“Come on. Let’s hurry,” said the flyer. “We’ll hike up to the next corner and then turn back toward the street we left them on. That’ll put us beyond them and, unless they’re watching for us, we ought to be able to spy on that house without much trouble.”
Bob fell into step beside his companion and they moved along briskly despite the oven-like heat which brought out a profuse perspiration before they had taken a half dozen paces.
Turning the corner to the left, they saw open ahead of them a somewhat more pretentious street. At least, it possessed a plank sidewalk upon that side along which they proceeded, and the houses, which were more numerous, seemed better built and the enclosures before them were better kept.
Captain Cornell’s glance roving above the low line of the single-story ’dobe houses was quick to observe the rear of a two-story house on the intersecting street ahead, and he called Bob’s attention with the remark:
“There’s the house. Maybe, we can find a vacant lot ahead which will permit us to approach it from the rear.”
But Bob paid little attention for at that moment he, too was noting something of interest—nothing less, in fact, than a lofty three-strand aerial of considerable extent in the rear of a small ’dobe house which they were approaching. As they drew abreast of the swinging gate in the picket fence which, for a wonder, was not a-dangle from only one hinge, but was neat and trim as were all the immediate surroundings of the place, a boy in his ’teens stepped to the door and glanced at them inquiringly.
Acting on impulse, Bob halted at the gate and, smiling at the lad, whose dark, olive-tinted face was bright and intelligent in expression, he pointed toward the aerial and asked in Spanish:
“Radio? You have a receiving set?”
“Oh, yes, senor,” the boy replied, moving forward a step or two, “but more than that, I send, too. I have a two-way station.”
Captain Cornell had halted a step of two beyond Bob. No man on the Border Patrol could go long without acquiring a knowledge of Spanish, and as a matter of fact he had fluent command of the language. He understood, therefore, the nature of the remarks exchanged by Bob and the young Mexican lad, but he wasn’t interested. His thoughts were taken up with the problem of how to approach the rear of that house of mystery without detection. So now he turned to Bob with a trace of impatience and said in English: