[Frontispiece: _Jo Ann could see that the man and Carlitos were
still crouched around the fire._]
THE MYSTERY OF
CARLITOS
HELEN RANDOLPH
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Akron, Ohio New York
_Mexican Mystery Series_
by Helen Randolph
The Secret of Casa Grande
The Mystery of Carlitos
Crossed Trails in Mexico
Copyright, MCMXXXVI
The Saalfield Publishing Company
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Mysterious Blue-Eyed Boy 7
II. Neighbors in the Cave 19
III. An Unwelcome Visitor 33
IV. The Cave Family Disappears 44
V. Footprints 55
VI. A Mysterious Light 69
VII. The Charcoal Maker 86
VIII. Friends at Last 100
IX. “I’m Going to Solve the Mystery” 111
X. A Soiled Yellowed Envelope 122
XI. The Bear Returns 135
XII. Jo Ann’s Trophy 149
XIII. José’s Strange Story 161
XIV. _The Piñata_ 171
XV. “Carlitos—Gone!” 181
XVI. On a Dangerous Trail 196
XVII. A Startling Cry 206
XVIII. Prisoners 218
XIX. A Daring Plan 229
XX. The New Hope Mine 239
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERIOUS BLUE-EYED BOY
Jo Ann jerked the crude, hand-made chair off the oxcart and set it down
in the shade of the thatched roof of the house.
“Your throne’s ready, Your Majesty,” she called over gaily to the pale,
worn-looking Mrs. Blackwell whose daughter Florence was helping her off
the burro.
“Whoever heard of a throne looking like that?” laughed the slender,
hazel-eyed girl beside Jo Ann. “Wait a minute.” She spread a bright
rainbow-hued Mexican blanket over the chair. “Now that looks more like a
throne.”
Jo Ann nodded her dark curly bob. “You’re right, Peg—as usual.” She
turned to Mrs. Blackwell. “I know you’re dead tired. That long automobile
trip over the rough roads was bad enough, but the ride up the mountain on
that poky donkey was worse yet.”
“Poky’s the word,” put in Florence, her blue eyes twinkling. “That burro,
or donkey as you call it, is all Mexican—slow but sure.”
Just as she had finished speaking, the burro flapped his ears, threw back
his head, and brayed such a knowing “heehaw” that the girls laughed
merrily and even Mrs. Blackwell smiled broadly.
As Mrs. Blackwell dropped down in the chair, Jo Ann remarked to her, “No
queen ever had a more beautiful kingdom to look upon from her throne than
you have.”
“It’s marvelous!” exclaimed Peggy as all four gazed over the far-flung
view stretching out before them: rugged, cloud-tipped mountain peaks, the
deep valley covered with tropical growth, and a gleaming, silver
waterfall to their right.
“Gracious!” broke in Florence finally. “We’ll never get the house
straightened at this rate. And will you look at that driver! I believe
he’s sound asleep. He hasn’t taken a single thing off the cart yet.”
As Jo Ann reluctantly turned away, she called over to Peggy, “We’ll have
three or four weeks to enjoy all this beauty—let’s get busy now and help
Florence straighten up the house. You just sit here, Mrs. Blackwell, and
draw in deep breaths of this invigorating air,” she added. “Dr. Blackwell
said you weren’t to turn your hand to do a thing.”
“You girls wait on me as if I were a complete invalid. Although I am
tired now, I know I’m going to regain my strength rapidly up here.”
While Florence gave orders in Spanish to the driver and the boy in charge
of the burros, Jo Ann and Peggy went inside the small, one-room house
which was built from stone cut from the mountain side.
While they were waiting for the equipment to be brought in, the girls
looked about the room curiously.
“Isn’t this the queerest little house!” Peggy exclaimed. “Not a single
window in it. It’s built exactly like the little adobe huts the peons
live in.”
“Florence said they bought the place from a Mexican—anyone’d know that at
a glance.” Jo Ann walked over across the room to the back door and looked
outside. “This must be that funny little kitchen Florence told us about,”
she said, gesturing to a small stone building about fifteen feet beyond.
Just then the driver sauntered in and piled some cots and bedding in the
center of the cement floor.
Jo Ann wheeled about. “Come on, Peg, let’s sweep out the house and make
up the cots. We can do that much, at least.”
By the time they had the cots made up, the Mexicans had finished
unloading and were starting off leisurely down the trail behind the
oxcart and burros.
“Let’s stop working now and eat our lunch,” called Florence from the
kitchen door. “It’s siesta time right now, and it’ll do all of us good to
take a nap.”
Peggy grinned over at Florence. “Maybe Jo Ann’ll take a siesta up here.
Remember the trouble she got into up on the roof in town during a siesta
hour?”
“Don’t worry about me this time. There’s no mysterious window in this
house for me to investigate, as there was there.”
“I bet we won’t be here three days before you’ll find some mystery to
solve, Sherlock,” teased Peggy.
“Well, Sherlock’s too hungry to look for mysteries now. Let’s eat.”
“That’s what I say,” agreed Florence. “You girls unpack the eats while I
go to the spring for some cool water.”
After they had eaten their lunch and had their siestas, the girls worked
another hour putting down rugs, arranging gay pillows and blankets on the
cots, and making a dressing table out of a packing box.
“Before we start straightening out things in the kitchen, I believe I’d
better go down to the goat ranch,” Florence remarked. “I want to see if I
can make arrangements to get milk there every day.”
“You mean—goat’s milk?” Peggy asked in dismay, stopping in the middle of
slipping a gay cretonne cover on a pillow.
Florence’s eyes twinkled roguishly. “Well, what’s the matter with goat’s
milk? That’s what the Mexicans use. When in Mexico do as the Mexicans
do.” Seeing the sick-looking expression on both Peggy’s and Jo Ann’s
faces, she hastened to explain: “I was just teasing. They raise the goats
for market. The natives are as fond of goat’s meat as they are of the
milk. They had a cow at this ranch when we were here last year, and——”
“Let’s hope they still have that cow,” put in Peggy quickly.
“So say I,” added Jo Ann emphatically.
Florence picked up the bucket from the rough board table. “Do either of
you girls want to go with me?”
“Jo, I know you’re just dying to get out of doors and tramp a bit,” Peggy
remarked. “You go with Florence, and I’ll stay here with Mrs. Blackwell.”
“Fine! I’d love it.”
“We won’t be gone long,” Florence told her mother as she and Jo Ann
started out the door.
A few minutes later they disappeared down a winding trail back of the
house. About halfway down the trail Jo Ann halted a moment to enjoy the
beautiful scenery. “This is the life for me!” she exclaimed. “I had a
good time in the city, but give me the outdoors. I can hardly wait to
begin exploring these mountains.”
About ten minutes later they came in sight of a little pink adobe hut
perched on a narrow ledge jutting out from the steep rocky cliff. It
looked to Jo Ann as if the hut might topple off any minute and fall into
the valley below.
“That’s the goat ranch,” explained Florence.
“The goat ranch! All I see is a hut and a stone wall. Why’d they build a
house way up there instead of in that fertile valley?”
“I suppose it’s because that steep cliff back of the hut saved them from
so much work in making an enclosure for their goats.”
“I don’t see any goats. Where are they?”
“The little goat herder takes them out every morning to graze on the
scrubby mesquite that grows on the mountain side. Goats love to climb,
you know. I’ve even seen one on top of an adobe hut.”
The girls followed the trail across a narrow ravine and up to the house.
Just then several dogs began barking, and a black-eyed, olive-skinned
Mexican woman and two scantily dressed, barefooted children appeared in
the doorway.
The next moment the woman’s face lit at sight of Florence. “Florencita!”
she cried, then went on in a rapid flow of Spanish to ask her numerous
questions about her family.
As soon as Florence had answered these questions she inquired if they
still owned the cow.
The woman nodded assent and urged her and Jo Ann to sit down and rest
till Pablito brought the cow and she could milk.
Florence shook her head and handing her the bucket asked if it would be
possible for her to send the milk up later by one of the children.
“_Sí_, Florencita. _Muy bien_,” she agreed, smiling.
As the girls turned to go, the woman reached down and picked a fragrant,
waxy-white flower from the jasmine growing in a pot by the door. “For
your mama,” she explained, handing it to Florence.
With a word of thanks and an “_Adios_” to her and the children, the girls
started back down the trail.
“Let’s go home the long way through the valley,” suggested Florence when
they reached the ravine. “There’s a cave down this way that I want to
show you.”
“Fine! The longer the way, the better. That cave sounds interesting,
too.”
Slipping and sliding down the rocky mountain side, they soon reached the
broad valley; then they followed the path around the base of the cliff,
stopping now and then to gather ferns and flowers.
When they came to a sparkling, crystal-clear spring bubbling out from
under the rocks, Jo Ann dropped to her knees and drank thirstily of the
icy cold water.
While Florence was drinking, Jo Ann heard a snapping of twigs near by.
She wheeled about and, peering through the bushes, saw two small boys
gathering wood. One of them was bent over by the weight of a large bundle
of the wood, held in place on his back by a rope passed across his
forehead; the other was chopping sticks with a machete, a long heavy
knife. At first glance Jo Ann thought they must be twins, as they were
dressed alike in the loose white trousers and blouse worn by the peon.
A few minutes later the boys stepped back into the narrow trail, but on
seeing the girls they quickly moved to one side to let them pass.
With a smile, Florence greeted the boys with the customary salutation,
“_buenos tardes_.” Their little brown faces under their frayed straw
sombreros grinned back at the girls as they returned the greeting; then
they turned and went on down the trail.
As soon as they were out of sight Jo Ann exclaimed, “That’s the first
blue-eyed Mexican I’ve seen! I didn’t know they ever had blue eyes.”
“They don’t! What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you notice that one of those boys had dark-blue eyes?”
“No.”
“Well, he did.”
“They were both dressed alike, and dirty and ragged. All I noticed was
how frail-looking the one was who had the bundle of wood on his back. I
couldn’t help wondering why the other boy, who looked stronger, didn’t
take part of the load.”
“That’s the one with the blue eyes. Do they belong to the family at the
goat ranch?”
“No, I’ve never seen them before. You must be mistaken about the boy’s
having blue eyes.”
Jo Ann shook her head vigorously. “I’m positive his eyes were blue—his
features were finer too, but his face was so dirty I couldn’t tell much
about them.”
Florence smiled. “You’ve a fine imagination, Jo—trying to find another
mystery already.”
“I didn’t try to find this mystery. It bumped right into me. If that boy
lives around here, I’m going to find out more about him.”
At Jo Ann’s emphatic words, Florence laughed merrily. “All right, but
don’t start now. If we’re going to stop at the cave, we’ll have to
hurry.”