Chapter 8 AT THE MINE

When they neared the foot of the lofty mountains and the end of the automobile road, Jo Ann parked the car in front of a small thatched adobe house. "This is the jumping-off place," she smiled. "Here's where we leave Jitters and get our horses."

Miss Prudence eyed the house curiously. "This must be where Ed told me we were to change into our riding clothes. He said for us to be ready by the time he and the boys got here. I don't fancy going into a strange house in a strange--" She stopped abruptly as a fat, smiling-faced Mexican woman appeared at the open door and began beaming her welcome and punctuating her Spanish with gestures for them to come inside.

Summoning her limited Spanish, Jo Ann replied with a "Gracias," then turned and translated the woman's welcoming words to Miss Prudence.

After a moment's hesitation Miss Prudence followed the girls into the house. Her keen eyes quickly took in the room, which had a neat, well-kept appearance in spite of its dirt floor and primitive furniture.

The woman disappeared into the other room, evidently the kitchen, as they could hear her rattling dishes and beating vigorously with some utensil.

"I hope she's making us some chocolaté," Jo Ann whispered to Peggy as they slipped into their khaki riding trousers.

"I hope so too. I'm hungry as a bear. Mountain air always gives me a ravenous appetite."

"Here, too. I could wrap myself around a substantial meal right now, and it'll probably be two hours yet till we reach the mine-and supper."

As Jo Ann's thoughts turned on the distance to the mine, she wondered how she would be able to get back to the city and find the mystery man. Now that she had seen the car of those suspected smugglers in the village so close by, she felt it was more imperative than ever for her to tell the mystery man about them and their whereabouts. "I've simply got to get in touch with him some way," she told herself.

So intent was she upon these thoughts that she did not heed Peggy's nudging her till she squealed out, "Can't you put on your boots, Peg, without poking me in the side?"

"Oh, I most humbly beg your pardon," Peggy replied, her twinkling eyes showing that her apology was anything but abject.

Catching her gesture, a nod of the head in Miss Prudence's direction, Jo Ann looked over at Miss Prudence. The next moment her eyes opened in astonishment. That long, full, navy skirt Miss Prudence had on-how on earth was she ever going to ride in that thing? That must be one of those old-fashioned side-saddle riding skirts she'd heard her grandmother talk about. It'd be absolutely dangerous to ride side saddle in this mountainous country. She'd often heard how easily such a saddle was tipped out of balance and the rider thrown off. The next moment she relaxed as the thought occurred to her that there were no side saddles in this part of the country. Perhaps she'd better tell her that.

Somewhat embarrassed, Jo Ann stammered, "Er-Miss Prudence-er-they don't have any-side saddles down here."

Miss Prudence looked puzzled as she replied Yankee-fashion with a question, "Well, who wants one?" Seeing the girls' eyes fastened on her skirt, she smiled, "This isn't one of those old side-saddle riding skirts. It's a divided skirt." There was a note of pride in her voice as she added, "I was the first woman in my part of the country to begin riding astride. I shocked the older people dreadfully."

"I think you were a good sport, Miss Prudence, to start that style," Peggy remarked.

Miss Prudence received this praise with a pleased smile.

Just then the Mexican woman entered with a tray of food which she set on a little table near by. Gesturing and talking rapidly to Jo Ann, she explained, "I think you have much hunger, and I make you some chocolaté."

Though Jo Ann's reply was made in broken Spanish, it was straight from her heart. "Gracias. You are most kind. We have hunger after the long ride. And chocolaté-I love it." She raised the cup to her lips and drank a little of the rich, frothy liquid. "This is very delicious."

Peggy and Miss Prudence nodded a smiling approval to the woman, and her black eyes glowed with happiness at the praise, both spoken and unspoken.

A few minutes after they had finished eating, Mr. Eldridge and the two boys rode up.

On going outside Jo Ann saw that there were three other horses saddled and waiting for them. She noticed, too, that José, Pepito's father, was standing near by, his arms caressingly about Carlitos, whom he loved almost as dearly as he did his own son. Carlitos's face was aglow with happiness at being reunited with his Mexican friends.

After she and Peggy had mounted, they watched with curious eyes to see how Miss Prudence manipulated that queer skirt. When they saw her unbutton the front panel and fold it back and refasten it on another set of buttons, they saw that it was a divided skirt after all.

Peggy leaned over from her horse to murmur to Jo Ann, "It looks like a pair of floppy-legged pajamas now."

Jo Ann nodded, then added, grinning, "I prefer to sleep in pajamas and ride in trousers. It's so much more modest."

Peggy suppressed a giggle with difficulty at the thought of the proper Miss Prudence's ever wearing anything but the most correct clothes.

Notwithstanding the queer skirt, they found that Miss Prudence rode unusually well, handling her horse with the ease of an experienced horsewoman.

Up the steep mountain trail they began climbing in single file, José in the lead. The sheer precipice at the edge looked so dangerous to Jo Ann that she tried to keep from looking over. One good thing, they had an excellent guide in José. He had led her and Florence over worse places than this.

On nearing the mine a strange feeling of tenseness filled the girls and Carlitos; and yet that was not surprising, as the mine had been the scene of the most thrilling adventures they had ever experienced. It was here that they had been rescued from the treacherous mine foreman who had stolen the mine from Carlitos's father.

On their arrival at the great stone house that this foreman had so proudly built for his own use, they found José's wife, Maria, the nurse who had reared Carlitos as one of her family. Though she was only a poor ignorant woman of the peon class, the girls as well as Carlitos loved her.

"Maria has a heart of gold," Jo Ann told Miss Prudence as they watched her enfold Carlitos in her arms and kiss him on each cheek. "She loves him as she does her own Pepito and her girls."

A few minutes later Maria proudly showed Carlitos to his room, into which she had put the best of everything, then took Miss Prudence and the girls to adjoining rooms, which looked bare and forbidding with their concrete floors, scant furniture, and curtainless, iron-barred windows.

"Looks like a soldiers' barracks," Miss Prudence said crisply after a swift glance about.

Jo Ann laughed, then said, "You should have seen this house as it was the first time I saw it. There was a grand piano in every room with a game rooster tied to one of the piano legs."

Miss Prudence gasped. "A rooster in every room! Heavens! You mean to say this whole house was a chicken coop?"

"Not exactly. It was just that Mexican foreman's idea of the luxurious life. He loved music and cock fighting, so he wanted the pianos and roosters handy."

"Heavens!" gasped Miss Prudence again. "Why, I must fumigate this whole house, clean it with Old Dutch Cleanser, Lysol--"

"Oh, Maria cleaned it long ago-thoroughly," broke in Jo Ann quickly, seeing that the anxious-eyed Maria was watching Miss Prudence's frown of evident disapproval and was worried. She turned now to Maria and said in Spanish, "The house is very clean. You have worked hard."

Maria's grave eyes brightened. "Yes, the little girls and I work hard." She gestured to the window and the corners of the room. "See, I clean it good like Carlitos's mamá show me."

Though Miss Prudence had caught from these gestures that Maria was showing how thoroughly she had cleaned the house, she was far from being convinced that it was fit for human habitation. Again she broke into a list of the different kinds of cleansing materials and things that she would need.

"We'll have to go to the city to get all those things," put in Peggy. "They won't have them in the little store in the village."

Jo Ann's eyes suddenly began to shine. Here was her chance to get back to the city to find the mystery man. She could stop in the village and find out what those smugglers were doing there. Maybe they were buying baskets and pottery from the villagers. She'd soon find out now.

The first moment she and Peggy were alone she told her of her plans.

Peggy laughed. "I knew that's what you were planning. You can't resist a mystery, can you?"

"And you're almost as eager as I am to have a finger in my mystery pie. You know you're crazy to go to the city with me."

"Of course I am."