Part 3 (1/2)

There was a public telephone on the inner wall of the little refreshment stand and a moment later Phillips was rattling Spanish into it.

”We could have said we'd leave him right here,” Sandy muttered.

Ken didn't answer. Instead he said, ”Three cars in a CHANGED PLANS 35.

row-red, black, and gray. Who's following whom? And how does Phillips fit into the picture?”

Sandy jabbed him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. ”Answers to both questions,” he pointed out, ”are none of our business.”

”I suppose not. But-”

Phillips was coming back toward them. ”It'll take too long to get my call through. I'll make it from Monterrey.” Despite his easy manner he seemed restive and anxious to get started. ”You finished now?”

Ken and Sandy handed him their empty bottles and a couple of peso notes. And then they were on their way again, traveling once more in the silence that had marked the first part of the trip.

Vallecillo fell behind them and, some fifteen minutes later, the sizable town of Sabinas Hidalgo. And beyond Sabinas Hidalgo the road finally began to climb and twist up into the mountains.

Phillips glanced down at his watch. The time was shortly after eleven. ”We're crossing a spur of the mountains we've been seeing on our right,” he said. His tone was casually informative, but he was leaning forward slightly, as if to urge the car ahead.

But now the road switched back on itself every few hundred feet, in hairpin turns, and the speedometer reading dropped down below thirty miles an hour. Ken rounded a sharp corner and found himself behind a heavy Diesel truck, belching black smoke as its engine labored. The truck was crawling upward at scarcely more than five miles an hour.

The smoke billowed around them. Ken edged out to the left to pa.s.s the big vehicle, but ducked back in line when he saw another turn directly ahead. Beyond 36 .

that turn he tried it again, but once more the glimpse of a sharp corner a few hundred feet beyond the truck forced him to fall back.

”Toot your horn,” Phillips said impatiently. ”Then the truck driver will let you know if you can pa.s.s.” He laughed suddenly and apologetically. ”Sorry. Didn't mean to tell you how to drive your car.”

”That's O.K.” Ken tapped the horn twice. Almost immediately the taillights of the truck blinked.

”He's telling you the road's clear,” Phillips said.

Ken stepped down hard and swung to the left. As he raced past the cab of the truck, the driver waved them cheerfully on.

There seemed to be no end to the turns or to the climbing. Each sharp curve seemed to bring them within sight of the crest of the pa.s.s, but beyond that turn the road was always still climbing further. Far below them they could sometimes catch glimpses of the twisted thread of road they had come over. Once they saw the Diesel truck still laboring forward, miles behind them now, like some sluggish insect inching its way upward.

And then, suddenly, they did reach the top of the pa.s.s. The road leveled off for several hundred feet, then began to drop as rapidly as it had climbed.

Ken was pumping his brake pedal around a particularly sharp curve, about a mile below the summit, when Phillips shouted: ”Stop! Look there! Somebody went over the edge! Stop!”

They were a hundred feet beyond the skid marks before Ken could bring the convertible to a halt. The tire marks ran straight toward the outer edge of the road and across the shoulder that ended at the lip of a sharp CHANGED PLANS 37.

drop downward. The guardrail at that place on the shoulder had been ripped away.

Phillips was out of the car even before Ken could pull the hand brake up and kill the engine. The boys tumbled out after him in time to see him disappear over the edge at the place where the rail was broken. When they, too, reached that place they could see Phillips some distance below the level of the road, plunging down the steep slope in flying leaps. He was already halfway down toward the black sedan, which lay on the slope on its side. The thick clump of brush, against which the overturned car rested, had obviously prevented it from cras.h.i.+ng clear to the bottom of the canyon, several thousand feet below.

Ken and Sandy hesitated only a moment. Then they started down the slope, digging their heels into the ground at every plunging step to keep themselves from sliding downward in an uncontrollable rush.

Below them, Phillips reached the sedan, landing beside it in a cloud of dust. They could barely see his figure as he peered downward through the windows. As the boys landed at his side he looked up and around.

”Ramon!” he called sharply. ”Ramonl”

”Sil Si! Coming. I am here.” A figure was crawling slowly toward them from the far side of the brush-a small compact figure of a man with torn clothes and a bleeding face.

Phillips moved swiftly in his direction. ”You all right?”

”Yes, Mort.” The man spoke English with a marked Spanish accent. ”Just bruised and scratched.” He grinned, and his teeth were startlingly white in his swarthy face. ”And very lucky.”

38 .

”When I didn't see any sign of you,” Phillips said, ”I_ The Mexican smiled again. ”I was-how do you say? -playing possum. In case our friends returned to-” His glance fell on the boys and he broke off abruptly. ”But I can give you the details later, no?”

Phillips nodded. ”As long as you can walk-”

”Perfectly. And with a little soap and water I shall be nearly as good as new.”

”Fine! Then let's get going.”

Ken took a deep breath. He had immediately recognized the man Phillips called Ramon. He was the ”friend” with whom Phillips had mysteriously conferred while they ate breakfast in Nuevo Laredo, and the big black sedan was the antenna-equipped car which had been parked in front of their own convertible. Phillips must have known that the black car was traveling south along the highway-and yet he had asked the boys if he might ride with them.

”Wait a minute,” Ken said, as Phillips took his first step back up the steep slope. ”How do you plan to travel -from here on?”

Phillips looked at him sharply. ”I a.s.sumed I could remain your pa.s.senger as far as Monterrey,” he said. ”And I took for granted you'd play good Samaritan to a friend of mine who's been in an accident. We've both got good reason to want to get to Monterrey in a hurry. So let's get started-if you've got no objection.”

”I think we have,” Ken said slowly. ”If your friend had been seriously hurt, we couldn't do this, of course. But he insists he's all right, so-well, I think we'll bow out here. I gather he was forced off the road. We'd just as soon that didn't happen to our car, because he was CHANGED PLANS 39.

riding with us. Maybe that big truck coming along behind will pick you up. Come on, Sandy.”

Together, he and Sandy turned and started back up the hillside. They had taken only a few steps on the steep slippery slope when Phillips' voice spoke.

”Wait!” The single word barked out on a note of sharp, decisive command.

Ken took another step upward, but he glanced back over his shoulder-and froze.

”I can understand your wanting to get away from something that doesn't concern you,” Phillips was saying levelly, ”but we need you for a little while longer. And I'm afraid we're going to have to insist upon your co-operation.”

The words were hardly necessary. It was the heavy automatic in Philhps' hand that provided the most convincing argument.

CHAPTER IV.

PURSUIT.

KEN'S EYES riveted themselves on the gun in Phillips' hand. Sandy had seen it now too. Ken knew that from the redhead's quick intake of breath. And Ken was also aware of the fact that Sandy and himself, against the steep hillside, presented targets that could not possibly be missed.

Sandy turned to face down the slope, cautiously s.h.i.+fting his weight. Ken knew what was in his mind. The same idea had occurred to him. Their only chance against that gun was a sudden downward rush that- Phillips was speaking again. ”I want to talk to you,” he was saying in his level voice. ”But first look at this. Catch!”