“I don’t even see a cactus plant around,” Joe said weakly. “We’ve got to have water.”
“Try not to think about it,” Frank advised. “Just keep moving.” They plodded on.
A few minutes later the boys spotted an abandoned vehicle partially buried in the sand.
“It must be a mirage,” Joe said.
“Mirage nothing. It’s a jeep.” Frank observed, and hastened to it.
“This thing’s as hot as a griddle,” Joe remarked as he touched a portion of metal exposed to the sun.
“Looks as if the driver got bogged down in the sand and had to leave it,” Frank said. “This thing must’ve been here for months.”
On the rear floor of the vehicle, Joe found several wrenches wrapped in a large plastic sheet.
“If only we could squeeze water out of these,” he commented, trying to force a smile. He flung the plastic aside.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Frank commanded. “Don’t throw that plastic sheet away. It might be the answer to our problem!”
Joe eyed his brother curiously. He retrieved the plastic sheet and handed it to him.
“Yes! This might just do the trick,” Frank muttered as he examined it.
“Are you sure the heat hasn’t gotten to you?” Joe asked.
“I’m fine,” his brother assured him. “I just remembered an article I read some time ago in a science magazine. It described a water generator which uses a plastic sheet just like this.”
Joe’s eyes widened. “Say! Now that you mention it, I remember you showing me the article. You start by digging a hole three or four feet across and about half that deep. Then you spread the plastic sheet over it and set a stone in the center. This causes the sheet to sink and form an inverted cone.”
“Exactly,” Frank replied. “It’s based on the principle that even the driest soil contains some moisture. As the sun evaporates it, the water vapor condenses on the underside of the plastic sheet. The droplets then begin to trickle down to the point of the inverted cone and fall into a container.”
The boys grabbed a couple of wrenches and began scraping a hole in the soft earth. Frank removed a headlight from the jeep and broke off its stem to serve as a container. He placed it at the bottom of the hole.
“Now help me spread the sheet over it, Joe.”
When the job was finished, Joe picked up a stone and laid it in the center of the sheet, which sank down toward the container in the shape of a cone.
“Now all we have to do is wait,” Frank said.
“How long will it take?”
“According to experiments, about a quart is produced every twelve hours. But we should have enough water to quench our thirst long before that.”
The Hardys sat beside the jeep. Removing their jackets, they spread them over their heads in order to ward off the hot rays of the sun. After several hours they checked on the progress of their water generator.
“It worked like a charm,” Frank said, pointing to the clear water that had collected in the container.
Joe grinned. “There must be at least a pint there.”
Frank took the first swig. “Finest water I ever tasted,” he quipped, and handed the container to his brother.
“You’re right. Great stuff!” Joe glanced at the position of the sun. “It’ll be dark within a couple of hours,” he continued. “Let’s try to cover a little distance by then. We’ll take the water generator with us.”
The boys got underway. Soon they found them selves moving into an area where they saw increasing signs of plant life.
“I see hawthorn bushes!” Joe exclaimed. “They have those small red and yellow apples Tico told us about.”
The Hardys picked a supply of the fruit and ate heartily.
“It’s a far cry from Mother’s or Aunt Gertrude’s home cooking,” Joe commented, “but at least it’ll keep us from starving.”
Exhausted, the boys fell asleep and did not awaken until dawn. As they continued their journey, Frank and Joe saw that they were moving into cactus country.
“We won’t have to depend on our generator for water after all,” Joe observed. “There’s enough in those cactus plants to fill a lake.”
As the Hardys were plodding over the top of a sandy knoll, Joe suddenly stopped and pointed. Frank looked down at the bottom of a shallow gully to see two Mexicans wearing sombreros. Nearby was a canvas lean-to for shelter, and over a fire was suspended a black kettle in which something was cooking.
“Just campers,” Joe muttered.
“Maybe,” Frank whispered. “But we’d better not take any chances. They might be members of Vincenzo’s gang.”
Unaware of the Hardys, one of the men picked up a walkie-talkie and began speaking into it. Under cover of the brush, Frank and Joe crept closer to eavesdrop.
“Montaraz! Montaraz!” the Mexican exclaimed. “No comprendo! Repita, por favor!-I do not understand! Please repeat!” There was a moment of silence. “Bueno! Bueno!” he continued. “Pavura aguardar!-Goodl Good! Pavura awaits!”
“Did you hear that?” Joe hissed. “He’s talking to someone in Montaraz. And he mentioned Pavura!”
Frank did not reply. He signaled for Joe to withdraw a safer distance away, and they crept back across the knoll.
“What do you make of it?” Joe inquired. “We’re still several miles from Montaraz. That walkie-talkie can’t transmit so far.”
“My guess is that Vincenzo has a string of men, spaced just within range of one another, extending from his headquarters to the village,” Frank replied.
“You mean a chain of communication?” Joe asked.
“Right! Pretty clever, too. If Vincenzo used a single transmitter at his headquarters, it would have to be more powerful. That would increase the danger of his messages being picked up by the authorities. This way the signal range is very limited.”
“Why don’t we grab those two guys?” Joe snapped.
“No,” Frank answered. “It would cause a break in the chain and warn Vincenzo that something is wrong.”
“Well, at least we’ve learned one fact. He must have a spy in the village.”
The boys resumed their journey, estimating that they would reach Montaraz by nightfall.
“We’d better change our course slightly,” Frank advised, “so we don’t stumble across any of Vincenzo’s men.”
“They might be members of Vincenzo’s gang!” Frank whispered
Tired and dusty, the Hardys trudged into the outskirts of the village shortly after dark.
“There’s only one person we can trust in Montaraz,” Frank said. “That’s Señora Santos. But we must be extra careful. Now that we know there’s at least one spy in the village, we can’t risk being seen.”
The boys crouched low and headed for Senora Santos’s home. At that hour the streets were deserted, but as the young detectives skirted the plaza, a man emerged from the cantina. The boys darted behind a tree until he walked by. When they reached the Santos house, Frank tapped lightly on the door.
“Quién vive?—Who is there?” came the muffled voice of a woman from behind the door.
“The Hardys,” Frank said.
“Ah, los muchachos! One moment. I shall open the door,” announced Senora Santos.
“Put out your light first,” Frank replied. “We don’t want to be silhouetted in the doorway.”
The woman obeyed. Then she admitted the boys and relit the small oil lamp.
“Do you bring news of my husband?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m afraid not,” Joe said sympathetically.
“Has our friend Tico been here?” Frank inquired.
“No, I not see him,” Senora Santos answered.
The Hardys glanced at each other worriedly.
“I do not think I see you again,” she muttered nervously.
“Why not?” Frank questioned.
“This morning I find a note under my door. It say I no speak with you if you come to our village. I not o
bey!”
“Is that all the message said?” Joe queried.
“No,” the woman replied. Her face turned pale. “It say that your two friends are in hands of Pavura. If you try to contact police, you never see them again, and I will not see my husband!” She burst into tears.
“Good night!” Frank exclaimed. “Vincenzo has Tico as well as Chet!”
CHAPTER XV
Tunnel Escape
“Now we’re really in trouble!” Joe declared.
“It’s a cinch we can’t go to the authorities,” Frank said nervously. “We’d be risking the lives of Chet, Tico, and Señor Santos.”
The woman continued to sob and the Hardys tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry,” Frank said. “We’ll figure out some way to rescue them.”
“I’m for going back to the cave,” Joe said.
“So am I,” Frank agreed. “It would be better if we had some help, but we’ll have to do without it.”
“What about supplies?” Joe said.
Señora Santos turned to the boys. “I give you food, and my husband has things to make camp. You may take what you need.”
She led the way to another room and pointed to a large wooden chest. Inside it, the boys found a pup tent, canteens, a small hatchet, and other useful items. Joe selected some rock-climbing tools, pitons and a coil of rope, and tucked them into his belt.
“My uncle lives three miles north of the village,” Senora Santos said. “He is elderly and cannot help you. But he has horses which you may borrow.”
“Thank you, señora,” Frank said with a bow.
The woman jotted a note in Spanish, which she handed to Joe, along with a golden locket. “Give my uncle this,” she instructed. “He will know I have sent you.”
The Hardys decided to start immediately. They stalked out of the village and headed north. An hour later they found the hacienda of Senora Santos’s uncle without any difficulty. The old man took the note and locket, spoke rapidly to the boys in Spanish, and beckoned them to follow him to the corral. There he provided them with two chestnut-colored horses. The Hardys mounted and rode off, smiling and waving their thanks.
“This is sure better than walking,” Joe declared.
“You can say that again,” Frank replied. “But we’d better not try traveling too far in the dark. We’ll put a little more distance between us and Montaraz, then stop to rest.”
After they had ridden an hour, the Hardys made camp and feasted from a supply of tortillas and dried fruit Señora Santos had given them.
The next day the journey continued in a direction designed to avoid the men in Vincenzo’s chain of communication. The ride was dusty, hot, and fatiguing. The boys pushed on, however, at a rapid pace and reached their destination late that afternoon.
“We’d better not get any closer to the cave than this,” Frank advised. “Vincenzo is certain to have extra guards watching for intruders.”
“Here’s a good place to make camp,” Joe said as he examined a deep cleft in the rocks surrounded by heavy brush.
“Good,” Frank answered. “And there’s enough vegetation around for the horses.”
Next day, before dawn, Frank and Joe started out on foot toward Vincenzo’s hideout. Cautiously they crept to the spot from where they could view the cave entrance in secret.
“They’ve doubled the guard,” Joe observed.
“That complicates matters,” Frank whispered. “But first we’ll have to find out where Chet and the others are being kept before we can plan a rescue.”
Just as the sun began to rise above the crest of the mountains, the Indian workers emerged from the cave.
“Right on schedule,” Joe remarked in a low voice.
“And some of the guards are going with them,” Frank said.
The workers were immediately followed by six Mexicans who were obviously captives. Two guards prodded them along with their rifles.
“They must be the men who disappeared from the village!” Joe whispered excitedly.
“I’m sure of it,” his brother agreed. “One of them must be Senor Santos.”
Suddenly something attracted Frank’s attention. “That’s odd,” he muttered. “I hadn’t noticed it before.”
“What?”
Frank pointed to a ledge farther up the slope above the cave. Two Indians had just appeared from behind a curtain made of twigs and brush.
“It looks like the entrance to another cave,” Joe muttered in surprise.
“Maybe that’s where Chet and Tico are being held prisoners,” Frank surmised. “If we could reach that ledge, we could crawl along it without being seen.”
The boys decided to make an immediate attempt. They scanned the area and elected to work their way around the east side of the clearing, then up the craggy face of the slope.
“There are plenty of rocks to give us cover,” Frank concluded.
The Hardys inched their way along. Progress was painfully slow when they reached the slope and began the grueling climb to the ledge. The boys’ pulses quickened as one of the guards in the clearing below looked up in their direction. But he turned away without spotting them.
Finally the Hardys reached their goal. They flattened themselves out on the ledge and pushed their way toward the place from which they had seen the Indians emerge. Frank carefully lifted up the lower corner of the curtain woven from twigs and brush.
“What do you see?” Joe whispered.
“It’s a cave all right,” Frank answered in a hushed voice.
“Carefull There might be more Indians inside.”
“I don’t see any. We’re in luck!”
The boys cautiously crawled in through the entrance. Then they got to their feet and examined their surroundings in the dim light. They were in a spacious chamber which narrowed toward the rear to form a corridor about the size of a subway tunnel. It appeared to lead deeper into the center of the mountain.
“This must be another of Vincenzo’s storage rooms,” Joe remarked, noticing several rows of wooden crates.
Frank gazed curiously at a number of strange-looking, elongated objects stretched along one wall of the cave.
“These seem to be rubber-coated nylon containers of some kind,” he said, examining them more closely.
“And they’re about as long as that crazy rail car we took a ride on,” Joe added.
Suddenly the curtain covering the entrance moved aside. Two Indians walked into the cave. Unable to find a hiding place in time, the boys crouched low.
“Cuando estará listo?—When will it be ready?” one of the Indians asked his companion.
The other was about to answer, when the two men came to an abrupt halt. They stared directly at the Hardys with startled expressions.
“After them before they warn the others!” Frank exclaimed.
The boys sprang up and hurled themselves toward the Indians. They crashed into the midriffs of the men and sent them tumbling to the ground. Frank lashed out with a right that knocked his opponent unconscious. The second Indian broke from Joe’s grasp. He darted to the cave entrance and shouted a warning to his companions. Joe rushed after him and dealt the Indian a blow that sent him sprawling.
“How do we get out of here?” Joe cried as he and his brother heard the sound of shouting men drawing closer.
Frank peered at the long, dark corridor leading from the rear of the cave. “That wayl” he ordered.
The boys stumbled through the inky blackness of the tunnel for a short distance. Then they pulled out their pencil flashlights and examined the path ahead.
“This tunnel might lead to a dead end!” Joe declared.
“We have no choice but to go onl” Frank replied.
Already many Indians could be heard entering the tunnel in pursuit. In desperation, the Hardys broke into a frantic run. Finally they had to stop for a moment to catch their breath. As the boys did so, they gradually became aware of a new sound.
“Do you hear that?” Joe asked. They l
istened more intently.
“Sounds like flowing water!” Frank replied.
Continuing on, they noticed that the sound became louder. At a point where the tunnel grew wider, the boys directed the beams of their flashlights a distance ahead.
Joe gasped. “Look! It’s an underground river!”
They whirled to see the flickering glow of torches approaching from far down the tunnel.
“Let’s chance it and try swimming downstream!” Joe suggested frantically.
“Okay!”
The Hardys quickly removed their shoes, tied the laces together, and draped them around their necks. They jumped feet first into the water. No sooner had the icy current swept them away, when several Indians arrived on the scene.
“They’re not coming after us!” Joe sputtered.
The boys fought hard to keep their heads above the churning water as the river carried them through a dark tunnel. Minutes later, they saw a bright circle of light ahead.
“Sunlight!” Frank shouted, but his joy suddenly froze to horror.
The underground river gushed through the opening and cascaded out of sight with a thunderous roar!
CHAPTER XVI
Face to Face
THE SWIFT current tumbled the Hardys toward the river’s drop. They were about to be swept through, when Joe, in the lead, grabbed a segment of rock projecting from the wall of the tunnel about three feet above his head.
“Hang on to me!” he shouted.
Frank clung to Joe’s waist and gazed through the opening. The water cascaded to jagged rocks below.
“Don’t let go!” he screamed, “or we’re finished!”
“I’ll hang on as long as I can!” Joe shouted.
The water pounded against the boys and threatened to carry them with it into the chasm.
“The rock-climbing tools!” Frank cried out.
Joe hooked his left arm around the projection of rock and pulled a piton from his belt. Using the small hatchet in his right hand and holding the pin in the other, he hammered the piton into the tunnel wall. Then he took the coil of rope and threaded one end through the eyelet of the piton to form a double line.
Grasping it firmly with both hands, Joe let go of the rock and slowly fed out line. With the current pulling the boys’ bodies forward, they were swept outside the opening. They dangled precariously above the chasm as water gushed over them.
The Mark on the Door Page 8