Pete shrugged. “If that’s what she wants, she’s got us. There’s no way we can hide all our tracks.”
“True.” Jupe started to lead the burro out of the clearing. “But we do have one advantage.”
“What?”
“Blondie made friends with Mercedes’ burro last night. And from what Hector Sebastian told me, once burros know each other, they can sense one another a long way off. And they’ll bray to each other. So if Mercedes and her burro come within a couple of miles of us, Blondie will let us know it.”
That day’s journey was the hardest of all. Blondie had started climbing the tallest and steepest mountain they had seen. The little burro had to keep zigzagging along deep gullies as she moved slowly up toward the distant peak.
She never stopped or brayed. And though the Three Investigators kept glancing back, they never caught sight of Mercedes or her burro.
They did see another thick plume of smoke. It seemed to rise from around the flattened top of the mountain they were climbing.
“Weirdest forest fire I ever saw,” Pete said. “Where’s the forest? Not a thing up there except a few cactus.”
“You’re right,” Jupe agreed. “But the smoke could be coming from the other side of the mountain. If the fire circles below us, we’re going to get cut off.”
“Great,” Bob said. “Not only do we have a psychopathic liar and a shifty woman following us, but now we’ve got a forest fire to contend with too.”
Pete was watching the sky. “Weirdest smoke I ever saw, too,” he went on. “It goes up. But it doesn’t stay there. It just disappears.”
Bob looked up as flights of birds passed high overhead. Hawks and kites and vultures. “Lucky bums,” he said. “Hightailing it out of here before they get cooked.”
They pushed on. Jupe’s eagerness to solve the riddle and his slimmer girth made it easy for him to bound up the trail after Blondie. By early afternoon he and the burro were well ahead of Pete and Bob.
Then the two guys suddenly heard Jupe’s voice echoing down the mountainside.
“Stop,” he yelled to them. “Stay where you are.”
They both stopped at once. Looking up, they saw Jupe raise his hands above his head.
“Now come closer,” they heard him call. “Just follow the burro slowly.”
Bob and Pete looked at each other. What in the blue moon was Jupe talking about? Isn’t that exactly what they’d been doing all this time — following Blondie?
Keeping their eyes on him, they started to crawl upward again. Jupe was walking close behind Blondie.
And for some reason they couldn’t understand, he still had his hands raised.
Then he came to a dead stop.
“Don’t come any closer,” his voice echoed down to them. “Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?”
Pete and Bob looked at each other again. The whole situation was becoming more and more bizarre. It became just plain crazy a moment later when they heard Jupe’s voice again.
“I’m Jupiter Jones,” he called. “And I’ve got a message for you.”
Jupe wasn’t thinking of the effect his words were having on his friends. To him the situation wasn’t weird — it was scary. He had come around a bend in the trail to see the barrel of a rifle sticking out of the rocks ahead of him.
“Stop,” a voice had called to him. “Stay where you are.”
What surprised Jupe the most was that at those words Blondie stood stock still. Her ears rose. She brayed softly.
Jupe obeyed the next order to follow Blondie slowly. The burro stopped a yard from the muzzle of the rifle. It was still pointing straight at Jupiter.
A guy about Jupe’s age stepped out from the rocks.
He was taller than Jupe, with untidy blond hair and a deeply tanned face. He was wearing jeans and Mexican boots and a denim jacket. Even after Jupe had told him his name, the stranger kept the rifle leveled as he walked forward. But he was no longer looking at Jupe. He was staring at the little white burro.
“Blondie,” he said. “How did you get here?” Blondie’s ears quivered. She turned her head and glanced at Jupe. Then back at the guy with blond hair. She seemed totally confused.
Jupe patted her neck.
“I brought her,” he said. “Or rather she brought me. Are you Brit?”
The blond guy didn’t answer. Still aiming his rifle at Jupe, he stepped to the edge of the narrow trail and looked down the mountain. About thirty yards below, Pete and Bob were climbing slowly toward him.
“Who are those two hombres?” he asked suspiciously.
Jupe hastily explained they were friends of his from California.
“We came to help you, Brit,” he went on. “You are Brit, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t lower his rifle. “Help me? How?”
“By warning you that Dustin Rice — ”
“Where is he?” There was a sudden wariness in Brit’s eyes. “Is he down there with your friends?”
“No. He started out with us. But his horse started going lame. Or that’s what he said. We left him miles back. But he could get here tomorrow.”
“Thanks. Thanks for telling me.” Brit slipped on the safety catch and slung the rifle across his shoulder. “How did you get up here?”
“Blondie brought us. She led us back where she came from.”
“How did Dusty manage to tame her so fast?”
“He didn’t. She’s still pretty wild. I’m the only person she’ll let near her. That’s because she thinks I saved her life. She thinks I’m you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because of our voices. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but our voices are really alike. To Blondie we must sound exactly the same. She thought she recognized my voice the first time she heard it. To her it was the voice that had guided her to safety when she was blind. She’s come to associate that voice with the way I look now. That’s why she’s so puzzled by you.”
Brit smiled at the burro. “Come here, Blondie,” he said. “Good little Blondie, come here.”
Blondie’s ears were still quivering. She tentatively approached Brit and didn’t flinch when he patted her neck. Then, as Brit went on talking to her, she rubbed her nose against his chest.
A moment later Pete and Bob climbed up onto the ledge.
Jupe introduced them. “Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, this is Brit. ”
“Douglas,” Brit finished. “Hi. Glad to know you.”
Pete and Bob smiled. They now understood those crazy calls. They had mistaken Brit’s voice for Jupe’s.
“I guess you could all use a drink of water,” Brit said. “Come on. I’ll take you to my hideout.”
Holding Blondie’s bridle, he led the way along the ledge and then up a twisting path. At the top they came to a half-hidden opening in the face of the mountain.
“Keep your heads down,” Brit warned as they followed him into a narrow tunnel. “Okay. You can straighten up now.”
Only a little light filtered in through the tunnel, but the Three Investigators could see they were in a large cave with a high ceiling.
Brit struck a match and lit a candle. Jupe guessed Brit had been living here for some time. A sleeping bag was rolled up on the floor. Pots and pans, a kerosene cookstove, some half-filled sacks, and several picks and shovels were stacked around the walls. From the look of the smooth ceiling, he could also tell no gunpowder had ever exploded in here. This couldn’t be Pancho Villa’s cave.
Brit picked up a sack and emptied a heap of oats onto the floor. “Good thing Dad got these for his horses,” he said. “There isn’t much to graze on around here. Even for a hungry burro.”
Bob was looking at the single sleeping bag.
“Where is your father?” he asked.
“Why? Why do you want to know?” Brit’s eyes were suddenly wary again.
“Because we should warn him about Dusty too,” Bob said.
Brit picked up a clay jug and poured some water into a pan for Blondie.
“No. Dad took the horses down to the valley to get supplies.” He handed the jug to Pete and all three Investigators took a quick refreshing drink from it.