“Isn’t there any way to make these animals go faster?” Jo Ann called to Florence impatiently a few minutes later.
“They’ll trot a little ways, but they really make as good time by keeping their steady pace. Remember you’re in Mexico, Jo.”
As soon as the three had reached the village, José took the girls to the store in front of which he had left Carlitos and the charcoal-laden burro a few hours before. “I know this storekeeper,” Florence told Jo Ann. “He’ll probably know if any strangers have been in the village lately. His store’s a meeting place for everybody in the village, and he hears all the gossip.”
She went inside and began questioning the storekeeper. “Have you heard of any strangers being in the village in the last day or two besides this man?” She pointed to José.
The storekeeper nodded his head, “Sí, señorita. I saw a man this morning that I have never seen before. He bought some cigarettes from me.”
“Did he come in before this man—José—did?”
“Sí. He said he was looking for a family that had lived at a mining camp across the mountains.”
Florence gave a little start. “Did he say why he wanted to find this family?”
“He say they were his friends.” The storekeeper shrugged his shoulders Mexican fashion and added, “I tell him I know nothing, and then he leave.”
Florence hurriedly recounted this information to Jo Ann, ending indignantly, “I believe that man was either the mean boss or someone he’d sent to get Carlitos. José knows what the boss looks like, so we can find out if the stranger was he.” She wheeled around to José and asked, “What’d that mean boss look like?”