CHAPTER II.

“THAT DEVIL RAMIREZ.”

With laughing apology for an ever-present appetite, Jack declared he must have food as well as the cooling limeade set out for him on the table in the shaded patio. So Ramon of the grizzled bushy hair and the drooping mustache and brown-paper cigarette was summoned from the kitchen, and with remarkable celerity he had salads and cold meat for all three on the table.

While he ate, Jack, out of politeness, questioned Captain Cornell regarding the accident which had forced him down, learning it was due to a leak in his gas tank which Tom Bodine already had soldered.

“I would have been on my way, thanks to your father filling my tank,” explained the army flyer, “but I am merely on my way back to Laredo, with no particular reason for getting there in a hurry, and so I decided to stay and give myself the pleasure of meeting you.”

He paused, regarding Jack curiously. Certainly this unassuming, quiet-mannered young fellow, scarcely out of his ’teens, did not resemble the taker of hair breadth chances whom he had pictured mentally as a result of listening to Mr. Hampton’s descriptions of some of the escapades enjoyed by Jack and his two pals, Bob Temple and Frank Merrick, in South America, Africa, the Far North and at home. Neither did he look like a scientist, yet Mr. Hampton had assured Captain Cornell that his son was out here performing abstruse research experiments in radio for the benefit of the great radio trust.

Jack’s blue eyes twinkled, and looking at his father he shook his head as if in humorous disgust.

“Been boring visitors again, Dad, with your reminiscenses,” he said. “So that’s your idea of hospitality, hey?”

And turning to Captain Cornell, he added:

“You know how it is with fond parents, Captain. Don’t mind him. And don’t hold what he says against me.”

“All right, I won’t,” laughed the other. “But, if I may be pardoned for seeming personal, how is it you happen to be here without your pals? Your father spoke of you three as being inseparable.”

“Well, you see,” explained Jack, “I was a year ahead of the other fellows at Yale. I took my degree in engineering at Sheffield in the Spring. The others are plugging away on their Senior year. They’ll be through in a matter of six weeks or so, and then they’ll be out to spend the Summer with me.”

“I didn’t get a chance to explain all your history, Jack,” interpolated Mr. Hampton with a laugh.

“I see.” Captain Cornell nodded. “And what do you all intend to do then? Get into more adventures? Things are pretty quiet along the border nowadays.”

Jack looked up from his salad, his face grown grave.

“Not so quiet as you might think, Captain,” he said. “That’s what I intended to tell you about.”

His father and the army flyer sat forward alertly, with a sudden scraping of chair legs on the flagstone paving of the patio.

“What do you mean, Jack?” asked Mr. Hampton.

Jack pushed back his plate and slumped down comfortably in his chair, his crossed ankles resting on the curbing of the fountain.

“Something I learned at Don Ferdinand’s today,” he said.

Don Ferdinand was an irascible yet lovable old Spanish aristocrat living in the Sonoran mountains of old Mexico below the border. Several years before Jack and his father had made the old Don’s acquaintance under strange circumstances. Don Ferdinand was immensely wealthy and lived in feudal state in a palace in the wilderness, surrounded by many retainers. At that time he had been in opposition to the Obregon government. Seeking to embroil Mexico and the United States and thus further his plans for unseating Obregon as President, he had made a raid across the border and carried Mr. Hampton away captive. He then had sent word to Mr. Temple, his prisoner’s partner and the father of Jack’s big pal, Bob Temple, to the effect that Mr. Hampton would be held for ransom. Don Ferdinand had figured that Mr. Temple would appeal to the American government and that thus trouble between the Obregon government and the United States would be engendered. But Jack Hampton and his pals undertook to rescue the older man without public appeal, and penetrating the Sonoran wilderness they managed to accomplish their object. Since then Don Ferdinand and Mr. Hampton had become fast friends. As for Jack and the Senorita Rafaela, they had corresponded with each other, and now that Jack was back in the South-west, he had spent more and more time below the border.

After his remark, Jack sat silent an appreciable space of time. Finally, his father becoming impatient broke out with:

“Well, well, Jack, go on. You say something happened down at Don Ferdinand’s today, and you get us all excited. What was it?”

“I don’t know that you could really say something happened,” said Jack, choosing his words carefully. “But Don Ferdinand got pretty warm under the collar. Anyway, I’ll start at the beginning—it wasn’t much, and yet it might mean a lot—and I’ll give it to you as I got it.”

Old Ramon came slithering, across the flagstones in the moccasins which he always wore because of tender feet, and Jack cast a glance at him and then ceased speaking until the Mexican had deposited the coffee cups and departed with the luncheon plates.

“Don Ferdinand told me not to speak of this to anybody whom we couldn’t trust thoroughly,” he said, by way of explanation, and with a nod towards the departing figure of Ramon he added: “The old man is a good _hombre_ so far as we knew. But Don Ferdinand was insistent that I shouldn’t let out a word before any Mexicans.

“It was mighty warm down there, with that hot wind blowing, and I hadn’t slept well. Too hot for comfort. Pitched and tossed all night. Flew down yesterday afternoon,” he threw out for Captain Cornell’s understanding. “So the old don, Rafaela and I were sitting in the patio this morning, trying to keep cool. He was asleep, I expect, because, he hadn’t said a word for a long time. So was the old duenna in the background somewhere. Rafaela and I were talking in low voices, so as not to disturb the others.

“A man came into the patio, a rough-looking, villainous fellow. I did not remember ever seeing him about the place, but then there is a veritable army of retainers always hanging about, a sort of feudal lot of dependents; so that wasn’t strange. Anyway, Rafaela knew him, for, when he made a low bow and stood there with his high-crowned sombrero in hand, she spoke to him sharply, asking what he wanted. He replied that he wanted to speak to Don Ferdinand, and Rafaela waked her father.

“Don Ferdinand took a good look at the man, then he jumped up out of his chair.

“‘You, Pedro, what are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘So far from the mine? Has anything gone wrong?’

“Pedro came closer, said something in a low voice. Then Don Ferdinand cast a quick glance toward Rafaela and me.

“‘Ah, Senor Jack,’ he said, ‘a thousand pardons. Permit me— There is a little matter of business to attend to.’ And with a bow to me he made off toward his office, Pedro at his heels.

“Well,” said Jack, leaning back, “I didn’t think much about the incident. These fellows are always so mysterious anyhow, about the merest trifles. I didn’t even ask Rafaela who the fellow was. She herself volunteered the information, saying he was foreman of a silver mine far back in the mountains which Don Ferdinand owns. For a long time, the old don had refrained from working the mine. He had sealed it up during the troubled years following the Madero revolution, although when Diaz had been President it had been a big producer. Now he had resumed operations again.

“‘Some little trouble at the mine brings Pedro,’ said Rafaela. ‘Oh, you men with your business. But look, Jack,’ she added, in a low voice, ‘Donna Ana sleeps.’

“I looked around. The old duenna was snoozing so hard, it would have taken an earthquake to wake her.

“‘The heat’s got her,’ I said, for it certainly was hot, even there in the shaded patio.

“I guess Rafaela thought me pretty dense, by the way she looked at me.

“‘Is that all you can think about?’ she asked. ‘But, you think about the heat—well, wouldn’t it be fine to go flying? So nice and cool?’

“Then I tumbled. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’

“We tiptoed out of the patio like a couple of conspirators. The old duenna never stirred. Don Ferdinand wasn’t in sight. Neither was anybody else at the front of the house. And out behind, in the quarters, I expect everybody was taking a siesta. Anyway, we couldn’t hear a sound.

“So off we trotted across the lawn and disappeared among the eucalyptus trees—you know, Dad, cutting off the house from the don’s landing field?”

Mr. Hampton nodded, a reminiscent light in his eyes. He was remembering the scene which had become so familiar during his period of captivity several years before.

Captain Cornell opened his eyes. “A landing field?” he demanded, incredulously.

“Oh, yes,” explained Jack. “Several years back, when the old don was an unreconstructed Mexican rebel, he had a couple of airplanes in his pay. Several of his aviators even stole ours—that is Bob’s and Frank’s—airplane. But we got it back. The airplanes are gone, as well as most of the rebel army Don Ferdinand was feeding at that time. But the flying field remains. It’s in pretty good shape too.

“Anyhow,” he continued, “Rafaela and I popped out on the field, and I put her in the plane. Then I stirred up a couple of sleepy Mexicans whom I’ve trained to help me. We got her going, and after I’d warmed her up, we took off for a spin.

“And, say, Dad,” he added, in a burst of enthusiasm, “that girl’s one good sport. She certainly loves to fly. One of these days I’m just going to have to teach her. Trouble is, they never let her go up. This was only her second or third flight. And, my, how tickled she was over stealing away from her duenna.”

Mr. Hampton tried to look reproving but failed lamentably. Nevertheless, he warned: “Just the same, you mustn’t do that again, Jack, without her father’s consent. What if something happened, some accident?”

“Oh, shucks,” said Jack, “I didn’t fly high with her, and I didn’t take off until the old bus was tuned up and running like a watch. Anyhow,” he added, hastening to change the subject, “it was a good thing I went up because it was then I got your radio message, saying Captain Cornell was here and asking me to come home. The don’s station was out of order again. Some Mexican kid is always monkeying with something or other and putting the whole works out of commission. When it’s working, Rafaela says, they get all the big stations. And”—he laughed—“she says it’s a regular thing for all the Mexicans to turn out since I installed that loud speaker for them, and dance on the flying field at night to the band music they pull out of the air.

“Well, anyhow, back we flew, and I landed her safely and left the motor idling while we walked up to the house. I intended to see her home, say good-bye to the don, and come back.

“The old duenna was still asleep. But just as we stepped back in the patio Don Ferdinand appeared in a state of pretty high excitement. I thought for a minute he was going to comb me for taking Rafaela up in the plane without permission. But, no; he wasn’t even aware that we had been flying.

“‘What’s the matter, father?’ asked Rafaela, anxiously. ‘Has anything happened? Did Pedro bring bad news?’

“The old don walked up and down a few steps, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back. ‘Just when the mine was beginning to pay again,’ he mourned.

“‘Tell me what is the matter, father,’ demanded Rafaela.

“He halted and faced us. ‘Matter? Matter?’ said he. ‘Matter enough. That devil Ramirez has lured all my men away. They laugh when Pedro begs them to stay and say they will follow Ramirez who will make them rich. Pedro cannot get anybody to work.’

“‘But you can send other men,’ said Rafaela.

“‘Bah,’ said Don Ferdinand. ‘You are just a girl. What do you know about such matters? If Ramirez takes some men, will he not take others?’

“Rafaela shrugged and spread out her hands. ‘But you are rich, father. You need not worry about the mine.’

“‘Foolish child,’ said Don Ferdinand, and he appealed to me. ‘Women do not know,’ said he. ‘Why does Ramirez lure my men away, if not to make revolution? And revolution will upset everything again. Bah, we have had enough of revolutions.’”

Mr. Hampton interrupted with an abrupt but hearty laugh.

“Isn’t that just like him? He wants no revolutions unless he makes them himself. When I think of several years ago—” And he laughed again.

Jack smiled, too. “That’s what I thought, Dad,” he said. And then, becoming serious, he added: “Anyhow, there is another revolution brewing, Captain Cornell, it is liable to make trouble for you fellows of the Border Patrol.”

The army flyer nodded. His face wore a puzzled frown.

“Ramirez?” he said. “Ramirez? Never heard of him. And I know most of the trouble-makers by name, besides. Your friend Don Ferdinand referred to him as ‘that devil Ramirez,’ hey? Did he explain further?”

“No,” said Jack. “He just cautioned me not to speak of this to any of our Mexicans, and said he would have more news for me later. Then I came away. I don’t know,” he added thoughtfully; “I don’t know but what he contemplates lighting out after Ramirez himself. He’s quite an intrepid old fellow, you know.”

The conversation thereupon became more general, Captain Cornell questioning Jack regarding his radio experiments. They walked out to the radio shack. And there Jack launched into an enthusiastic description of his work. He was seeking, he said, to work out some of the fundamental problems demanding solution as a result of the tremendous increase in both broadcasting stations and receivers.

“There are six or seven such problems,” he said. “First, we must have a radio receiver which will provide super-selectivity—a receiver which will enable the Operator to select any station he wants to hear, whether or not local stations are operating. Such selectivity must go to the theoretical limits of the science. Here”—pointing to a litter on a work bench which was only a meaningless jumble to the flyer—“is a pretty close approach, or it soon will be,” he corrected himself, “to what I want. It will be a super-sensitive receiver, giving volume from distant stations as well as selectivity.”

Here and there he went about the shack, taking up or lying down pieces of apparatus, and keeping up a running fire of comment which made the flyer’s head swim.

He was working, he said, on the problem of achieving a “non-radiating” receiver—one, which, no matter how handled, wouldn’t interfere with a neighbor’s enjoyment. He was trying to improve the complicated Super-Heterodyne in sensitiveness and selectivity, so that anybody could have access to its wonders, regardless of whether he possessed any engineering skill.

And at that point, Captain Cornell groaning humorously clapped his hand to his head and staggered toward the door.

“Great Scott, Mr. Hampton,” he appealed, “call him off, will you? I didn’t know there _was_ so much to radio. I’m willing to believe your son’s the greatest radio engineer in the world, but tell him to have a heart. Understanding about airplanes is as far as my feeble intelligence will carry me. I can’t cram radio into it, too.”

The Hamptons both laughed, and followed him outside. There, with a look at the sky, Captain Cornell gave a sudden startled exclamation.

“I’ll have to be getting along,” he said. “Just enough daylight going to be left for me to get to Laredo. Besides, I don’t like that look in the South. One of these desert siroccos playing away off there somewhere. And who knows when it may take a notion to come wandering up here? Will you folks help me get away?”