There was a loud crash as something heavy fell into the mounds of junk around the hidden trailer. Then another crash sounded nearby, somewhere else in the salvage yard. Skinny’s voice came to them from out in the rain:
“I know you’re around here somewhere, Fatso Jones! You’re all around here somewhere, I bet! Think you’re so smart!”
Another crash! Skinny was standing out in the rain-soaked salvage yard hurling heavy objects against all the mounds of junk, knowing the Investigators were hidden somewhere but not sure where.
“Well, you’re not so smart, you hear?” Skinny yelled in the rain. “We’ve got your Mexican pals now, smart guys! Saturday we take over their ranch! You hear that?”
The four boys in the trailer looked at each other. Only Jupiter seemed puzzled. The others hadn’t told him yet about Emiliano Paz selling the mortgage.
“Saturday, that’s all!” Skinny shouted. “No way you’re gonna help those wetbacks now! It doesn’t matter anymore what you think you’re up to! This time you’re beaten, big shots!” Skinny laughed nastily. “So pleasant dreams, punks! Pleasant dreams!”
For a time they could hear Skinny’s laugh as it slowly faded away in the salvage yard. Then there was only the drumming of rain on the trailer’s roof.
Jupiter fumed. “Skinny and his dumb bravado! He just wants to make us think — ”
“No,” Diego said. “This time he’s right, Jupiter.”
He told the stout First Investigator about Emiliano Paz selling the mortgage to Mr. Norris.
“Our payment is due on Saturday,” Diego said glumly. “Don Emiliano would have let us pay part of it, but if we don’t pay Mr. Norris in full he can foreclose the mortgage and take the ranch.”
“So,” Jupiter said, “Mr. Norris appears to have won.”
“Jupe!” Bob cried.
“You’re not going to just quit!” Pete exclaimed.
“I–I would not blame you,” Diego stammered.
Jupiter’s eyes flashed. “I said that Mr. Norris appeared to have won! That could mean that no one will try to stop us anymore. We must make the most of all the time we have left — and we don’t have much!”
“No time,” Pete moaned, “and no clues!”
“On the contrary,” Jupiter declared. “We have many clues. We simply haven’t yet interpreted them correctly. And I have just found still another proof that our speculations are correct.”
The stout leader of the team took a paper from his pocket. “Bob was right when he suggested that Don Sebastián might have planned to hide himself out in the hills as well as the Cortés Sword. He planned to do it, and he did do it.”
He handed the paper to Diego. “It’s in Spanish, Diego, and I’m not sure I’ve got it exactly right. Read it out for us in English.”
Diego nodded. “It’s from a diary, I guess. The date’s 15th September, 1846. ‘This night, word came to our small group of patriots that the eagle has found a nest. We must plan for the care of our most noble bird. Predators are everywhere, it will not be simple, but perhaps now there is something to be done!’ ” Diego looked up. “You think that the eagle was Don Sebastián, Jupiter? That this entry means that local patriots escaped, and planned to help him to stay hidden?”
“I’m sure of it,” Jupiter said. “That diary belonged to the local Spanish mayor then, a personal friend of the Alvaros, and in my reading I learned that Don Sebastián was nicknamed ‘The Eagle’ in his young days!”
“But,” Bob said, looking at the paper with the Spanish writing on it, “how does this help us, First? I mean, maybe I was right and Don Sebastián did hide out like Cluny MacPherson, but this entry doesn’t say where. What about later entries in the mayor’s diary, Jupe? Do they help?”
“This entry was on the last page of the diary, Bob, and there wasn’t a second diary of the mayor’s. He was killed a few weeks later fighting the invaders. I guess he got too busy to write.”
“Well, if Don Sebastián did hide out in the hills,” Pete said, “what happened to him? Maybe his friends helped him to escape out of the area, and he took the sword with him and never came back!”
“That is possible, Second,” Jupiter admitted. “It has been all along — but I don’t think that happened. If it had, I’m sure there would have been some reference to it in all the diaries and memoirs we’ve read. No, fellows, I don’t think Don Sebastián escaped for good. I think something happened to him out in the mountains, but I don’t know what, and I don’t think anyone else knew back then either! I think that is the key to the whole mystery — what did happen to Don Sebastián!”
“If they didn’t know back then,” Pete said, “how do we find out?”
“We find out, Second, because we do know where he planned to hide!” Jupiter declared. “He told us when he headed his letter ‘Condor Castle’! I’m convinced that the answer is out there near that great rock. There is something out there that we’ve missed, and right after school tomorrow we’re going to go out and find it!”
When school finished that Thursday the rain had slackened a little, and the four boys made good time out to the ruins of the hacienda. Alert, they watched carefully for any sign of the three tramp-like cowboys.
The dirt road into the mountains was a quagmire after the whole week of rain, so they left their bikes under a makeshift shelter of burned boards. Bob had brought a saddlebag with tools and a flashlight, which he took off his bike and hitched to his belt. The boys started to walk up towards the dam and the great rock of Condor Castle.
“If it gets any wetter, we can swim back,” Pete moaned.
They walked off the road through the chaparral and over the rocky ground as much as they could, so their shoes didn’t get too muddy. When they got close to the high rocky ridge of Condor Castle, they found the arroyo was too full of water to cross. They had to go around the end of it to get on the ridge, climbing over the mound that separated the arroyo from Santa Inez Creek.
A lot of brush had washed loose from the soft dirt of the mound. Slogging through the mud, the boys reached the ridge, only to have their feet sink into its lower slope as they climbed.
From the top of the giant rock of Condor Castle, the four boys had an awesome view. Above the dam Santa Inez Creek was far over its banks, spreading out across the burned land. At the dam itself, water poured not only through the centre gate but also over the whole top, forming a great waterfall. Below the dam the creek boiled and surged high against the mound at the base of the ridge, then flowed in a torrent down towards the county road and the distant ocean.
But the awesome view wasn’t what Jupiter had on his mind.
“Where,” he said, looking all around, “could a man hide to be sheltered, relatively safe, and more-or-less comfortable for a long time — if he had friends to help him?”
“Not on this ridge, that’s for sure,” said Pete. “We were all over it the other day and couldn’t even find a crack.”
“Are there any caves around here, Diego?” Bob asked.
“None that I know of,” Diego said. “Maybe far back in the mountains.”
“No,” Jupiter shook his head. “I’m sure the place must be close.”
“Maybe the dam’s hollow,” Pete suggested.
“Very funny, Second,” Bob said.
“Perhaps,” Jupiter said, “there’s a secret, hidden canyon where a tent or lean-to could have been erected?”
“There’s nowhere like that, Jupiter,” Diego said. “I’ve been all over these hills.”
“What about tenant houses? For the workers back then!” Bob speculated. “Don Sebastián must have had workers.”
“Yes,” Diego agreed, “but all the houses were down near where the county road is, on good land. Anyway, they’re gone.”
“Diego?” Pete said. “Where does the other fork in your dirt road go? The fork that doesn’t come here to the
