As soon as they came out, Florence asked José what it was that he had to tell them about the prisoner, Luis. After he had explained in a rapid flow of Spanish, Florence passed the news to the eager Jo Ann and Peggy. “He said Luis had told him that some strange man had promised to give him a few pesos if he would wreck the mine machinery. He believes, judging by Luis’s description, that this stranger was one of the men the pottery woman warned us about.”
“So I guessed right,” Jo Ann spoke up.
“It doesn’t seem fair for Luis to get a prison sentence and for the smuggler to go free,” Peggy said, low-voiced, to Jo Ann.
“Both of those smugglers’re going to get caught yet—you’ll see.” Jo Ann’s head bobbed up and down emphatically.
“Does that mean you’re going to try to catch them?” Peggy asked, an anxious note in her voice.
“Wait and see,” Jo Ann replied teasingly as she leaped on her horse.
On reaching the village José went in search of the officers while the girls drove to the pottery woman’s shack to buy the ollas and vases.
With the greatest care Florence, with the girls’ help, selected the most artistic designs and shapes from the piles of pottery. “If my friend likes these pieces as well’s I do,” she said, “I know she’ll buy regularly from these villagers and take a large per cent of their output. They’ll get ever so much more money, too, than they have been getting. We’ll be doing them a good turn, as well as my friend.”
At Jo Ann’s urging Florence then began adroitly questioning the woman about when she was expecting the men to come after the pottery this week.
“They send me word they come in two days,” she replied.