Phillips saw the boy, too, and fished in his pocket for a coin. "Here," he said, tossing it. "Thanks, chico."

The youngster caught the coin deftly and then sidled out of his place of concealment.

"Senor," he whispered cautiously, looking up at Phillips from beneath the mop of black hair.

"What's he scared of?" Sandy asked, grinning down at the boy.

"What's the matter, chico?" Phillips asked, and then repeated the question in Spanish.

"Man come," the boy said softly. "To steal cap."

Phillips bent down. "What cap, chico?" He listened closely to the soft torrent of Spanish that answered him, and then he looked up at Ken and Sandy. "He insists a DELAYING TACTIC 65.

man tried to steal the valve cap from your left rear tire. He told the man to go away and the man chased him. That's why he was hiding."

"But the cap is still there," Sandy pointed out.

"Let's take a look at it." Ken moved swiftly to the left rear tire and bent down. "It's loose," he said an instant later. He put his ear as close to the valve as he could. When he glanced up at Sandy and Phillips his face was grim. "Pretty cute," he said. "The tire is losing air. It would be flat in half an hour."

"So that was it!" Mort Phillips muttered. "A perfect way to delay us. Oh, no," he added softly, "they're not suspicious-not muchl"

CHAPTER VI.

INTO THE QUARRY.

SANDY RUMMAGED through the glove compartment for a valve wrench, tightened the leaking valve, tested, and then replaced the cap.

"O.K.," he said. "But we'd better have the tire pressure checked."

Phillips patted the youthful car watcher on the head and gave him a peso before he joined the boys in the car.

The youngster's eyes opened wide. "Muchas gracias, senor."

"Many thanks to you" Phillips replied.

At the first gas station they pa.s.sed they had the tires checked and the gas tank filled, while Phillips eyed his watch impatiently. He was still tense when Ken started the car up again and they crossed the Santa Catarina River, leaving Monterrey behind.

Almost immediately they were climbing through steep-walled canyons, along a road that twisted and turned like a snake. Speed was impossible.

Phillips sighed and deliberately leaned back in the seat. "After all," he said, "they couldn't have been making good time here either." But he looked a little less

66.

INTO THE QUARRY 67.

grim when they finally emerged onto level ground again and Ken could push the car up to seventy.

It was two thirty when Phillips directed a halt in front of the police headquarters of the little village of El Cercado, about twenty-two miles south of Monterrey. The report awaiting them there was more or less what they expected. Baron's car, with the gray coup6 some distance behind it, had already pa.s.sed the junction of a road leading east through Montemorelos.

"That means they're more than thirty miles ahead of us," Phillips said, "and still on the main highway. Can you close up a little?"

"I can try." Ken bore down hard with his right foot almost before the car moved into high gear. "I wonder how far behind they think we are?" he added.

But at the Montemorelos junction they learned that the two cars were maintaining their lead-had even bettered it slightly. The police officer there, appearing suddenly out of what appeared to be a tiny grocery, reported that both cars had just pa.s.sed through the town of Linares, thirty-three miles beyond.

Ken made Linares in twenty-five minutes, along a road often bordered by the orange groves Phillips had referred to that morning. A corpulent little man in a tight-fitting uniform, awaiting them at Linares, shrugged his shoulders when Phillips first questioned him. He had not yet been informed, he said, that the two cars had been sighted at the next check point in Villagran, thirty miles south. But the momentary excitement which this announcement aroused died down an instant later when the officer's radio crackled into action. The Villagran check point had just sighted the cars, still traveling south.

"On our way," Phillips muttered. He attempted a 68 .

grin. "This highway goes the full distance to the Guatemala border. Maybe it would have been smarter just to take a plane down there and set up our check points in Guatemala,"

The news at the Villagran station was a repet.i.tion of the earlier bulletins. Eighteen miles beyond, at the town of Tomaseno, set in the midst of cornfields and fields of towering sugar cane, the news was the same. Twenty-four miles still farther, at the junction of a road leading off to the little village of Santa Engracia, there was again little change. Ken had lessened slightly the distance between himself and the two cars ahead, but Baron's car and the gray coup6 were still nearly twenty-five miles in the lead.

"They've just pa.s.sed the check point at the northern boundary of Ciudad Victoria," Phillips said, as Ken got the convertible underway again. "Victoria is a sizable city, and there are two roads leading out of it, besides the highway. So we may hear something interesting there. I'm getting a little tired of this monotonous 'Still on the highway heading south, senor.'"

"You don't think the hide-out may be in some large town?" Sandy asked, as the smooth road slid away beneath them. It was nearly five o'clock now, and the shadows were lengthening. They were beginning to see farmers plodding homeward after a long day in the fields, their tools slung over their shoulders and their burros ambling at their heels.

"We don't think so," Phillips agreed, "because the Mexican police have already pretty well explored that possibility. Any foreign establishment is easy to spot in a Mexican town. No, we a.s.sume it must be in the country somewhere." He stretched cramped muscles restlessly. "And I wish we could get a lead on it while it's INTO THE QUARBY 69.

still light. Prowling around some of these rugged hills in the dark is not my idea of fun."

"But if Victoria is a big city, they might be stopping there overnight, if they've still got a long way to go," Sandy pointed out.

Phillips shrugged. "That's possible, I suppose. But I should think they'd be eager to get Baron to the hideout as soon as possible."

Traffic thickened for the last few miles before they reached Victoria, and Ken's time for the twenty-four miles from the Santa Engracia junction was close to half an hour. All three of them felt a sense of letdown when the report given to them at the northern boundary of the city was a replica of everything they had heard before. The cars had left Victoria by the main highway, still bound steadily south. The only different note lay in the speed of the cars ahead. They were now only a little more than fifteen miles in front.

"Loafing around waiting for dark?" Phillips speculated, as they got underway once more.

"Or maybe just held up by this city traffic," Ken pointed out, stopping for a red light at a busy intersection.

Phillips agreed. "Sorry you're rus.h.i.+ng right through this place," he added, with an attempt to revive his guidebook manner of the early-morning hours, which now seemed so long ago. "It's not much to look at if you're in a hurry, but there are some pretty spots around here, and that river we crossed just before we entered the town has some wonderful fis.h.i.+ng." They were just topping a hill that rose steeply at the southern edge of the city and Phillips told the boys to look back at the town nestled in the shadows.

"Don't worry," Ken a.s.sured him, after a quick glance 70 .

backward. "We enjoy sightseeing, but we can do ours later."

"There's just one sight I want to see right now," Sandy said, "and that's the place Mr. Baron is heading for."

The road dropped from the hilltop down into another plain, and ran almost level for about twenty-five miles. Then it mounted steeply into the short range of hills called Le Mesa de Llera. At the check station just before they started up the first sharp rise, Phillips made no effort to conceal his disappointment when the same repet.i.tious report was presented to them again. The two cars ahead were already through the mesa hills and had just pa.s.sed the small town of Llera at the foot of the southern slopes.

"These hills are pretty deserted country," he muttered. "I really thought maybe this was it. All right, let's go."

It was six fifteen and the hills ahead looked gray and forbidding. Ken switched his lights on, their beams up, so that he could keep a sharp lookout for the burros and cattle that roamed around even on these spa.r.s.ely vegetated slopes. But the sharp turns and the dusky half-light held his speed down. He heaved a sigh of relief when the headlights finally slanted downward for the last time, and the car descended the final hill to the plain below.

"That gas station up ahead is our check point," Phillips said wearily.

There was still a touch of pink light high in the western sky, and the level ground still held much of the sun's warmth. But dark was almost on them now, and the air had a promise of the night's chill.

"Want me to drive?" Sandy asked. "You've had a long day."

INTO THE QUAKRY 71.

"It's all yours," Ken told him.

Phillips leaped out the moment they reached the gas station and the boys s.h.i.+fted places. Ken was still wriggling his shoulders, to ease the cramped back muscles, when Phillips returned.

"They've already pa.s.sed through Santa Ines, twenty miles on," Phillips said. "The road's not so winding from here on, so we ought to be able to get closer to them again." He noticed the s.h.i.+ft and added, "I can drive too, you know. Any time you want me to take over, just say so."

Ken managed a grin. "Your turn can start at the Guatemala border."

The run to Santa Ines was swift, and the word there was that the cars ahead had already pa.s.sed the check point in the sizable city of El Mante, twenty-five miles beyond. Sandy made good time on that stretch too, but even so it was seven forty-five and completely dark when the car drew up at the tourist information booth where the El Mante post was located.

All three left the car there and entered the cheerful well-lighted building whose walls were decorated with striking posters. Phillips held out his credentials and they were immediately shown into an office behind the main room, where a uniformed highway patrolman sat before radio equipment. The man began to speak quickly, in Spanish, without any of the customary formalities of a Mexican greeting.

Ken and Sandy, still blinking in the bright light, and numb with weariness, stiffened into interest when the muscles of Phillips' face grew suddenly taut.

"They reached here at seven," he translated for them, "and pa.s.sed the post at the southern edge of Mante at seven nine. They did not turn off on the road heading 72 .

east to Tampico-the junction's just south of here. But they haven't yet reached Antiguo Morelos, which is only seventeen miles beyond."

Ken calculated swiftly. "About thirty-five minutes for seventeen miles, and they haven't covered it yet." Mounting excitement dispelled his weariness like magic, but he said, "Could they have stopped somewhere for dinner?"

"We'd have had a report if men traveling in a red convertible stopped at any restaurant on the route," Phillips said.

"Flat tire?" Sandy suggested.

"Possible, of course," Phillips agreed. "But I think-" He turned back to the officer and made a request in Spanish.

"Si," the officer replied, "immediatamente." He snapped switches and turned dials, barked into the microphone, and waited. The voice that answered him through the loud-speaker a moment later was distorted but recognizable as Ramon's.

Phillips took the microphone and reported the news. "So this might be it," he concluded.

"Bueno," Ramon said tersely. "I am only a few miles from El Mante now and will be with you in a few minutes. You might check with Antiguo Morelos again in the meantime. Hasta luego."

Once more, competently, the officer manipulated his controls until he was in touch with the next check point. The cars had still not appeared there.

Phillips rammed clenched fists into his pocket. "No use sending up scouting planes at night," he muttered. "That will have to wait for daylight."

Gonzalez arrived two minutes later. For an instant the boys didn't recognize him. He no longer wore the INTO THE QUARKY 73.

clothes that had been torn at the time of his accident. Instead he was in a wrinkled pair of khaki trousers and a battered leather windbreaker. But the briskness of his manner contradicted the casualness of his clothes. And his first words showed that he had been busy at his microphone while he covered the past few miles.

"Another car is already posted at Antiguo Morelos," he said. "If they do go past that point, the car will follow." He spoke directly to his fellow officer. "And you will please maintain the watch here, to make sure the cars do not double back on their tracks and head north again." The officer saluted and disappeared to alert his a.s.sociates.

"Are we going on?" Phillips asked.

Gonzalez nodded. "But at a careful pace, keeping watch for any signs of a car having left the road-not," he added with a brief smile, "that I think we will see much in the dark. At Antiguo Morelos a hunting guide of the region will be waiting for us. If we have no further news by the time we reach there, so that we must a.s.sume the two cars have left the highway between this point and that, we will make a careful study of a map of the region with the a.s.sistance of the guide." He shrugged. "We know there are no paved roads leaving the highway between the two points, but the guide may know of trails that do not show on the map. We are ready?"

He flashed a brief grin at the boys before anyone had a chance to answer him. "Our official dossier on Sandy Allen included a reference to his fondness for food. Sandwiches will also be awaiting us at Antiguo Morelos."

The black sedan Gonzalez was driving led the way this time. His winking taillights just ahead, and the 74 .

knowledge that the chase was finally closing in, gave new spirit to the three in the convertible.

Phillips grinned into the darkness. "I was feeling tired ten minutes ago. Now I could go on all night."

"Me too," Sandy said. "Though I admit I'll feel even better after we get those sandwiches."

There was little traffic on the road now, and for some miles the land was fairly flat. Ken, leaning forward to study every foot of the shoulder visible in their headlights, said, "This doesn't look much like the kind of country you expected to find the hide-out in."

"There are some hills fairly soon," Phillips said.

The road began to rise a few minutes after he spoke, and soon it was twisting and turning, climbing and dipping, in the manner they had already encountered several times earlier that day.

Their watchfulness was futile. One by one the tortuous miles slid away under their wheels without yielding any helpful sign. And then suddenly they were pulling up behind the black sedan in front of a whitewashed building in Antiguo Morelos. It was a little past eight thirty. Gonzalez, they knew, had received no further information over his car radio, or he would have stopped to let them know about it. They were at his heels as he trotted into the bare plain office, after a brief word with the officer outside.

Three men awaited them. The squat, swarthy figure was obviously the chief of the local police, and the second younger man was a police officer too. But the third man wore denim jeans and a dark s.h.i.+rt, and his slight figure seemed almost lost inside the folds of a serape, the poncholike woolen garment which serves as the Mexican's protection against cold and rain. This particular serape had once been black with a white border, INTO THE QUARRY 75.

but the colors had blurred to two soft shades of gray, one darker than the other. The man's small head, covered with a thatch of thick black hair, emerged through a hole in the center, and the hat he held in his gnarled brown hands was a broad-brimmed straw sombrero. Ken realized that this was the guide Ramon had requested.

Gonzalez conferred briefly in Spanish with the police chief and then took the map the officer handed him. Unfolding it to its full size, he spread it out on a desk and then beckoned the guide to join him. The man obeyed silently, and Ramon slowed his own normally rapid speech to explain fully what he wanted.

The man nodded his comprehension, still without speaking, and then bent over the map.

Ken tried to curb his impatience by studying the heavy sandals the man wore. The soles, he noticed with surprise, were not leather, as he had a.s.sumed. They had been cut from a thick rubber tire and fitted with thongs that held them in place.

"Hay dos" the man said quietly.

" 'There are two,' " Phillips translated quickly. "Two roads, Ramon, going off the highway between here and El Mante?"

Ramon nodded. He questioned the guide sharply, and followed the brown finger as it traced lines on the map.

Phillips murmured a running translation of the information that Ramon was eliciting. "They're both just small trails, going back into the hills for a few miles each. One ends at a mountain lake that sports fishermen sometimes use. The other ends at a deserted quarry. No houses along either of them."

Phillips' voice trailed off on the last words and his brow furrowed with a frown. "He's sure?" At Ramon's 76 .