“Wh-ew, I’m glad I didn’t go with you after the water,” Peggy exclaimed when they had finished. “I’d have been sure to have shrieked or squealed, and they’d have discovered me. One thing I don’t understand, though, is what makes you so certain they were smugglers. The fact that they had baskets and pottery in their car doesn’t prove that they were trying to take them across the border without paying duty, does it?”
“No,” Jo Ann replied. “Think what a good blind the pottery and baskets would be! It would look as if the men were regular merchants buying Mexican wares for the trade in the States, wouldn’t it?”
Peggy nodded.
“Then think how easy it’d be to conceal dope or gold in the jars and vases and baskets. It’s dope or gold—or both—they’re probably smuggling. The chances are the packages the men complained about not being weighed correctly held one or both of those articles.”
“That’s so. Those are the things the coast guard said were smuggled most frequently.”
“I’m not going to be satisfied till I see my mystery man again,” Jo Ann went on earnestly. “I could tell him the exact spot where we’d seen that hidden car, and that might be the very bit of information he needs to be able to catch the men.”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if those men belong to the gang that man’s trying to break up. I wish, Jo, you could see that mystery man and tell him all this, but in this big city”—Florence shook her head dubiously—“your chances of seeing him again are small.”
Jo Ann’s chin took on a determined little tilt. “I’m coming back here as soon as I can and look for him. I believe this main plaza is a good place to look for him, too. It’s a sort of central meeting place for everybody.”
Florence nodded. “That’s true. Everybody naturally gravitates toward the Plaza. It’s the very heart of the city.”
Long after Florence had left to go to Miss Prudence’s room and Peggy was sound asleep, Jo Ann lay wide awake pondering over plans for getting back to the city and for finding the mystery man. She had to leave early tomorrow with the others, as all arrangements had been made for Florence’s father and Carlitos’s uncle, Mr. Eldridge, to meet them at a small village on the way to the mine.