip there and back in one day, I know.”
When they were riding horseback on the mountain trail, they met theruralestaking their prisoner to the village. The girls urged their horses close to the cliff to allow room for them to pass on the narrow trail.
After they had gone by, Jo Ann said gravely, “I hope it won’t be long till the smugglers are prison-bound, too. I believe this Luis was just their tool.”
As soon as they had entered the house, the girls hunted up Miss Prudence, and Jo Ann told of their plan to take the pottery to the city the next day and get supplies for her.
Miss Prudence pursed up her lips thoughtfully and remained silent for some time before answering.
Jo Ann, with her usual impatience, could not stand this quiet and suspense and began talking about the necessity of a more varied diet. “We need more fruit and vegetables to have a balanced diet, don’t you think? Our home economics teacher told us at school that it was absolutely necessary for us to get plenty of fruit, as most of it has vitamin B. It’s that vitamin that makes our nerves normal and steady, she said.”
Miss Prudence’s lips relaxed into a whimsical smile. “Well, we certainly need our nerves steadied after last night’s wild excitement.” She grew grave again. “I believe that Luis was trying to kill Ed and you girls.”
Jo Ann did not stop to argue this point but kept to the diet question. “If you’ll make a list of the things you want, we’ll have them here for you tomorrow evening.”
“Before dark?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I hesitate to give my consent. Maybe I’d better go with you—but, no. I feel as if I ought to stay and nurse Manuel. Maria has no more idea than a jay bird about how to take care of sick folks. Why, when I put some rolls of bandage in the hot oven to sterilize this morning, she looked at me as if she thought I was crazy!”
In spite of her hesitation, Jo Ann finally succeeded in persuading her to let them go to the city.
“If you set the alarm clock for four-thirty and get up then, I believe you can make the trip in one day,” she said as the girls were about to leave. “Take my clock to your room.” She reached over to the near-by table, picked up her alarm clock, and set it to go off at that hour before handing it to Jo Ann.
It was hard for Jo Ann to keep from laughing, as she could see Florence’s eyes twinkling, and Peggy holding her hand over her mouth to check her mirth.
At the first sound of the alarm the next morning, Jo Ann reached over and turned it off, then popped out of bed and began dressing. Florence rose almost as promptly, but it required much persuasion from both of them to get Peggy out of bed.
“I’m not keen on this trip anyway, since we won’t get to stay in the city tonight and promenade on the Plaza,” she grumbled drowsily as she sat on the edge of the bed, making no move to dress. “I’m not interested in seeing an old mystery man, as Jo Ann is.”
“Only in handsome young Mexican ones,” Jo Ann grinned. “Well, you may pass your smiling young Mexican on the street today.”
“If I should, I’d look very romantic sitting in an old car packed with a huge crate, now, wouldn’t I? He’d think I was bringing chickens or something to market.”
Both girls laughed at Peggy’s disgusted tone.
“That reminds me,” Jo Ann added, “that we must go straight to the market as soon as we reach the city.”
By the time they had dressed and had eaten a hurried breakfast, José was waiting for them with the horses. To their surprise he rode on up the trail with them.
“I didn’t know you were going with us,” Florence remarked to him.
“Miss Prudencia say I must take you to the village and go back for you this afternoon.”
“That’s good. It might be late this evening before we get back, but we’re counting on getting back before dark.”