The Young Engineers in Mexico Part 34

Nicolas answered.

"And the queer part of it is that he means what he says," muttered Tom, gazing after the departing little _peon_.

Very shortly a cheerful fire was crackling away. Tom and Harry brought their campstools and sat down before it.

"I'll be thankful when we get back to the States," mused Tom.

"I hope it'll be soon, too," answered Harry, with a wistful glance toward the north, where, several hundred miles away, lay their country.

Nor did either one expect to be many days more away from home.

The young engineers had arrived at a somewhat surprising conclusion.

They had agreed to sign a suitable report and to stand back of Don Luis in all the claims he might make concerning _El Sombrero_ Mine.

Much different would their feelings have been had they known all that frightened little Francesca had overheard that they were to be secretly slain, as soon as their usefulness in the swindle was past.

Rather late into the night the young engineers sat up, talking in such low tones that even Nicolas, squatted on the ground beside a smaller fire, could not hear what they were saying. He would not have understood, anyway, as the young engineers were talking in English.

It was very late when the young engineers turned in that night.

It was eight in the morning when Nicolas aroused them.

"Is the stranger back in your tent, Nicolas?" Tom inquired, as soon as his eyes were open.

"No, senor."

"Well, I'm not astonished. I didn't really expect him to return."

Tom and Harry were quickly astir, and ready for breakfast. Nicolas served them carefully, as always.

"We're not through much too early, anyway," Tom murmured. "Here come Don Luis and his artful shadow."

The touring car stopped, at a little distance from camp. After the two pa.s.sengers had alighted the chauffeur drove on two hundred yards further ere he drew up to wait for them.

"Good morning," hailed Don Luis, cordially. "I see you are waiting for us."

"We have been ready for you since we first rose," Tom answered.

"Is your answer ready?" Don Luis demanded, eyeing them searchingly.

"Don Luis," Tom replied, instantly, "the report that you wanted us to sign for you would hardly answer the purpose with shrewd American investors. That report goes back too far; it covers too many points that you might be supposed to know were true, but which engineers who had been here but a few weeks could hardly be expected to know at first hand. Do you see the point that I am raising?"

Don Luis deliberated for a few moments.

"I think I do see the point, Senor Reade. You mean that the report will not do."

"So," Tom continued, "Hazelton and I don't feel that we ought to sign that report. However, we will get up and sign for you a report that will answer in every way, and this new report will be satisfactory. If you will let your driver take Nicolas up to the house, Nicolas can bring the typewriting machine from your office, and some stationery with it. We can set the machine up on the camp table, and within the next two hours we can agree upon a satisfactory report, which I will write out on the machine."

"And you will sign the new report--when?"

"Just as soon as we have it written out in form that will suit you."

"You will want the big ledger for facts?" asked Montez.

"No," smiled Tom; "because the ledger doesn't contain facts anyway.

We can invent just as good statements without any reference to the ledger."

Don Luis laughed softly. Then he turned to his secretary.

"My good Carlos, see that Nicolas knows what he is going after.

Then let him go in the car."

Nicolas sped away in the automobile. Presently he was back, with the typewriting machine and an abundance of stationery.

Tom quickly fitted a sheet of heavy bond paper to the carriage of the typewriter.

"Now, let us agree," asked Tom, "on what the report is to contain."

Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the matter was planned. Tom winced a bit, as he made up some tables of alleged output of the mine supposed to have come under his own observation and Harry's.

But he wrote it all down with lead pencil and afterwards copied it on the machine.

At the end of three hours the report was finished. Tom read it all over slowly to Don Luis. As Tom laid down each page Dr. Tisco picked it up to scan it.

At last the infamously lying doc.u.ment had been read through and approved.

"Let us have the end of it over with quickly," begged Tom, producing and shaking his fountain pen. He affixed his signature. Hazelton did the same.

"So far, good," declared Don Luis, pa.s.sing the complete, signed doc.u.ment to Dr. Tisco. "Now, senores, let us have the whole matter understood. The report is excellent; it could not be better for the purpose. The American visitors will be delighted with it.

But you are not to play me any tricks of any kind!"

"Don Luis," promised Tom, earnestly, "we shall stand by that report first, last and through to the finish. We shall not--by word, gesture, wink, or by any trick or device--give your coming American visitors the least warning that the report is not fully as honest as it appears to be."

We shall back you firmly and as strongly as we know how, and help you in any way in our power to put the deal through. Can we promise you more?"

"No," said the mine owner. "And, on my part, I promise you that, if I sell the mine, as I now surely shall do, you shall have twenty thousand dollars, gold, apiece, and your lives also. Here is my hand on the pledge of an hidalgo."

Don Luis shook hands with both American engineers. Even as he did so a wolfish gleam crept into his eyes. Montez, in his mind's eye, already saw the two Gringos stretched on the ground in death in a remoter part of the mountains. That was to be his real reward to the young dupes of his villainy.

"When do you expect your purchasers?" Tom Reade inquired.

"Two days after to-morrow, Senor Reade. But, in the meantime, now that we are friends and really partners--will you not come over and share the comforts of my poor home while we wait?"

"You will pardon us for not accepting, Don Lids," Tom urged.

"We have met your wishes, and shall continue to meet them, but we feel that we would rather remain where we are--at least, until your visitors arrive."

"So be it, then," muttered Don Luis. Yet he appeared slightly offended by their decision. Since the young engineers had now proved themselves to be as great rascals as he himself, Don Luis Montez could not understand why they should refuse to a.s.sociate with him.

"You wish me to leave you alone, now?" asked the mine owner, smiling rather coldly.

"Only when you wish to leave us, Don Luis," Tom protested, so artlessly that the Mexican felt less offended.