“So, you perhaps can even locate him,” Walker looked at the amazing youngster beside him.
“Linda is staying—oh, I don’t know.” Nan looked disappointed as she remembered that they hadn’t exchanged addresses with the girl. But it didn’t matter, before the night was over, Linda Riggs, thoroughly frightened because she had unwittingly entertained and been entertained by an international crook, revealed all she knew about his whereabouts. And before the morning run of the great metropolitan daily that Walker was associated with had gone to press, the story was completed.
Arthur Howard using visitors’ passes stolen at the border and altered to suit his needs passed back and forth freely between the United States and Mexico. He was engaged in smuggling Chinese across and in this particularly daring attempt to finish up a big job had, after he held up the plane on which Nan had been a passenger, loaded it heavily with men who had paid high prices to make the trip.
The Chinese cook at the hacienda had been involved because he had paid a high price to try to get a relative of his across. The ring stolen from Nan was his last desperate effort to finish his payments, payments which had been draining all of his resources for months and had taken all of his life’s savings. This was the part of his story that he had told Nan after she had won his confidence.
Needless to say, Arthur Howard and his gang were rounded up by a group of United States G-men and he received a long prison sentence after a startling trial.
But to Nan and her friends at the hacienda, the most important result of the whole complicated affair was a certain wedding.
“Your cousin just couldn’t be mean after Walker found you,” Bess hugged Nan in her excitement. “And there is to be that wedding that we talked about, and you are going to be maid of honor and we’re all going to be bridesmaids. It will be in the garden and there will be lots of guests from all over the country and maybe Walter will be back here. Oh, Nan, I’m so excited!”
“And that isn’t the half of it,” Nan finished. “Cousin Adair has given this place to Walker and Alice and he’s settled a large sum of money on them and he’s inviting Momsey and Papa down for the wedding. Oh, Bess, and Rhoda’s going to come too, but not by plane,” she added. “Everything is just perfectly grand!”
So, let’s leave Nan Sherwood and her friends to a happy, happy time, to finish out a summer in Mexico that was more exciting than they ever imagined a summer could possibly be.