“Ah! That surprise you, eh?” Pedro Cesar laughed. “You have perhaps heard of Pancho Lopez, eh—de beeg bandit chief of Sonora? Ah, I theenk you have heard so much, yes? Pancho Lopez he have de sheeps from de ol’ Villista army, an’ he hear of de gol’ being transport from Trinidad. He ees poor now, ol’ Pancho, yes. He weesh to make de one haul an’ take to de hills where no one ever find him. But Pancho he be very mad now if he not get gol’.”
“I’m afraid your friend Pancho will have to stick mad and stay mad,” Barlow told the Mexican. “But you show me where that other plane is cached in the hills, and you’ll get out of plenty trouble.”
“You carry me in de hair-sheep,” Pedro promised, “an’ I show you we gat them, ver’ queek.”
“O K,” said Bill. “But I’d like a third man along, with another rifle.”
“What’s the matter with me? Am I a cripple?” Saxton interrupted. “And don’t forget, that’s my plane you’re piloting,” he laughed.
“Maybe,” said Bill, chuckling back. “All right, get the guns, Saxton. And we have the grenades. We’ll see if we can’t rout out those birds. They must have the dough cached there.”
So, after a quick lunch at the sanatorium, Bill Barlow once more hopped off, with Pedro Cesar and Saxton in the cockpit—hopped off to the north, where Cesar claimed that his former confederates were hidden.
Saxton had orders to watch Cesar, whom Bill did not entirely trust, but the Mexican seemed to have been converted and chastened, and as they neared the mountains and Bill increased his altitude, he directed the pilot to veer to the right to avoid a machine gun mounted in the robber camp as an anti-aircraft weapon.
“Believe me, these birds have a modern organization,” said Bill. “And look, Saxton over to the right there. See that sky-blue monoplane? By golly, they’re getting ready to take off. And with the dough, I’ll bet.”
It seemed true enough. Here in a natural bowl made by a circular plain and the rimming hills was a speedy-looking monoplane with its engine already warming up. On the ground three men were gesticulating to each other, and one of them pointed up toward Bill’s ship, whereupon all of them ran for cover.