Leaving the dead body of the animal where it had fallen, the travelers went back to their auto. The camp utensils were packed away, and soon, with Ned at the steering wheel, the machine was running off the miles that separated the adventurers from the hidden city they hoped to find.
They traveled until nearly nightfall, and came to no village or settlement. It began to look as if they would have to camp in the open, when, just as darkness was approaching, they came to a small adobe hut in the midst of a sugar-cane plantation.
“Maybe we can stop here overnight,” said Jerry.
An aged Mexican and his wife came to the door of the cabin to see the strange fire-wagon pass. Speaking to them in Spanish, the professor asked if he and his companions could get beds for the night. At first the man seemed to hesitate, but the rattling of a few coins in Bob’s pockets soon changed his mind, and he bade the travelers enter.
The woman quickly got a fairly good meal, and then, after sitting about for an hour or so and talking over the events of the day, the travelers sought their beds. They found themselves in one apartment, containing two small, cane couches, neither one hardly big enough for a single occupant.
“However, it’s better than sleeping out of doors, where the mosquitoes can carry you away,” said Ned.
Contrary to their expectations, the travelers slept good, the only trouble being the fleas, which were particularly numerous. But by this time they had become somewhat used to this Mexican pest.
While the professor and the boys were taking a well-earned rest, quite a different scene was being enacted by Noddy Nixon and his companions.
Following a half-formed plan he had in mind, Noddy had hung on the trail of the Motor Boys. He had followed them from the inn where they last stopped, and now he was camped out, with his followers, about five miles from the adobe hut. But Jerry and his friends did not know this.
“Isn’t it pretty near time you told us what you are going to do, Noddy?” asked Jack Pender, as he piled some wood on the camp-fire.