TWO REAL SIGNATURES
Though they were in Mexico the young engineers found it chilly
that evening, after sundown.
"Nicolas, can you spare wood enough to start a little campfire?"
Tom asked, as he put on his blouse after supper.
"Yes," replied the little Mexican. "For what is the use of being
strong if I could not tramp after more wood to-morrow?"
"We'll pay you well for all your trouble for us, _mi muchacho_"
(my boy) Tom promised.
"I am rewarded enough in being allowed to serve you, _caballeros_,"
Nicolas answered.
"And the queer part of it is that he means what he says," muttered
Tom, gazing after the departing little _peon_.
Very shortly a cheerful fire was crackling away. Tom and Harry
brought their campstools and sat down before it.
"I'll be thankful when we get back to the States," mused Tom.
"I hope it'll be soon, too," answered Harry, with a wistful glance
toward the north, where, several hundred miles away, lay their
country.
Nor did either one expect to be many days more away from home.
The young engineers had arrived at a somewhat surprising conclusion.
They had agreed to sign a suitable report and to stand back of
Don Luis in all the claims he might make concerning _El Sombrero_
Mine.
Much different would their feelings have been had they known all
that frightened little Francesca had overheard that they were
to be secretly slain, as soon as their usefulness in the swindle
was past.
Rather late into the night the young engineers sat up, talking
in such low tones that even Nicolas, squatted on the ground beside
a smaller fire, could not hear what they were saying. He would
not have understood, anyway, as the young engineers were talking
in English.
It was very late when the young engineers turned in that night.
It was eight in the morning when Nicolas aroused them.
"Is the stranger back in your tent, Nicolas?" Tom inquired, as
soon as his eyes were open.
"No, senor."
"Well, I'm not astonished. I didn't really expect him to return."
Tom and Harry were quickly astir, and ready for breakfast. Nicolas
served them carefully, as always.
"We're not through much too early, anyway," Tom murmured. "Here
come Don Luis and his artful shadow."
The touring car stopped, at a little distance from camp. After
the two passengers had alighted the chauffeur drove on two hundred
yards further ere he drew up to wait for them.
"Good morning," hailed Don Luis, cordially. "I see you are waiting
for us."
"We have been ready for you since we first rose," Tom answered.
"Is your answer ready?" Don Luis demanded, eyeing them searchingly.
"Don Luis," Tom replied, instantly, "the report that you wanted
us to sign for you would hardly answer the purpose with shrewd
American investors. That report goes back too far; it covers
too many points that you might be supposed to know were true,
but which engineers who had been here but a few weeks could hardly
be expected to know at first hand. Do you see the point that
I am raising?"
Don Luis deliberated for a few moments.
"I think I do see the point, Senor Reade. You mean that the report
will not do."
"So," Tom continued, "Hazelton and I don't feel that we ought
to sign that report. However, we will get up and sign for you
a report that will answer in every way, and this new report will
be satisfactory. If you will let your driver take Nicolas up
to the house, Nicolas can bring the typewriting machine from your
office, and some stationery with it. We can set the machine up
on the camp table, and within the next two hours we can agree
upon a satisfactory report, which I will write out on the machine."
"And you will sign the new report--when?"
"Just as soon as we have it written out in form that will suit you."
"You will want the big ledger for facts?" asked Montez.
"No," smiled Tom; "because the ledger doesn't contain facts anyway.
We can invent just as good statements without any reference to
the ledger."
Don Luis laughed softly. Then he turned to his secretary.
"My good Carlos, see that Nicolas knows what he is going after.
Then let him go in the car."
Nicolas sped away in the automobile. Presently he was back, with
the typewriting machine and an abundance of stationery.
Tom quickly fitted a sheet of heavy bond paper to the carriage
of the typewriter.
"Now, let us agree," asked Tom, "on what the report is to contain."
Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the matter was planned. Tom
winced a bit, as he made up some tables of alleged output of the
mine supposed to have come under his own observation and Harry's.
But he wrote it all down with lead pencil and afterwards copied
it on the machine.
At the end of three hours the report was finished. Tom read it
all over slowly to Don Luis. As Tom laid down each page Dr. Tisco
picked it up to scan it.
At last the infamously lying document had been read through and
approved.
"Let us have the end of it over with quickly," begged Tom, producing
and shaking his fountain pen. He affixed his signature. Hazelton
did the same.
"So far, good," declared Don Luis, passing the complete, signed
document to Dr. Tisco. "Now, senores, let us have the whole matter
understood. The report is excellent; it could not be better for
the purpose. The American visitors will be delighted with it.
But you are not to play me any tricks of any kind!"
"Don Luis," promised Tom, earnestly, "we shall stand by that report
first, last and through to the finish. We shall not--by word,
gesture, wink, or by any trick or device--give your coming American
visitors the least warning that the report is not fully as honest
as it appears to be."
We shall back you firmly and as strongly as we know how, and help
you in any way in our power to put the deal through. Can we promise
you more?"
"No," said the mine owner. "And, on my part, I promise you that,
if I sell the mine, as I now surely shall do, you shall have twenty
thousand dollars, gold, apiece, and your lives also. Here is
my hand on the pledge of an hidalgo."
Don Luis shook hands with both American engineers. Even as he
did so a wolfish gleam crept into his eyes. Montez, in his mind's
eye, already saw the two Gringos stretched on the ground in death
in a remoter part of the mountains. That was to be his real reward
to the young dupes of his villainy.
"When do you expect your purchasers?" Tom Reade inquired.
"Two days after to-morrow, Senor Reade. But, in the meantime,
now that we are friends and really partners--will you not come
over and share the comforts of my poor home while we wait?"
"You will pardon us for not accepting, Don Lids," Tom urged.
"We have met your wishes, and shall continue to meet them, but
we feel that we would rather remain where we are--at least, until
your visitors arrive."
"So be it, then," muttered Don Luis. Yet he appeared slightly
offended by their decision. Since the young engineers had now
proved themselves to be as great rascals as he himself, Don Luis
Montez could not understand why they should refuse to associate
with him.
"You wish me to leave you alone, now?" asked the mine owner, smiling
rather coldly.
"Only when you wish to leave us, Don Luis," Tom protested, so
artlessly that the Mexican felt less offended.
"Sit down and chat with us until you tire of our company," urged
Harry Hazelton.
So Montez and Tisco dropped into the campstools again. They tried
to chat on various topics, but conversation proved a failure.
"We will go, now," said Don Luis, rising twenty minutes later.
"But, senores, we shall hope to see you daily until our investors
arrive and then all the time."
"You will find us always at your command, Don Luis," Tom remarked,
cordially.
"Ah, my good Carlos," murmured Don Luis, as the Mexican pair sped
homeward in the car, "for once you made a bad guess. You insisted
that the Gringos would hold out and would not serve me. You have
seen my patience and my firmness win over their foolish, stubborn
objections."
"But they still hope to trick you, my patron," suggested Dr. Tisco.
"Doubtless, now, their intention is to serve you until they can
escape; then they plan to get back to the United States and furnish
the testimony on which the American investors can sue you in the
courts for the return of the purchase money on a charge of fraud."
"There, again, the Gringos can meet only defeat," chuckled Don
Luis, his lips to his secretary's ears. "As soon as the sale
is made I shall see to it that our pair of young American engineers
are promptly done to death!"