“No, that is impossible. It takes much time to make the ollas, and the men say they come back in three or four days.”
“Three or four days,” Jo Ann thought. “I hope Florence comes on one of those days, so we’ll have an excuse to come down here to meet her.”
Peggy broke into her thoughts with, “Ask her the price of these jars. They’re lovely.” She picked up two jars, each attractively decorated with a design of cactus and Spanish dagger.
Jo Ann relayed this question to the woman. “How much do you sell these for?”
The woman went on to tell the price of each—an absurdly small amount, not a third as much as they were worth.
“Is that what those men pay you for them?” Jo Ann asked incredulously.
“Sí.” The woman nodded.
Jo Ann repeated the price to Peggy, adding, “Those men are robbers, as well as—”
She left her sentence unfinished and turned back to the woman, saying, “They do not pay you enough. I will give you twice that much for these two ollas.”
The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Ah—that is good. I have much need of money to buy food for my children.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “Bien, I will let you have these two. The men will be angry, but then—” She shrugged her shoulders expressively.
Jo Ann’s mind was working rapidly. Perhaps she could help this poor woman to market more of her pottery. Florence had a friend who purchased Mexican curios for a firm in the States. She would tell Florence about this woman’s pottery. “I’ll take these two ollas. Don’t let those men have all your pottery after this. I will sell it for you at this price.”
After Jo Ann had paid for the jars and had promised the woman again to help sell more of the pottery for her, Peggy remarked as they were starting away, “I’m glad you paid that woman more for the ollas, but I’m afraid those men’ll be furious when they find out you’re buying her pottery at double the price they pay. You’re heading for trouble.”
Jo Ann’s face grew grave. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m glad just the same that I could help that family. Those poor little children look half starved to me.”
“They surely do,” Peggy agreed.
CHAPTER X
THE INDEFINITE MAÑANA
As soon as Jo Ann woke the third morning after their trip to the village, she reminded Peggy that they must go back without fail today. “You know Florence said she’d either be there by noon, or that there’d be a letter telling exactly when to expect her. It all depended, she said, on which day her father had to go to the city.”
Peggy half smiled. “That’s not the only reason you want to go to the village. You want to get another look at those smugglers and get some information about them; now, don’t you?”
“Yes. I want to be able to give the straight facts to the mystery man—if I ever see him again. I want to find out how often those men come to the village—where they go on their trips farther into the interior—what it is they’re smuggling—exactly what route they take on their way back to the border, and—”
“What do you think you are—a glorified kind of Sherlock or a whole detective agency?”
“Neither. Only I think we’ve bumped into a fascinating mystery that’s daring us to solve it. I want to play safe, but if we can get any information that’ll aid in catching that band of smugglers and maybe help keep the mystery man from losing his life, I certainly want to get it.”
“Well, don’t get too venturesome. I’ve known you to get too enthusiastic about your mystery-solving. One good thing, José will go with us to the village. He’ll be our bodyguard without knowing it.”
To the girls’ relief Miss Prudence gave her permission for them to accompany José to the village again. They were ready and waiting impatiently for him several minutes before he appeared with the horses and an extra pack burro.
“I’m afraid those smugglers’ll have come for the pottery and gone before we get to the village, at this rate,” Jo Ann fumed while she was waiting.
Peggy grinned. “So much the better for us. I, for one, never want to see them.”
“I’ve got to find out their plans some way or other.”
As before, they rode down the mountain, then left their horses and the burro at the rough thatched shed where their car was stored.
“Let’s give this shed a name,” Peggy suggested as they climbed into the car.
“All right,” Jo Ann agreed. “How about calling it Jitters’ House? That’s what it is now. It’s the first time the garage was so far away that I had to ride horseback to get to it.”
Peggy smiled. “Hereafter, then, this is Jitters’ House.”
On nearing the Mexican woman’s shack Jo Ann began looking eagerly to see if the pottery were still piled up beside it.
“Good!” she exclaimed. “The pottery’s still there. That means the men haven’t—” She stopped in the middle of her sentence. José was beginning to understand English much better now that he was staying at Mr. Eldridge’s home, and so might be able to get an inkling of what she was talking about.
As it was, Peggy understood, since Jo Ann had been worrying all the way down the mountain lest the pottery and the men should be gone.
Jo Ann drove straight to Pedro’s store, the scheduled meeting place again, as it had been the day they had all driven from the city. There was no sign of Florence’s small trim figure to be seen outside the store or inside.
“Maybe we’re too early,” Peggy suggested.
“We have to wait for the mail, anyway—it hasn’t come yet, Pedro said,” Jo Ann replied. “If there isn’t a letter from her, we’ll know she’s coming and will wait till she appears. This delay suits me to a T.”
“Don’t I know it! You’re just aching for those old smugglers to appear while we’re here. I hope they don’t.”
Undisturbed, Jo Ann went on, “While we’re waiting, let’s you and me go back to that shack and find out if any of the family knows exactly when the men are coming after the pottery.”
“We-ell, I s’pose there couldn’t be any danger about asking a few questions.”
Peggy climbed back into the car with Jo Ann, leaving José squatting on the sidewalk smoking his corn-shuck cigarette and chatting with a group of his peon friends.
When they stopped in front of the shack, they noticed a little dark-eyed girl, the tallest of the stair-step children she had seen previously, standing close to the piles of pottery. Jo Ann promptly leaped out of the car and walked over and began admiring the pottery.
“The ollas are very beautiful,” she said in her slow Spanish. “Did you help to decorate them?”
“Sí, I fix this one.” She picked up a small, brightly colored jar.
“It is lovely,” admired Jo Ann. “You are very artistic.”
The girl’s black eyes shone, and two dimples twinkled in her olive-tinted cheeks at this praise.
After she had looked at the pottery a few minutes longer, Jo Ann asked haltingly, “Do you know when the men are coming for your ollas?”
“Sí,” the girl nodded, her long black braids swaying with the motion. “They tell my papa they come mañana.”
“Mañana,” Jo repeated to herself discouragedly. That was the most indefinite word in the Spanish language. It might mean tomorrow, and it might mean any time in months to come. “Do you mean Friday?” she asked.
“Sí, Friday.”
“What time?”
The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe in the morning; maybe in the afternoon—I do not know.”
“What time did they come last time they bought your pottery?”
The child shook her head. “I do not remember.”
Just then the girl’s mother appeared in the doorway and smiled broadly on recognizing Jo Ann and Peggy.
Jo Ann walked over to the door and, after exchanging greetings with her, asked if she knew exactly when the men were coming after the pottery, ending, “Maybe they will sell me some more of your be
autiful ollas when they come.”
The woman answered with the same gesture as had her daughter—a shrug of her shoulders and, “I do not know.”
“When do they usually come?” Jo Ann persisted.
“Last time they come about this hour. They stop at Pedro’s store first; then they come here.”
Jo Ann’s eyes brightened. At last she had secured a bit of information.
As it turned out, this was the only piece forthcoming. Question after question brought forth only the inevitable but expressive shrug of the shoulders.
Though she could see Jo Ann was discouraged, Peggy could not help smiling and asking teasingly, “Have you learned yet what this means?” She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders in true Mexican style.
“Silly!” Jo Ann exploded. The next moment she grinned and replied, “It means anything and everything. I’m going to cultivate that gesture myself and use it when anyone tries to quiz me.”
When they reached the store, the mail had arrived and in it a letter from Florence.
Jo Ann tore open the envelope quickly, glanced over the short note, and handed it to Peggy, saying, “She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon—and so’ll we be here.” To herself she added that there might be two others who probably would not be very comfortable persons to have near.
CHAPTER XI
THE SECRET OF THE OLLA
The girls had thought that as usual José would accompany them to the village the next day. As it happened, however, there was some extra work for him to do about the mine, and Mr. Eldridge decided to send Carlitos and Pepito as escorts for them in place of José. “Each boy can ride a horse, and then on the way back they can ride double, as they did the first day, and let Florence have the extra horse,” he said.
“Fine!” Jo Ann exclaimed.
Peggy was silent. The thought had darted into her mind that if those smugglers should chance to be in the village at the same time that they were, it would be more comfortable to have José along instead of the boys.
When they reached Jitters’ House, the boys suddenly decided to stay there and wait for the girls. “Pepito and I are going to build a dam in this stream,” Carlitos explained, gesturing toward the small stream near by.
When a half hour later the girls passed the pottery woman’s shack without seeing any sign of the smugglers’ car, Peggy breathed a little more freely. “We’ll probably leave before they get here,” she thought.
As if in answer to her thoughts, Jo Ann spoke up briskly, “I see where we’ll have to wait around the village till those men come. Since the pottery’s still there, I know they haven’t come yet.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Peggy answered quickly. “We might have to stay so long it’d be dark before we’d get back to the mine.”
“Of course we can’t wait that long. I’m in hopes they’ll come soon, but I want to see them if I possibly can.”
When they came in sight of Pedro’s store, they saw Florence standing out in front, looking up the narrow street.
“Attaboy! There she is!” cried Jo Ann.
“She sees us now!” Peggy waved both arms vigorously, a gesture that was answered equally enthusiastically by Florence.
As soon as the three girls had exchanged the warmest of greetings and Florence and her baggage were settled in the car, Jo Ann broke into an account of having seen the smugglers’ car, and all the other details.
Florence was indignant over the ridiculously low price the men were paying the villagers for their pottery. “You’re right, Jo. Those men are thieves,” she said. “They’re making three or four hundred per cent profit on the pottery, to say nothing of what they’re getting out of their smuggling. I believe I can pay that woman and the other villagers more than you did for their ollas, and ship them to the States, and still break even. When I see these poverty-stricken women with their big families to feed and clothe, I feel I’ve got to help them every chance I get.”
“I do, too,” agreed Jo Ann.
“And I,” added Peggy. “But I don’t want to get those smugglers angry at us. They’ll be furious when they find out you’re planning to buy all the pottery.”
Both Jo Ann and Florence were silent a moment; then Jo Ann remarked, “Maybe we hadn’t better buy all the pottery, because if we do, the men’ll stop coming here altogether, and I won’t get a chance to find out more about them to tell the mystery man. I want to help him—his life’s at stake.”
Florence nodded. “That’s so.” She turned to Peggy then with, “You’re right. We’d better buy only a few pieces of pottery.”
“Let’s drive past the shack now and see if the smugglers’ car is there,” Jo Ann suggested, starting the car even as she spoke.
“That’s all right with me if you’ll keep on driving and not stop,” Peggy spoke up.
Jo Ann drove very slowly past the pottery woman’s house, but there was no sign of any kind of car to be seen. As the pottery was still there, she knew the men were yet to come. She drove on a short distance, then turned into a rough road circling into the village. To Peggy’s disapproval she turned again a few minutes later into the side road leading past the woman’s house.
Almost simultaneously Jo Ann and Florence caught sight of the old car parked beside the house. “The smugglers’ car!” they both gasped.
“Turn as fast as you can and get away from here,” ordered Peggy.
Instead of obeying her command Jo Ann drew the car to the side of the road and stopped. “You stay in the car, Peggy, while Florence and I see if we can find out anything.”
“Oh, do be careful!”
With Peggy’s last words in their minds Jo Ann and Florence approached the shack cautiously, coming up close to the back of the house, where they halted. Though they could not see the smugglers and the woman except by peeping around the corner of the shack, they could hear them talking.
“They’re trying to make her come down on the price, aren’t they?” Jo Ann whispered.
“Yes; trying to force her down to a mere fraction of what the ollas are worth.” An angry glint came into Florence’s blue eyes. “I feel like marching right out and telling her not to—” She stopped whispering to listen to the woman’s plaintive reply that she needed the money for food for her children.
Jo Ann caught the woman’s words and their meaning. “Come on, let’s see if we can’t persuade or bluff them into giving more money.”
Without hesitating, Florence stepped out, and together the two marched on around to where the men and the woman were standing.
At their approach the two swarthy-skinned men looked up in surprise. The taller one, who was a little squint-eyed and had a scar on his chin, drew his brows together into a deep frown as he peered from under his sombrero at Jo Ann.
Involuntarily Jo Ann caught her breath as the thought darted into her mind that he looked as if he recognized her. “Perhaps he saw me there in the gully,” she thought.
By that time Florence was talking to the woman in rapid Spanish, offering to buy all her pottery at almost three times more than the men had offered.
The taller man whirled about to stare at Florence and to scowl more fiercely than ever. “It is impossible for you to buy the ollas. She promise us all—everything.”
Florence ignored this remark and asked the woman, “How much did they say in the first place that they would pay you?”
Between sobs the woman replied and added, “Now they say they will give me only half of that.”
“Since they won’t pay you what they had promised, then sell your pottery to me.”
Both men broke into a torrent of protests, waving their arms and shaking their heads violently.
While they were absorbed in arguing with Florence, Jo Ann gradually edged over and looked into the back of the car, the bottom of which was filled with pottery packed in straw. After one hasty glance over her shoulder at the men, she reached over and pulled out a large olla from the middle.
How heavy it
was! She peered into it, then thrust her hand inside. There was a package—a heavy one—at the bottom.
Just then a furious voice rang out, “Put that olla back in the car!”
She wheeled about to see the shorter one of the men rushing angrily toward her.
CHAPTER XII
HEADING FOR TROUBLE
In another moment the man had grabbed the olla out of Jo Ann’s hand and had placed it back in its nest of straw in the car. “What are you doing?” he demanded sharply, edging between her and the car. “Leave these alone!”
Jo Ann detected a note of alarm in his voice. “He’s afraid I’ve discovered the contents of that olla,” she thought. Determined to conceal her nervousness, she replied in as cool and controlled a voice as she could muster, “How much will you take for that olla?”
The man shook his head. “No—no. It is not for sale.”
“I will give you fifty centavos for it.”
“No—no. I cannot sell it.”
“Well, how about seventy-five centavos, then?”
The merest shadow of a smile began to spread over the man’s dark, unshaven face. Perhaps here was a chance for him to make a few extra centavos, and no one would be the wiser. He reached down in the car and after rummaging about for a few moments drew up another olla similar to the one Jo Ann had picked up. “Here—I let you have it,” he said, offering it to her.
Jo Ann shook her head. “No, that is not the one I want. It is this one.” She started to lean over the car, but the man stopped her.
“No, this is the only one I have to sell,” he insisted. “See, it is beautiful! Seventy-five centavos is very cheap. I do not make anything.”
“Cheap!” Jo Ann flung back at him, her eyes blazing. In her anger she had forgotten to be cautious. “I heard what you’re paying for these ollas. You are a thief. Pay them more money, or I’ll buy them all myself.”
He scowled menacingly at her. “Ah, it was you who put evil things into that woman’s head—demanding more money! They are lucky to get that much. Do not interfere with my business again. Sabe?”
Before she could reply, the other man stepped up, an angry glint snapping in his eyes along with that same half-puzzled expression, as if he were still undecided about her identity. The two men exchanged a few whispered sentences so rapidly that she could not make out a single word. Every now and then they glanced in her direction.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 102