“I guess so,” responded Andy, fussing over his spark plugs.
“We’ll make it do.”
“Yes,” agreed Tom. “If what Margery said was overheard and our enemies have a start of us, we’ll have to try hard to catch them before they get to Mexico—”
“Anyway, before they get under those floor boards!” Nicky added.
“Make her hum, Andy,” Cliff said, taking up his duties as oiler and engineer’s assistant.
And so again, Northbound, the Porto Bello nosed into the Caribbean!
CHAPTER XXVIII
GOLDEN BAIT
During the long race back to Mexico the cruiser’s party never caught up with the lost time. Henry and Mort were always ahead; at Colon a tramp steamer had them aboard; at Vera Cruz they debarked; at Mexico City they were still ahead.
So it was that when the party reached the Dead Hope mine they were quite prepared for what they found.
Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher had come there four days before; yes, the superintendent explained, they represented that they had bought a mine location adjoining the Dead Hope. Yes, they asked to let them sleep in the old shack at the edge of his Dead Hope property until they could level off a place on the shaggy hillside for their own mine shaft and shack. No, he told them, he did not know whether they had done any exploring in the old shack.