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.
“That chocolaté is the best I’ve had since I left Mexico last fall,” Florence declared, while Carlitos was all smiles over the frijoles and chile 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, ex
changing 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.”
CHAPTER VII
“WE MUST GET AN EARLY START”
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.
“Where’re the horses we’re to ride?” Peggy asked curiously after looking about on all sides. “Or are we going to ride in that oxcart over there?”
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 100
