A shrewd look crossed the Mexican youth’s features. He looked up at Bob, towering above him.
“Is it something about the house of the Japanese?”
“Yes, it is.”
Bob leaped the fence. If the lad gave him permission to use the radio, well and good. If he didn’t, well—Bob’s lips set into a grim line. Now that he saw this way out of his dilemma, he intended to use it whether the youngster objected or not. But, instead of objecting or of showing fear, the boy, on the contrary, was all eagerness to help.
To him this was the call to adventure. He sensed the presence of a mystery, and he was all a-quiver to have a hand in it. Seizing Bob by a sleeve, he turned and sped toward the open door of the little house.
“Come, come, Senor,” he cried. “If my radio can be of service, use it.”
In two steps they were across the threshold and in a spotlessly neat room sparsely furnished, with a shining array of instruments along one side wall, upon which Bob’s eye instantly fell. But before making for the radio table, Bob turned to the boy and asked: “Your mother?”
“She visits her sister. I am alone.”
Ignoring everything else in the room Bob crossed the intervening space in two great strides and flinging himself into the waiting chair began hastily running his eye over the instrument board in front of him. His host was at his shoulder, explaining in quick prideful phrases. Impatiently Bob stopped his flow of words with upraised hand. He was trying to think.
“What street is this?”