“Well,” said Tom, suddenly squaring his shoulders, “Cliff, you know how anxious you were to leave no stone unturned when you were trying to learn about your father!”
“I don’t want to leave any stone unturned in this case, either,” agreed his chum, and Nicky nodded emphatically.
“Nor I,” said Tom. “And there is one stone I know about that I am going to turn as soon as we reach Mexico City again!”
What it was he kept to himself.
CHAPTER IV
TOM BREAKS THE TRAIL
The next ten days were dull ones for the Mystery Boys. Mexico was in a state of excitement, due to the approach of the Presidential election; and, while the revolutionary times were gone and a more orderly election would take place, there were some excitable spirits in the city whose outbreaks made it unwise for the youths to go out on the streets too often.
Cliff was busy enough for he worked with his father: Mr. Gray was working on a theory that all of the Indian tribes from North America, through Mexico, Central America, Venezuela and down to Peru, were offshoots of the same original migration from some other continent, many centuries before the white people discovered the new continents. He was writing a book about that migration, and his work in Mexico dealt with studies of the old Toltecs, who preceded the establishing of the Aztec empire.
It surprised the youths to learn how closely the Toltecs, and the Aztecs later, were allied with the Incas of Peru in certain ways: both were agriculturists of a high order, as were the Texcucans, kindred with the Azteca. But there was a great contrast in the nature of the people; while the Incas had been a mild people, ruling kindly, punishing justly, fighting only for a necessary cause, the Aztecs had been a fierce, cruel, actually brutal people, even giving the name of their war god, Mexitli, to their land in the corrupted form, Mexico.
Mr. Gray was anxious to fill in many gaps in his history by studying the life and customs and legends of the host of Central American tribes, the Mayas, the Chocos, the Mosquito and Talamanca tribes, as well as the Goajiras, the San Blas, and others.
But he hesitated, although the adventure offered in Henry Morgan’s proposal would give him close contact with some of the natives of at least one section—Spanish Honduras. The tribes were all rough, rather fierce, very primitive; and he was aged, as well as having been weakened, during his stay among the Incas. Nevertheless, had he seen a way, he would have gone into the adventure.