“We’d better keep ’em,” he said. “No telling but that they might come in handy on a day like this. I think these birds must have a cache somewhere up there in the mountains, and I have an idea. We’d better hotfoot it to Valmora and get something out of that injured Mex if we can. He didn’t seem badly hurt, but he might pop off.”
At Valmora, the Mexican, whose name proved to be Pedro Cesar, had made a quick recovery. He was on his feet in the ward, but under guard.
Bill drew him aside.
“There’s one chance for you, Cesar,” he said. “It’s up to you what you want to do. You know your pals abandoned you this morning. They could have taken you, couldn’t they? Now I want to get some information out of you.”
The little Mexican surveyed him out of sullen black eyes.
“Me, I am no traitor,” he replied. “I fly weeth Villa. I am gentleman.”
“Then your friends are traitors,” Bill informed him. “You know what they did? They flew back over that crashed gray plane about an hour ago, and fired into the bodies they found there. You know why? They thought some of their pals might have been alive, and they didn’t want to share that gold. And they probably thought that you were one of the ones stopping their lead. Not very nice treatment, was it? But they have been captured by the State patrol, and by coming clean you can get free. You’d better come through. There was murder done there—and you’re in on it.”
Pedro Cesar seemed to have fallen for the story. He broke into a series of curses in Spanish.
“Por Dios! If they want to doubla cross me, eh? An’ go away weeth de gol’—yes, so soon night come. How many you say they arrest—de men in de green plane? Three? Ah—two more are in de mountains weeth another hair-sheep. They doubla cross them too, eh? They turn what you say State’s evidence?”
“That’s it,” Bill lied cheerfully. “They didn’t have the gold in the green plane—but in another hour the authorities will know where it’s cached in the mountains. Then you all get the works. Say, how did you birds get hold of three airships?”