“If you are acquainted with this man, Senor Jack,” he said excitedly, pointing to Captain Cornell, “tell him I will pay for any damage, but he must let me go. It is necessary. Ah, alas, though,” he groaned, “I fear it is now too late. That devil has escaped again.”
Jack was bewildered. Finding Don Ferdinand here, in Nueva Laredo, when the last heard of him he had disappeared from his home! All he could do was to stare in astonishment. But Don Ferdinand who had spoken to Jack in Spanish was wringing his hands in despair. Jack could not understand why.
Bob and Frank, who had not seen the old Spanish aristocrat for a number of years, had been slow to recognize him. But the conversation and Jack’s use of the older man’s name brought back recollection. They crowded forward and greeted him. He seemed like a man in a daze.
Then understanding suddenly came to Jack. Don Ferdinand had declared “that devil has escaped again.” The light dawned. He had been chasing that fellow in pursuit of whom he had left home and gone to the mine. What was his name? Ramirez! Yes, Ramirez, that was it!
“Was it Ramirez, Don Ferdinand?” he demanded eagerly, elbowing Bob aside to face his friend.
“Ssh.” Don Ferdinand put his finger to his lips. “Too late,” he said, low-voiced. “He has escaped me. But let us not talk about it here. Come, get into my car. But first I’ll pay this gentleman for his taxi,” he said, pulling out a wallet. “Only,” he added glaring at Captain Cornell, “he is a violent man. He put a revolver into my face and commanded me to order my driver to return here.”
“Sorry,” apologized the flyer. Remembering his conversation with Jack at the ranch regarding Don Ferdinand and his trouble at the mine with “that devil Ramirez,” he also was putting two and two together out of the conversation between the old aristocrat and Jack.
“Oh, I say, you two must be friends,” declared Jack, proceeding to introduce them. “As for the damage to the taxi—” And leaving the sentence unfinished, he reached for his own wallet.
But Don Ferdinand forestalled him. He thrust into the jehu’s hands a sheaf of bills the size of which made the latter’s eyes bulge.
“Is that sufficient?” he snapped in English.
The taxi bandit made a grotesque bow.
“For that price,” he said, “the ol’ boat’s yourn.”
Don Ferdinand never even smiled, but beckoning the four young fellows to follow, climbed into his car. Bob and Frank hung back, whispering. Then, just as Jack was about to enter behind Don Ferdinand, they halted him.
“Say, Jack, we haven’t seen anything yet of the town,” explained Frank. “And we’d like to. No use running away when we just came. As for the taxi we can always get another to take us back across the Bridge, I guess. Explain to Don Ferdinand, and then let the four of us knock around as we intended to do.”
Jack considered, turning to Captain Cornell with a question in his eyes. The latter nodded. He was young enough to enjoy a sightseeing tour and, since they had all escaped unscathed from the crash, saw no reason to return with their original purpose unfulfilled.
So Jack explained the situation to Don Ferdinand, adding that they were staying at the Hamilton Hotel on the American side of the River, with Mr. Hampton and Mr. Temple. He urged that Don Ferdinand, if he intended to return across the River, call on those two older men—both of whom were friends.
“Tonight I cannot, Jack,” said Don Ferdinand. “I am staying with friends who expect me. This is their car. But tomorrow I shall give myself the pleasure of calling upon you.”
“Good,” said Jack. “But”—as an afterthought—“come to the hotel before three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, as we all would like to come back here to see the bull fight.”
The old Don agreed to do so. Then with a bow all around, he gave the word to his chauffeur, and the latter pulled out into the street, backed and headed for the International Bridge.
Jack stood at the curb, gazing thoughtfully after the departing car.
“Now I wonder what brought him here, and I wonder about this mysterious Mr. Ramirez,” he said.
He had told Bob and Frank before dinner about the mysterious events transpiring at Don Ferdinand’s mine and about the latter’s disappearance. Captain Cornell likewise knew. So Jack’s remark was understood.
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow,” said big Bob, stretching. “Come on, lads. Let’s saunter a bit and take in the sights. There’s a hot dog stand just ahead here, and I’m hungry enough to eat a kennel. That little bounce seems to have given me an appetite. Step up, me byes, and order your dogs, with mustard or without.”
Sleepy-eyed still after their late hours of the night before, the boys met at a belated eleven o’clock breakfast in the dining room of the hotel next morning. While they were dressing the Sunday morning church bells had been ringing in their ears. At the table, Bob reported that his father and Mr. Hampton had departed to attend church services.
“Tried to get me to go along,” said Bob, who was first of the boys to arise, “but I wanted to wait around for you fellows.”
Truth to tell, Bob had had a hard time persuading his father that it would be all right for them to attend the bull fight in the Mexican town across the Border that afternoon. Mr. Temple was what would be termed an old-fashioned man. To him attendance at a bull fight under any circumstances was to be frowned on. And Sunday attendance was little short of a sin. However, the youths were now at the age of discretion, he pointed out, and could do as they pleased. Bob had pointed out that, inasmuch as bull fights were not held except on a Sunday, this would be their only opportunity to behold one. Then the matter had been dropped.
“Well, that was some night,” said Jack, between bites of grape fruit. “Wonder when Don Ferdinand will show up and, likewise, what sort of story he will have to tell.”
“It ought to be exciting,” said Frank. “Think of your finding him here, on the trail of that fellow—what’s-his-name?”
“Ramirez,” said Jack. “I can’t get over the feeling, fellows, that we’re in for a bit of excitement through our acquaintance with Don Ferdinand.”
“Aw, shucks,” yawned big Bob, stretching his arms widely. “Nothing’ll happen. Nothing ever does happen.”
Frank looked at him, grinning. “You mean to say nothing ever happens to us?”
“That’s my story,” said Bob, “and I’ll stick to it. Oh, we’ve had a few little adventures in our lives, but that day’s gone. What’s there left? Now that we’ve graduated, we’ll have to settle down in business. Pretty soon some girl’ll come along and marry us, and then we’ll be raising families and paying taxes and pew rent. Then we’ll be getting fatter and fatter, and pretty soon some kid’ll say: ‘Him? Oh, he used to be in the backfield for Yale—but that was a long time ago.’”
Jack and Frank gazed in amused astonishment at their big comrade, and then as if with one accord burst into a hearty laugh. Bob’s drooping expression did not change, however.
“Laugh, doggone ye,” he said. “But Dad’s been talking to me like a father this morning. Said last night’s little ruckus convinced him I ought to come to my senses and settle down. First thing you know, I’ll be sitting in an office and learning the export trade. No, I mean it. Nothing’s ever going to happen to us again—to me, anyhow.”
A bellboy came through the lobby calling. He poked his head in the doorway, looked around, saw only the three at table, and was about to withdraw, but thought better of it. Maybe the man he wanted was in that group. He’d give one call, anyway.
“Mis-ter Hamp-ton,” he droned. “Mis-ter Hamp-ton.”
“Hey.” Jack leaped startled to his feet. “What is it?”
The bellboy advanced, holding out a telegram in a yellow envelope.
“Must be for your father,” suggested Frank.
Jack took it and read the typewritten superscription. “No, it’s for me.”
He handed the bellboy a tip, and the latter turned away. Then Jack slit open the envelope, drew out the telegram and read it. The next moment, he whirled to his companions, throwing the message down on the table between them.
“Hum. Read that. Then say nothing exciting is going to happen.”
With quickened interest, Bob and Frank put their heads together and bent to read. This is what they saw:
“Do not look for me today. Important developments. Thousand pardons.
“F.”
They looked up puzzled.
“F. must be Don Ferdinand,” said Jack. “Now d’you see?”
“All I can see is that he says he can’t be here,” said Bob.
Jack punched him disgustedly. “Wake up, Bob. If important developments have occurred, it can only have to do with this fellow Ramirez. Don Ferdinand was after him last night, when he smashed into our taxi and was so delayed that he lost him. Now the old fire-eater has got track of Ramirez again and is going after him.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with us?” grumbled Bob, whose pessimism this morning was too deep to be quickly dispelled.
“Oh, Bob, don’t be so gloomy,” said Frank, his quick eager face alight. “Jack’s right. I seem to smell excitement, and I’m sure that we’re going to get into it some way.”
“That’s the way I feel, too,” said Jack. “Something’s going on, something big, or else old Don Ferdinand wouldn’t be here. He’s trailed Ramirez more than two hundred miles—probably on horseback. He had a dozen armed men at his back when he started. Probably they’re somewhere around. Something’s going to happen. I don’t know what. I can’t even guess. But I’ll bet we get into it. Come on, you’ve finished breakfast. Let’s get outside and get some air.”
Pushing back their chairs, the others rose and followed him into the lobby. As they started for the elevator in order to ascend to their rooms and get their hats preparatory to taking a stroll about Laredo, Captain Cornell espied them. He was in civilian clothes—but this time, his own. Crossing the lobby he joined them, and all four went up to the sitting room of their suite.
Jack told the flyer of Don Ferdinand’s telegram, advancing his explanation of it.
Captain Cornell displayed a quickened interest.
“Told you I was going to try and find out something about this fellow Ramirez,” he said. “Well, this morning I bumped into Jack Hannaford on my way here. Nobody knows anything about Ramirez, out at the field, by the way. But Jack’s an old-timer. Used to be a Ranger. He’s the same man who told me last night that the government was about to close the International Bridge at nine o’clock at night hereafter.”
“‘Ramirez?’ said Hannaford, ‘Ramirez?’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Would he be a little fellow now, with blue powder burns on the left cheek an’ a hooked nose like a poll parrot an’ a limp in ’is right leg?’
“I laughed. ‘How do I know what he looks like when I’ve never seen him?’
“‘Yes,’ said Jack, not one bit phased by my remark, ‘yes,’ that would be him. An’ what would ye be after wantin’ with Ramirez? He’s a bad hombre.’
“‘I gathered that much,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to find him. Somebody else does, though. So he’s a bad hombre, Jack? How bad? Is he a Mexican revolutionist?’
“‘Revolutionist?’ snorts Hannaford. ‘No, he ain’t no petty bandit callin’ himself a General. He’s a bigger crook than that. Why, he’s the biggest crook on the Border by all odds. Government’s been after him for twenty years, but never could get the goods on him. You know all about him. Why d’ye ask me?’
“‘Crook?’ said I. ‘How come, Hannaford?’
“‘Smuggler,’ said he.
“Then I did get excited, fellows. It all came back to me. I remembered the name. When you first mentioned it, Jack, back there at your home it sounded familiar. But like you I got to thinking of revolutionists. That put me off the track. So now I said to Hannaford, ‘Look here. You mean the Master Mind?’
“Hannaford snorted again. ‘Yeah, that’s what the newspapers call him. But he ain’t any Master Mind. He’s just a doggone smart crook. But he’ll get his some day. I only hope it’s on this side of the Line, so I can get a crack at him. His gang croaked my old side-kick, years ago. Just the same, you’ll have to admit he is smart. Why, he fools you boys of the Border Patrol in your airplanes just as easy as he used to fool us when we chased him on horseback. He’s smuggled everything from Chinamen to diamonds in his time. What he’s up to now, I don’t know. You’re the first that’s mentioned him in a year.’
“So then I asked Jack if that was true, if he hadn’t heard any rumors of recent activity on the part of Ramirez, and he said he hadn’t. We talked a little more, and then I came on here. Thought this much would be interesting, anyhow, and that your friend Don Ferdinand might complete the picture. Now here you get a telegram which as good as says he’s on Ramirez’s track once more. Nothing to do but wait I guess.”
And the flyer subsided.
He had contributed real news, however. And their plans for a stroll forgotten, the four talked on until the subject had been exhausted.
Then the conversation turned to Jack’s radio experiments, and Captain Cornell, who was really interested despite his humorous lamentation that he couldn’t understand anything at all about the subject, asked numerous questions which Jack was kept busy answering.
Presently, acting on a sudden thought, Frank got up and unlocked a trunk. Delving into it, he reappeared with a small square box. This he placed on a table with an air of triumph, and throwing open the lid stepped back, gesturing like a showman, and said: “Behold.”
“Looks like some kind of a radio set,” said Jack, examining the contents. “And here, strapped in the lid, is a head-piece. Looks like radio, tastes like radio, must be radio. What is it, Frank?”
“It’s just what you said. Only it’s a trick set. Had a little time last Winter, and got to playing with an idea. Here, I’ll show.”
And carefully removing the whole business from the box, Frank proudly held it up for inspection.
“Why,” said Captain Cornell, “it looks like some kind of a belt.”
“And that’s just what it is,” declared Frank.
“It’s a radio receiving set for hikers. It contains three ‘peanut’ tubes, Jack. See? And A and B batteries. I snap it around my waist. Like this. See?”
There it was. A complete receiving set. Around the bottom of the broad belt ran a shelf bracketed at right angle, and on it were the batteries, the three little tubes, and the various dials.
“Here,” said Frank, pointing, “I hook on the head-phone. As for aerial, this little loop turns the trick.” Lifting out what seemed to be the bottom of the cabinet, he disclosed a tiny loop beneath, laid in a shallow drawer. “And, Jack, you think you’re some punkins with your experiments in long-distance receptivity. Well, how far do you think I can receive?”
“I give up,” said Jack, laughing. “How far?”
“Two or three hundred miles,” Frank replied. “Pretty good, eh, what?”
“Certainly is,” said Jack. “Let me try it. Maybe, someone is broadcasting now.”
“No use,” said Frank. “I took a look at the local paper this morning and read the broadcasting program. Nothing on until 4 o’clock. And by then we’ll be at the bull fight.”
“All right,” said Jack. “Take it along, and we’ll try it there. I want to know whether it’ll work. If it does, we ought to get some fun out of it.”
Frank promised to do so, and the set was replaced in the box. Then Mr. Hampton and Mr. Temple returned, and the matter was forgotten in the more important matter of explaining Don Ferdinand’s telegram and repeating what Captain Cornell had learned about Ramirez from the former Ranger.
“Hope nothing has happened to my old friend,” said Mr. Hampton thoughtfully. “Didn’t give the address of the friends he’s staying with, did he, Jack? No? Well, we can’t look him up there, then. Some rich Mexican family living on the American side of the Border, I suppose.”
“Must be rich, all right,” agreed Captain Cornell. “That car and the liveried chauffeur both spelled ready money.”
“Well,” said Mr. Hampton, “nothing for us to do then except to wait. We’ll hear from Don Ferdinand sooner or later. But I do hope he doesn’t endanger himself, if only for the sake of his daughter.” He looked sidelong at Jack, but the latter appeared elaborately unconscious of this mention of Rafaela. “Well,” sighed Mr. Hampton, then, “I hate to appear to be getting old, but this heat certainly makes me feel sleepy. Run along, you fellows, until time to go down into Nueva Laredo. I’m going to take a nap.”
“Better come with us, Temple.”
Face beaded with perspiration because of the steaming heat, Mr. Hampton stood by the bed on which his companion, partially disrobed, had thrown himself. The draught created by the electric fan blew across him. Mr. Temple shook his head.
“Not for a million dollars,” he said. “I’m fairly comfortable here, and I know I wouldn’t be so at the bull fight. Besides, you know what I think of bull fights.”
Mr. Hampton nodded. He was well aware that his friend frowned upon the proposed jaunt into Mexico that afternoon.
“I know,” he said. “But we can’t forbid the boys to go. They’re too old for that. Besides that’s not the way to inculcate principles, anyhow. Furthermore, you have the wrong idea of bull fights, in a way. To these Mexicans a bull fight is just the same as a baseball game to Americans. Remember, I know the Latin temperament.” He paused, looking down a moment, thoughtfully, at his companion. “The boys are young, Temple. When we were their age, the prospects of a bull fight would have appealed to us, too. Well”—turning with a resigned sigh toward the door—“it certainly doesn’t appeal to me, but I reckon I shall have to go along.”
And once more wiping his perspiring face, Mr. Hampton went out, closing the door behind him.
He found the three youths and Captain Cornell awaiting him in the steaming lobby, and all four went out and climbed into a waiting taxi, whence they proceeded toward the International Bridge.
Other automobiles were streaming across the Bridge. The bull fight was to be of more than customary interest, for two famous matadors were to display their prowess in opposition to each other. One was Juan Salento, idol of Mexico, and the other, Estramadura, famous Spanish matador, who, fresh from triumphs in Madrid, was touring Mexico.
Through the crowded, dusty, ill-paved streets of Nueva Laredo went the taxi. The crowd grew denser. On the sidewalks, a pushing, jostling, eager mass of Mexicans with a thick sprinkling of Americans. Boys running in the streets, barefoot, ragged, dark, darting in and out between automobiles. Several times the hearts of the party were in their mouths as little shavers seemed to escape being run over merely by a hair’s breadth. Motor cars shot by them or darted from side streets with reckless disregard, but fortunately no accidents occurred, although time and again the members of the party expected to hear sounds of a crash.
As they neared the huge amphitheatre, Captain Cornell ordered the taxi driver to drive to the shady entrance.
“On the shady side it costs four dollars a seat,” he said. “On the sunny side it costs two. A big difference—but it’s worth it.”
They disembarked, passed through the gate in the middle of a swarming crowd, and then mounted to the topmost tier of seats.
Under the midafternoon sun the huge amphitheatre was literally baking. Heat waves shimmered above the sandy arena in the middle. Yet more than ten thousand people were already seated in the banked-up tiers of seats, while others were crowding up by every stairway.
“Look at the colors,” commented Jack. “I didn’t know there were that many in existence.”
The peons on every hand were, in truth, arrayed as the lilies of the field—in the most gorgeous raiment they possessed. They were out to make holiday, and they were dressed for the part. The tiers, under the glaring sun, looked like a vast flower display.
While the others were busied gazing here and there upon the strange and unfamiliar scene, and laughing at the many laughable incidents which kept constantly coming to their attention, Frank quietly went about a certain task. He had brought with him his receiving set on a belt. He opened up the box in which it was arranged, took it out, buckled it on, adjusted the headphones, and then hooked up to the little loop aerial. Sitting as he did on the top row of seats, with none behind him, and flanked on either side by other members of his party, he was unobserved by outsiders.
Jack and Bob on one side, Captain Cornell and Mr. Hampton on the other, were all craning forward, gazing at the scene below, and paying him no attention.
For a little while, until his adjustments were made, Frank fiddled with the dials. Then, assured that everything was in good working order, he leaned back, preparing to listen to whatever was in the air.
Presently Jack looked around as if to address some remark to him and for the first time noticed what Frank was doing. He began to laugh.
“You’re a fine one,” he said. “Coming to a bull fight, and paying it no attention, but preparing, instead, to listen in on some broadcasting program. Hear anything?”
Frank took off the headphone.
“No,” he said, in a disappointed tone, “there isn’t a thing in the air except some Morse. And I’m so rusty, I can’t make it out. Want to listen?”
Jack stretched out a hand to take the headphones, but at that moment Bob plucked his sleeve.
“Here they come, fellows. Look.”
Both youths lost any further interest in radio as they gazed into the arena below.
“That’s Estramadura, the tall one in red,” explained Captain Cornell, pointing. “And the little fellow in yellow is Juan Salento. Listen to the yells.”
Wild cheering broke from the stands as the procession made its preliminary circle of the arena. First came the two famous matadors. They were followed at a little distance by the eight toreadors, marching four abreast. Four picadors on horseback followed, blunt spears erect. Last of all came a boy driving a team of mules. And in all the world there was nobody so swollen with importance as that boy.
Laughingly, Mr. Hampton called attention to the lad.
“His job is to haul out the dead bulls,” explained Captain Cornell. “Every Mexican boy in the audience would give his right eye to be in that boy’s place. Many a famous matador has risen from just such an apprenticeship, and some day that boy may be the idol of the populace. Who knows? Certainly, you can count on it that he thinks he’ll become a great man some day. Probably, he has a wooden sword, and practices the matador’s strokes continually.”
Before the box occupied by the Mexican general commanding the garrison, the matadors made their bow. Then the boy with the two mules retreated, the picadors on horseback drew behind a barricade between the front tier of seats and the arena, the toreadors with their capes scattered about the arena, and Estramadura who was to kill the first bull lounged by himself with a bored air.
On the topmost tier of seats on the shady side, five Americans leaned forward almost as interested—yet not quite—as the thousands of Mexicans about them. All that had gone before was merely a flourish. The drama was now about to begin. Even the band, seated on a box near that of the commandant, ceased blowing its horns and thumping its drums.
A door in the fence opened.
A huge black bull charged into the arena.
A moment the black bull stood with head down, nostrils quivering, eyes flashing. Then he charged—straight toward the nearest toreador. The man waited until the bull was perilously close, then flaunting his long cape in front of the charging animal, leaped nimbly aside.
The bull became more enraged. This way and that he charged. Toreadors whipped their capes across his eyes.
He became more accustomed to their tricks. The last three toreadors were so hard-pressed that they were compelled to seek shelter by leaping over the stout plank wall into the runway separating the lowest tiers of seats from the arena.
Hysterical yelps of laughter bespoke the tenseness to which the crowd was working itself up.
“Estramadura’s turn now,” shouted Captain Cornell to his companions, raising his voice in order to make himself heard above the sudden roar of applause.
The tall graceful Spaniard, clad all in red—red shoes, red stockings, red silk knee breeches, red jacket, with a broad yellow sash and jaunty, tri-cornered yellow cap, strolled lazily forth.
But he was not so lazy as his actions bespoke. Or, if lazy, was nimble. Not for him the shelter of working near the wall. He moved to the middle of the arena. The bull charged for him.
The three youths sucked in their breath. Would he let himself be gored? How would he meet that charge? He was weaponless. The only thing he held in his hands was a voluminous red cape.
The matador flicked out the cape with the merest movement of his hands, as a boy flicks forth a marble. But that little movement sent the cape fluttering wide before the eyes of the bull.
Yet Estramadura did not budge. He seemed rooted in the sand. The bull bellowed, lowered his head, charged on.
By a sideways twist of his body, indescribably graceful, Estramadura avoided the nearest horn of the maddened animal by an inch, and the brute thundered on. The matador had not moved his feet.
A thunderous cheer shook the stands. Men leaped to their feet in a frenzy. Hats were flung into the ring. Money fell gleaming upon the arena sand.
Turning his back on the bull, Estramadura bowed. And as if their former efforts were but a mere warming-up process, the spectators released another volley of cheers far greater in volume.
The boys sat enthralled, uttering occasional ejaculations, not particularly intended to be heard and going unanswered.
“Look at that, will you?”
“Graceful as a snake.”
“Some cheering, Bob. Beats the old football field.”
The bull had turned, was coming back. Again Estramadura awaited him. Out whipped the cape, falling over the animal’s head, turning him around for another charge. Estramadura did not shift his feet an inch.
Indescribably graceful he seemed, out there, under that blazing sun, every action etched on the retina of the onlookers. The bull charged again. Then Estramadura lifting his tri-cornered silk cap reached over and hung it on one of the animal’s horns—without moving from his position.
It was the wildest kind of daring, the utmost display of skill. And in the yell of frenzied acclaim which went up was mingled many an American as well as Mexican voice.
Then, as if at a signal from the matador, a picador dashed forward on horseback, blunt spear leveled, and took and turned aside the bull’s next charge. That gave the nearest toreador time to get into the game once more, and he diverted the animal with his cape.
“Hey, Captain,” called Jack, leaning across Frank who intervened, “where’s the matador going now—that daring fellow in red?”
Estramadura was moving toward the fence.
“He’s going to get his sword,” replied the army flyer. “Now he’ll give the bull the coup-de-grace.”
An attendant respectfully tendered the weapon on a cushion. Estramadura took it, bent it into an arch between his hands, then released the point and the weapon sprang back. Flinging his cape over the sword, the matador strolled gracefully back into the center of the arena.
Toreadors and picadors had left. Only the two opponents—the huge black bull and the slender figure in red—were left in the arena.
Once more the bull charged his tormentor, and now Estramadura essayed a manoeuvre which sent the stands into positive hysteria. Waiting until the animal was almost upon him, he turned his back nonchalantly, at the same time swaying to one side. And the bull went thundering by so close that it seemed he brushed the man.
Back he came. And Estramadura, tossing the cloak at length aside, stood with right leg advanced, right arm extended with the sword, measuring his stroke. He was like a great drop of blood against the yellow background of the sand. The sunlight on his blade turned it into a ribbon of fire.
The bull charged. One short sharp “Ah” of irrepressible excitement ran through the whole vast audience. Then silence.
This time Estramadura moved. He leaped aside and thrust downward through the shoulder. The bull fell as if stricken by a thunderbolt in mid career, and did not move. The matador’s sword had pierced his heart.
Then while the stands literally went wild, and the peons, aristocrats and Americans thumped each other hysterically on the back, yelled themselves hoarse and vied with each other in tossing money into the arena, the three youths on the topmost tier looked at each other. Their faces were flushed, eyes shining.
“I thought a bull fight was a terrible sight,” said Bob. “But could anything be more graceful or daring than that?”
Above the uproar Captain Cornell, leaning close, made himself heard. “You’ve seen the best in all Spain,” he said. “That means, probably, the best in the world. The Mexican just can’t be up to that.”
But they did not get the opportunity to find out.
Estramadura was enjoying his triumph to the full. Bowing this way and that, a slender, graceful figure, looking in his red costume like a flash of fire against the sun-drenched yellow sands of the arena and the colorful stands beyond, he showed no disposition to retire so long as the ovation continued. And the hysterically delighted Mexicans apparently did not intend to subside so long as they had breath to cheer.
Minute after minute rolled by while the uproar continued and, if anything, grew in volume. All about and below the little group of Americans on the topmost tier of seats on the shady side of the arena were men and women who apparently had become temporarily insane. At least, so their actions would seem to indicate. They threw their arms about each other in true Latin abandon. They sent straw sombreros sailing out. Some fell in the arena, others on the heads of those below, and when the latter accident occurred it merely tended to heighten the general excitement. Silver pieces of various denominations spouted up and out from the crowded stands to go whirling and sparkling in the sunshine and fall to the floor of the arena where Estramadura’s attendants scurried hither and thither, retrieving this largess of his worshippers.
Doubtless, somewhere in the background waited Juan Salento, champion matador of Mexico. But he was not in evidence. And doubtless he was saying to himself that he would have to produce a sterling performance, indeed, in order to bear comparison with the daring and skill of this invader from Spain. But not a cry was as yet raised for him, not a voice as yet pleaded for a resumption of the program. The populace still thrilled to Estramadura’s deeds.
“Won’t they ever stop?” demanded Mr. Hampton of the army flyer. So tremendous was the tumult that, even though there was none behind them, and they were above the uproar, he had to bend close and raise his voice in order to make himself heard.
Captain Cornell started to make some laughing response, but while he was in the midst of it he felt a sharp tug of his arm. They were all standing up in order to see above the heads of those below them who likewise had risen to their feet and, in many cases had climbed upon the seats.
Turning he saw the tug had been given by Frank, who was staring past him to attract Mr. Hampton’s attention.
“Hey, what’s the matter? The fight got you excited, too?” he demanded, noting the flush of excitement on Frank’s cheeks and the glitter in his eyes.
“Jack wants you two to look. Down there, two rows below us and to the left.”
Frank was shouting, although bending close to the pair on his right.
“He says that’s your cook—what’s-his-name—Ramon, Mr. Hampton. And he has an idea, Captain, that the man with him is Ramirez.”
“Where? I don’t see,” cried Captain Cornell, staring.
But Mr. Hampton’s eye had picked out Ramon, and in a word or two he directed the flyer so that the latter likewise saw.
Ramon was a true Mexican. Like his neighbors he had cast restraint aside under the fever engendered by the recent exhibition in the arena below, and he was standing up, cheering himself hoarse.
Having once located the old cook, the flyer’s glance passed on to the man on Ramon’s left. His gaze narrowed. Then he gave a sharp exclamation.
“D’you mean that’s Ramirez?” demanded Mr. Hampton, who had been watching his companion.
“I don’t know,” confessed the flyer. “I never saw Ramirez. But I’d say that that man certainly answers the description of the so-called ‘Master Mind’ which Jack Hannaford, the old Ranger, gave me. Blue marks on his cheek as if from powder burns and a nose beaked like a parrot’s. If I could only see him walk now, and see whether he has a limp of the right leg!”
All five stared intently at the unconscious pair who continued to whoop it up along with the rest of their compatriots, as if they had no thought in the world except to do honor to the Spanish matador. But there is something compelling in the concentrated gaze upon the back of one’s head of even one individual, something which frequently compels the object of such attentions to face the quarter whence the stare emanates. How much more compelling, then, if five persons fix their minds and thoughts upon one poor human target! It was so with Ramon.
Suddenly he faced about a puzzled frown on his features. His eyes roamed this way and that, as if searching. They passed unrecognizingly over the faces of the flyer and of Bob and Frank. But then they lighted up with recognition as they fell first upon Jack and then upon his father. With recognition and with something more. What was it? Fear?
At any rate, Ramon suddenly turned back, gripped his companion by an arm and began to address him. His words, of course, could not be heard by the watchers above him, but that he was talking about them there could be no manner of doubt.
“By golly,” exclaimed Jack, suddenly, leaning forward to call to his father. “He’s recognized you and me. Duck, the rest of you. Let Ramirez see only us when he looks.”
There was such a tone of command in Jack’s voice that instinctively his listeners obeyed. They had only to sink back into their seats to be protected from the burning gaze of Ramirez by the figures of those standing up in their seats in the row between them, should the renegade turn around. And turn around he did, a moment later, thus justifying Jack’s precaution.
Obviously unwilling to face again the gaze of the Hamptons whom he had left in the lurch when he deserted their desert household, Ramon, nevertheless, faced about along with Ramirez. That he did so at the latter’s command was plain to be seen, for Ramirez gripped the older man by an arm. Ramon indicated his former employers, then dropped his gaze. Not so Ramirez, however, whose deep eyes stared boldly, insolently, as if he sought to engrave the features of the Hamptons in his memory.
Jack and his father withstood the scrutiny, which lasted only a moment, and, in fact, did a bit of staring in return. The face of the renegade was a mask of evil. Once seen, it would not soon be forgotten, Jack for one felt assured. And he congratulated himself on his forethought in persuading his companions to drop out of sight before Ramirez turned that camera-like eye upon them. Otherwise Ramirez would have been able to recognize them all again. And Jack had a feeling that somebody was going to be needed to keep an eye on this fellow, as soon as the crowd in the arena broke up and they all took their departure.
That Ramirez would wait until the ending of the event he did not question. What was his surprise, therefore, to see the latter face about and, gripping Ramon by an arm, start to make his way through the crowded stand toward the nearest stairway exit.
Jack and his father looked at each other. Their thought was the same. Ramirez and Ramon should be followed. But for either of them to shadow the precious pair would be foolish, inasmuch as they were known. Somebody else, someone of their companions, would have to play detective, if the others were to be kept in sight.
The cheering continued. They were as much alone in that mass of frenzied Mexicans as if on a desert island, so far as any recognition of their presence extended. For Jack to have questioned his father would have been perfectly safe. Nobody would have overheard who it was not intended should overhear. But spoken words were unnecessary. A question was asked and answered in glances alone.
Then Mr. Hampton bent down and addressed the flyer, acquainting him in a few brief words with the fact that Ramon and Ramirez were leaving.
“They know both Jack and me,” he said, “so it would be useless for us to follow them. But I’m worried about my friend Don Ferdinand. These men may know something about him. At least we ought not to let them get out of our sight, if we——”
Captain Cornell did not wait for further words. He climbed up on the seat and prepared to make his way along it toward the stairway. A quick glance showed him Ramirez and Ramon attempting to thrust their way toward the same destination, and making heavy going of it because of the densely packed mass of humanity that intervened. Another swift appraisal brought out the fact that he would be able to reach the stairway well ahead of them, in all likelihood, inasmuch as all the occupants of the topmost row of seats were standing up, thus leaving the bench free for him to walk on, with no interference such as Ramirez and Ramon were experiencing from another row of persons above.
“Keep out of trouble,” warned Mr. Hampton anxiously, and the flyer laughed. “We’ll be waiting at the hotel to hear from you.”
As the Border Patrol man darted away along the bench, hastening so as to accomplish his purpose before the occupants resumed their seats, Bob who was the last in line of the party swung up behind him.
“The Army can’t get all the fun,” he chuckled, brushing aside the restraining hand which Jack instinctively thrust out to halt him.
A moment later he was too far away to be dragged back, and all his companions could do was to stare after him with mouths open in dismay.
“No, you don’t, Frank,” said Mr. Hampton suddenly, making a dive for Frank. The latter had attempted to climb up on the seat and set off in pursuit of his big pal.
“Come on, Mr. Hampton,” begged Frank, “be a Sport.”
The older man shook his head.
“Two will be plenty for the job,” he said. “I wish Bob hadn’t gone, and I’d have stopped him if I could. I hope no trouble comes of it. And I suppose Bob will be all right, because Captain Cornell can get help by making his rank known, in case the necessity of an appeal to the Mexican police arises. Nevertheless, I won’t be comfortable until I hear from Bob and the army man again. And I’d feel even more uncomfortable if you had gone, too.”