“We no sabe,” Jo Ann spoke up. “We Americanos—no sabe.”
The emphasis Jo Ann had placed on the word “we” made Florence understand at once that she did not want her to let the man know that she could speak or understand Spanish. Though she could not guess Jo’s reason, she decided to pretend not to understand him.
Just as they were about to start off down to the trail Jo Ann heard the faint but heartrending cry of the deserted peon.
“Suppose the boss should tie us and leave us to die of thirst and starvation like that,” she said to herself. “Perhaps that’s what he did to Carlitos’ father, José said no one knew what had become of him.”
“I’m glad I’m first,” she thought a moment later. “That’ll give me a better chance to delay him.”
On reaching the trail, she deliberately turned her horse back in the direction from which they had just come. That would delay them a little bit.
The horses of both Carlitos and Florence followed her lead.
No sooner did the boss realize that they were going in the wrong direction than he roared out angrily, “Wait! That’s not the direction to go!”
Jo Ann paid no attention to this gruff command but kept on.
A few moments later her horse was stopped by being crowded against the rocky wall. Then she felt her arm seized in a vise-like grip and heard the boss’s shouts in her ear. A flash of lightning showed her his anger-contorted face only a few inches from her own.
Though she was terrified, she controlled herself enough to cry out, “No sabe. No sabe.”
“I make you sabe!” He blocked the trail in front of her with his horse, then leaped off and grabbed her horse’s bridle and turned him around. As he struck him sharply with his quirt, the animal leaped forward.
Instantly she realized the danger of pushing one of the other horses off the narrow trail and drew back on the reins in time to avert a disaster.
With Florence in the lead they set off toward the mine.
“At least I made him waste a little time,” Jo Ann thought, “but if he finds out I’m deliberately trying to delay him there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s the meanest man I ever saw.”
Having come to an unusually slippery stretch she could think only of the danger of riding on the treacherous winding mountain trail in the darkness. One thing lifted her flagging spirits. The storm was abating—abating almost as rapidly as it had begun. “Now if only the moon’ll come up,” she thought.
Shortly afterwards she noted a light shining from behind the fast-sailing storm clouds. Even as she looked, the moon came into full view, lighting up the mountain side.
“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed to herself. At least they could see where they were going now. It would be safer traveling for José, too. But where was he? Would they meet him soon? But if they did, what would the boss do to him? He might treat him as badly as he had the peon.
Even as she was wondering, José was struggling up a steep bank not far below the cave. In his haste to get back to the girls he had, Indian fashion, left the trail and had struck straight up the mountain side, scaling almost perpendicular rocks and pulling himself up by anything that offered a finger hold.
Just before reaching the rocky ledge under which he had left the girls and the horses, he heard a wailing sound that made him stop as rigid as if frozen. Who was that? What was the matter? The señoritas! He must get to them at once.
Cautiously but rapidly he crawled up to the ledge. As soon as he saw there was no sign of the girls or the horses there, his eyes widened in horror. What had happened to them? That cry—but that was a man’s voice.
All at once it flashed through his mind that it might be the very man he had been hunting. Was Carlitos there with him? The señoritas—
Just then the cry, half wailing, half groaning, sounded again.
Silently José started in the direction of the cry. That might be only a trap, and he must not be caught.
When he neared the cave he saw through the opening the dying embers of a fire. By its faint glow he could make out the figure of a man struggling and rolling about on the ground.
As soon as José saw that the man was tied and that there was no one else in the cave, he called out, “What is your trouble? Who are you?”
At the sound of José’s voice the man instantly stopped struggling. “Come and release me! Release me!”
José made no move to enter, “Who are you?” he demanded again. “Who tied you?”
“Two señoritas tie me up. Then that man take them away—and leave me here to die. Release me! I kill him!”
Immediately José knew that this must be the man who had stolen Carlitos. “Where is the boy—Carlitos? What have you done with him?” he demanded sharply.
“El jefe take him. Release me and I go kill el jefe. He no give me the money he promised. And he leave me here for the animals to eat.”
“Did he take the señoritas to the mine?”
“Sí—I think so.”
After José had asked him a few more questions the man promised to show him a short cut to the mine so they could overtake the boss and his prisoners. “I help you get the señoritas and the boy.” Convinced, finally, that the man was in earnest, José quickly untied the rope that bound him and coiled it over his arm.
A few minutes later the two men set off together down the steep, rocky mountain side.
CHAPTER XIX
A DARING PLAN
In spite of all Jo Ann’s efforts to slow their progress down the trail, she met with little success. Every time she slowed her horse the boss would ride up close behind and strike her horse with his quirt.
When the first faint rays of dawn were tingeing the eastern sky, the boss suddenly ordered them to stop. Pointing down into a dark ravine, he indicated by signs that they were to leave the trail and ride into it. Involuntarily Jo Ann gasped. The steepness of the sharp descent terrified her. Even more alarming was the thought that this was the place where he had planned to leave them as he had the peon back in the cave.
If Dr. Blackwell or José should come along this trail they never would think of hunting down there for them. “Unless I leave some clue up here on the trail,” she told herself.
When both Jo Ann and Florence kept repeating, “No sabe—no sabe,” to all of his commands, the boss, with an angry, “Follow me, pronto,” started his horse down into the ravine. He glanced over his shoulder to see if they were following.
In the short interval in which he was not looking at them, Jo Ann jerked off her belt and tossed it back on the trail. “If José or Dr. Blackwell sees that, they’ll search all around here,” she thought.
Slipping and sliding over sharp rocks and scrubby mesquite bushes they finally succeeded in reaching the bottom of the ravine.
After they had ridden some distance out of sight of the trail, the boss leaped off his horse and ordered them to follow his example.
For an instant it seemed to Jo Ann that her heart had stopped beating; then it began pounding away so rapidly that she had difficulty in breathing.
Was this to be the end? Was this silent dark ravine the spot where Florence and Carlitos and she were to be left to die?
As soon as they had all dismounted, the boss gestured to them to take the saddles off their horses.
“No sabe—no sabe,” Jo Ann began repeating.
The next instant the boss growled and raised his quirt threateningly.
Without another protest she pulled the saddle off and then helped Carlitos remove his.
“Mas pronto,” the boss kept commanding.
As soon as they had removed the saddles, he indicated some bushes near by under which they were to hide them; that done, he had all three tie their horses a little farther down the ravine.
“He’s trying to cover up all trace of us,” Jo Ann thought, shaking. “He must be going to make away with us now. Poor Florence! Poor Carlitos! What can I do? Isn’t there something I can do?”
To he
r amazement just then the boss gestured to them to climb back up on the trail. What was he going to do with them now? Where was he taking them?
On reaching the trail he urged them on forward as fast as they could walk. Not long afterward they came to a little rise in the trail from which they could see in the valley below a huge white stone house outlined against the dark gray background of the mountains. Involuntarily the girls stopped to stare down at it in surprise.
“Who’d ever think of seeing such a palace as that way out here!” Jo Ann exclaimed.
For once the boss forgot to urge them on. He pointed down proudly to the house. “My casa. It cost me mucho dinero,” he bragged, then gestured to some tiny shacks on the mountain side. “I no live like the peons.”
“No wonder he can have such a fine house,” Jo Ann thought. “He stole the mine from Carlitos’ father in the first place and makes the peons live in little old shacks.”
By this time the boss had leaped off his horse and had tied it to a near-by bush. He turned back to the girls and Carlitos. “Move along. Pronto!” he ordered, gesturing up to a narrow path cut into the steep mountain side.
Jo Ann intuitively realized that this path led to the mine. A feeling of terror swept over her again. This must be the end! He was taking them up to the mine to make away with them there so no one would know what had become of them. That was why he was hurrying them so fast—so he’d get rid of them before it was daylight and the men came to work. What would he do with them? If he left them bound as he had the peon in the cave, some of the workmen would be sure to find them.
A sudden thought flashed into her mind that left her panic-stricken. In nearly all mines, she’d heard, there were old, deep unused shafts. Was it possible that he was going to leave them in one of those old shafts? If he did, no one in the world would ever find a trace of them. She must fight to the very last. There must be something she could do. Dr. Blackwell—where was he? He had said he would get here ahead of them. He might be down there in the valley waiting for them this very minute, she told herself.
By this time they had reached a spot in the path directly above the house. “One could almost throw a stone down into the patio of that house from here,” she thought. “If I could only attract the attention of someone down there. He seems to be trying so hard to get us up here without anyone’s seeing us.”
A daring plan darted into her mind. She’d risk the boss’s anger. No matter what he did, it could not be as bad as what awaited them at the mine. The next instant she began to put this plan into action.
She stumbled and with a piercing shriek fell prostrate, pushing several large stones over the edge of the trail. As they rolled down the mountain side, loosening other stones on their way, they made a terrific crashing noise.
“Oh, my foot! My foot!” she groaned, grabbing her ankle.
Florence was at her side the next moment. “Oh, Jo Ann! Are you hurt badly?”
Before Jo Ann could answer, the boss was standing over her, shaking his quirt threateningly. “What you mean? You make too much noise. Move on—pronto.”
Jo Ann shook her head, crying again, “My foot!”
As he started to strike her with his quirt she turned over and began crawling on hands and knees.
“Oh, if only Dr. Blackwell or someone heard those rocks and would come to our rescue,” she thought. “My crawling this way will delay us some. I wish, though, that I dared tell Florence that I’m not hurt. She’s so worried because she thinks I’ve really sprained my ankle.”
Every few moments she kept looking back toward the boss as an excuse to get a view of the valley.
“Surely, if Dr. Blackwell’s down there and heard all that noise, he’d look up here and see us,” she thought. “If I don’t see somebody soon, I’ll risk knocking some more stones over.” She slowed her crawling pace.
“Mas pronto!” came the growling command, then she felt a sharp lick across her back. Only her thick sweater kept her from being cut by the boss’s quirt.
In spite of this, she ventured to look around again a few moments later. To her unbounded relief she caught a glimpse of three men on horses riding rapidly toward the foot of the trail. They were not dressed like Indians, she noticed. The rider ahead looked as if he might be Dr. Blackwell. Oh, if only he were! If he could only get to them right away. “That black hole up ahead on the path—that must be the opening to the mine,” she thought.
Just then Carlitos exclaimed in a frightened voice, “La mina [The mine]!”
Terrified at the sight of this black yawning hole so close above them, Jo Ann cried out frantically, “Florence, stop! Don’t go any farther.”
At her sharp command Florence halted, white-faced and trembling. The next instant she reached out to catch hold of Carlitos.
The boss burst forth in such a rapid flow of Spanish that neither one of the girls could understand a word. His face was so distorted with rage that Florence and Carlitos huddled together against the rocky wall, frozen with fear.
As the boss raised his quirt to strike her, Jo Ann caught a glimpse of a white-clothed man stealthily slipping along the trail close behind him. Instantly she recognized the man as José. “I must keep the boss from knowing José is behind him,” she thought quickly.
“No, I won’t go on!” she cried, and jumped to her feet just in time to dodge a blow from his quirt.
As he lurched forward to strike again, she saw a coil of rope sail through the air and fall over his head and shoulders. The next instant his arms were pinioned to his sides.
Before the boss could realize what had happened, José and the peon sprang forward and threw him down on the ground. With deft fingers they bound him securely.
CHAPTER XX
THE NEW HOPE MINE
Everything had happened so quickly that Florence and Carlitos were still standing motionless by the wall.
While José and the peon held the boss, Jo Ann cautiously led Florence and Carlitos past him. So fiercely was he roaring that shivers ran down their spines.
Jo Ann scarcely drew a long breath till all three of them were out of his reach. Even then she was terrified for José and the peon. Would they be able to get him down that narrow trail without danger to themselves?
A few moments later, as the three rounded a curve, they saw Dr. Blackwell running up the trail toward them.
“Oh, Daddy! Daddy!” Florence cried.
The next moment she was in her father’s arms.
“How thankful I am that I’ve found you girls and Carlitos alive!” he exclaimed, hugging her tightly. “I was frantic when I got here and didn’t find you.”
Now that she realized that Dr. Blackwell was here and they were all safe, Jo Ann felt such a surge of weakness creep over her that she leaned against the wall for support. Now she could relax—all the responsibility was the doctor’s from now on.
Just then two other men came running up the trail, one of them wearing the uniform of a rurale.
“Tell the officer to go up and help José and the peon,” Florence told her father. “They have the mean boss tied, but—”
“He’s so terrible—so savage, he’s liable to escape yet,” Jo Ann put in. “Tell him to hurry.”
The rurale hurriedly slipped past them and rushed on up the narrow trail.
Dr. Blackwell now turned to the tall thin man who had been standing quietly behind him. “Girls, this is Mr. Eldridge, Carlitos’ uncle. He reached the village about the same time I did.”
Florence turned and in rapid Spanish explained to Carlitos that this was his uncle.
Carlitos’ blue eyes widened in amazement. “My uncle!” he repeated, gazing past them to the tall man. Slowly then the boy edged around the girls toward his uncle.
Mr. Eldridge reached out and took Carlitos’ hand in his. “I’m so happy—happy that I’ve found you at last,” he said in English. “I’ve searched for years for you.”
Carlitos stared blankly, not understanding a single word. Florenc
e turned to Carlitos and translated what his uncle had said.
Immediately Carlitos’ face began to brighten.
“It seems terrible that my own nephew can’t understand his native language,” Mr. Eldridge remarked.
“We’d better hurry on down off this narrow trail,” put in Dr. Blackwell. He turned around and led the way down, the others following in single file.
As soon as they neared the great white house, Dr. Blackwell explained that they had better go on inside and wait till the men brought the boss down. “Mr. Eldridge wants to question him about Carlitos’ father and mother. There are also several things about the mine he’d like to find out.”
When the girls saw the three men bringing the boss in, they slipped out into the patio.
“I’ve seen all I want to of that terrible creature,” declared Jo Ann. “I never want to lay eyes on him again.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Florence.
“Aren’t you thrilled over Carlitos’ finding his uncle and his prospect of getting the mine back? Just think how his life’ll be changed now! From poverty to comfort. And now he’ll have his uncle to look after him and see that he has all the advantages he should.”
“I’m just as happy as can be over his good fortune. And José’s and his family’s, too, because I’m sure Mr. Eldridge’ll help them for taking care of Carlitos and saving his life.”
While they were waiting, Jo Ann began to gaze about, noticing the number of rooms, each opening onto the patio. “Isn’t this a strange place? And this is Carlitos’ house now. Some contrast with the cave he’s been living in, isn’t it? Let’s take a look around.”
The two girls walked down the corridor to the first open door and peered in.
“My stars!” gasped Jo Ann. “A grand piano! What do you know about that! And look what’s tied to one of the legs—a fighting rooster!”
“Oh yes, that man’d be sure to have some fighting roosters. Cock fighting’s one of the principal amusements down here. That’s a strange place to keep the rooster, though.”
They wandered on down to the next open door, and to Jo Ann’s utter amazement there was another piano with a rooster tied to one of the legs.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 83