They searched and searched. They went over every rock and crevice. They looked under every prickly cactus leaf.
The rifle was gone.
“Mercedes,” Bob stated. “She’s around here somewhere. And now she’s got Dusty’s rifle.”
Jupe was pulling at his lip. “I’ve got an idea,” he said after a moment.
“Here we go again,” Pete groaned. “More second-guessing?”
“I don’t think Mercedes is hiding around here,” Jupe went on thoughtfully. “I think she’s gone back to her base.”
“What base?” Pete asked.
“She unloaded those packs from her burro,” Jupe reasoned. “So she’s camped somewhere. And as Hector Sebastian told me, burros are faithful animals. They attach themselves to people. So if I take Blondie along to keep it company, Mercedes’ burro might lead me to her camp.”
“You?” Bob kidded him. “You want solo credit or something? Why don’t we all go?”
“Because if there are four of us, she’ll see us coming,” Jupe told him. “If I’m alone I can keep out of sight behind the burros. You’ve got to admit I’m a lot thinner than I used to be. Harder to spot.”
“You’re not exactly as thin as Ignacio,” Bob pointed out.
The others laughed. But Jupe’s mind was elsewhere.
Jupe had a hunch about Mercedes. It was kind of a wild hunch. All he had to go on was her contact lenses and a glimpse of her wrist by the light of a campfire. But as an investigator, he knew hunches sometimes paid off. Maybe, just maybe that wasn’t a scar he had seen when her watch had slipped down. The only way to test his hunch was to see Mercedes again at close range.
“Okay, you’re on,” Pete agreed. “But that woman’s got a gun now. Keep your eyes open.”
Brit brought the two burros out of the cave. “Dusty’s still tied up, hand and foot,” he reported. “But his mouth’s working fine. He told me exactly what he’s going to do to us when he gets loose.”
Jupe gave Mercedes’ burro a slap on its rump and it set off willingly enough. Blondie walked beside it. Jupe kept both of them between himself and the rock face, stooping slightly to stay out of sight of anyone above him.
The burros didn’t climb. They stuck to a more or less level trail around the mountain. Glancing up, Jupe could see entrances to other caves. But he couldn’t see any tracks leading up to them. And Mercedes’ burro kept going.
Without warning, it stopped.
Blondie halted beside it. Jupe flattened himself on the ground. A hundred yards above him was a cleft in the rock face. Taking advantage of every scrap of cover, he worked his way up toward it.
Mercedes’ burro didn’t follow him. But it didn’t move on, either. Blondie had found a small clump of sagebrush. Both animals started grazing quietly.
Maybe I’m on the wrong trail, Jupe thought. Maybe that narrow opening in the cliff isn’t the entrance to Mercedes’ campsite. I’ll get a little closer to it anyway, he decided.
Then a cold hand seemed to grip the back of his neck. He felt his scalp shiver.
There, not two yards from his face, something was sticking up from the ground. A rough wooden cross. Staring at it, Jupe could see the name carved on it.
IGNACIO.
So he’d found it! This was the entrance to the cave Brit and his father had discovered. The cave where Pancho Villa had hidden his silver pesos.
Had Mercedes found it too? Was that where she had made her camp?
Was she up there now?
If she was, she would probably have seen the two burros by this time. She would want to find out what they were doing there.
Jupe lay flat on the ground. Waiting.
He didn’t have to stay there more than a minute. He saw the familiar figure of the Mexican woman in her loose woolen skirt, with her long black pigtails and purple shawl, step out of the cave and look down at the two burros.
He saw her cock the bolt of the rifle she was holding.
Go for it, Jupe prodded himself. It was time to find out the truth about Mercedes.
He kept his head down. Just in case he was wrong. Just in case she responded to his hunch with a rifle shot.
“Mom!” Jupe shouted. “Mother! It’s me! Brit!”
For the longest ten seconds of Jupe's life, Mercedes did not move.
Then she dropped the rifle and ran eagerly down the slope toward him.
“Brit,” she shouted. “Brit, dear, where are you? Are you all right?”
She was no longer pretending she didn’t speak English.
Jupe stood up. “Yes, Brit’s fine,” he called back. “I’m sorry I played that trick on you, but he needs your help. We all do.”
Mercedes stopped a few yards away from him. For another ten seconds she stared at Jupe. Then she smiled at last.
“Quick,” she said. “Come on up to the cave and tell me what’s happened.”
The two burros were still browsing contentedly. Jupe followed Mercedes up to the cleft in the rock face.
“Where’s Dusty?” She picked up the rifle and looked carefully down the mountain.
“Don’t worry about him.” Jupe told her what had happened in Brit’s hideout. “Brit’s got him safely tied up.”
She nodded, relieved, and slipped the safety catch back on the rifle. “I’ve been worried to death about Brit and Tom, my husband,” she said. “I found this cave yesterday with some of their things in it. But there weren’t any fresh horse tracks, so I didn’t know where they’d gone.”
Jupe explained that Brit’s father had left to buy the dynamite they needed to blast their way through to Villa’s treasure and would be back in a few days.
“How did you happen to find Dusty’s rifle?” he asked.
“My burro strayed off during the night while I was sleeping,” Mercedes told him. “This morning I went out to look for it. I couldn’t find the burro but I saw this gun under a cactus. It has Dusty’s initials on it. There was no other sign of Dusty and I was afraid it was a trap. I thought he might be hiding somewhere with another rifle. Or that knife he used to carry in his boot. So I hurried back here. At least I could see
