  The whole mysterious affair puzzled Cliff. To have those queer strangers appear suddenly at Aunt Lucy’s with their unusual questions threw him a little off his stride. “No,” he answered the stocky Spaniard with the crafty, shifty eyes, “I did not get a letter from Peru. Who wrote it? Is it from my father? How do you know about it?” While the Spaniard interpreted the answer to his companion Cliff studied them both. If the tall, stalwart man with copper skin and piercing eyes was not an Indian, Cliff had never seen a truthful picture of one. He wore European clothes but he was not at his ease in them. While he listened to the queer language which the Spaniard used he kept his eyes boring Cliff and Cliff saw that his denial was not believed. Copper-skin muttered something and the Spaniard turned again to Cliff. “You not get letter? Mi amigo, my friend, say it mail ‘nine, ten week’ ago.” “I can’t help that,” Cliff declared, “It hasn’t come. Who is it from—my father?” Cliff had not heard from his father in nearly five years: naturally he was anxious about the scholar who studied ancient civilizations and who had gone to Peru to write a book about the Incas. “Letter from man you not know.” The Spaniard was very impressive; he spoke slowly, “When it come you not open it. You give to us pronto! We pay much money.” “Why?” demanded Cliff, “What is in the letter?” The Spaniard turned and began exchanging words with the Indian. Cliff, sitting with his chums, Nicky and Tom, on Aunt Lucy’s cottage porch, looked at his friends helplessly. They, staring with wide eyes, showed plainly that they could not help him with his puzzle. A letter from Peru; from a man he did not know! It must be delivered to these strangers unopened. They would pay well for it. Why? What was it all about? Clifford Gray was as clean-cut a youth of fifteen as any of the several hundred who attended Amadale Military Academy, in this suburb of a thriving mid-Western city. He was not handsome but he had clear, direct, observant eyes, a firm, almost stubborn chin and a cheerful grin; his body was well built and kept in splendid trim by much athletic activity. That he was calm, cool, in full control of his finely muscled arms was proved on the day that the Amadale baseball pitcher “blew up” in the fourth inning of an important game, letting two runs come in and filling two bases by “walking” a pair of the opposing team; Cliff went in to pitch, with one man out. After two wild balls that clipped the corner of the plate, he surprised the confident batsman with swift pitches which rapped the catcher’s glove as the bat swung, and fine, teasing curves that broke just too soon to be hit. After holding the opposing runs where they were for the next five innings he drove in the tying run and himself scored the needed one to win and became a hero in Amadale. He lived with his Aunt Lucy because his father traveled in distant lands, studying old ruins for his histories of ancient people. Aunt Lucy took a few “boarders” and mothered the boys without coddling them. Among her “boarders” Tom and Nicky were favorites. Tom was a quiet, thoughtful youth just a month older than Cliff; Nicky, talkative and full of spirits, was the youngest of the trio. All three were drawn together by a common bond; each had a mystery in his life. Cliff’s mystery seemed in a fair way to become very much alive. The Spaniard and his companion had reached some agreement. Cliff, his eyes missing nothing, his brain alert, surmised from the stocky foreigner’s shifting glance that he was about to say something either wholly or partly untrue. “I tell you,” he stated to Cliff, “it look to you—how you say!—funny, eh? I make you see. “Mi amigo—this friend, he live in Quito, that place was once great Peruvian city of Inca people.” Cliff nodded. He knew something about Quito, capital of an empire conquered by the Incas before the Spaniards, in their turn, conquered them. “Si! Si. You sabe Quito. White man come there—five year’ ago. Ask this amigo to guide to old ruins.” “My father!” declared Cliff, eagerly, while Tom and Nicky sat forward on the porch swing, intent and excited. “Quien sabe—who knows? I think yes. This man agree to take white man to old ruins in cordillerras—mountains! They stop in village where is—how you say?—festival of wedding. “White man get very drunk. He have fight and shoot natives.” To Cliff that did not ring true; his father was a quiet man, not the sort to take much wine or to use firearms except in self defense. However, he said nothing. “One native die,” went on the Spaniard, “Others very angry. Put white man in prison. He think they kill him. He write letter and ask this friend of me, here, to escape away and send letter. This man must swim in river to escape. Water make the address of letter so it is not to send.” He made a gesture of smudging ink and flung out his hands to indicate helplessness. “This friend not know what to do. He not read. He put letter away and forget. He learn after ‘while the white man kill’ by natives.” Cliff was saddened by the story, even though he had no proof that it really concerned his father. Tom and Nicky looked sorrowful and sympathetic. “Ten week ago,” the Spaniard continued, “this man see another white man in mountains, make hunt for the place of gold mining.” “A prospector,” Nicky interrupted. Cliff nodded. “This man ask white man about letter, what to do. I am in camp with white man, Americano. But I not read letter. Other one do that and grin and laugh and take new envelop’ and put on address from inside letter. He go away and mail at Cuzco. “Then——” he was very impressive. “He tell me letter say this friend of me is one who lead other white man to death!” That explained why they were so anxious to see the letter, of course. It might not be a letter from his father—but who else in Peru knew him or knew his address? But his father would not get into a brawl. Perhaps he did write that he was led into danger. In that case the Indian was guilty of it. “The letter has not arrived,” Cliff repeated. “Maybe it went to the Dead Letter Office,” Nicky suggested. “Maybe the other fellow didn’t address it right.” The Spaniard did not interpret this; evidently he did not understand, not being familiar with American postal systems. “White man dead—not letter” he corrected. Cliff smiled. “We can’t do anything until it comes,” he said, “Then——” “You give to us?” eagerly. “You not open. We pay——” “I won’t promise anything like that,” Cliff shook his head, Tom and Nicky doing likewise. “But I will promise not to open it until you are here. That’s fair, isn’t it?” When the Spaniard had interpreted, his companion said something that made the interpreter laugh with a vicious glint in his eyes. At the same instant Nicky laid an excited hand on Cliff’s arm. All of them saw the direction of his intent gaze and turned to look. The postman was coming along the suburban street, chatting with this one and that one as he delivered mail. His mission was clear to the foreigners and they stood waiting, tense and eager. Those were mild poses compared to the suspense of the three chums. They almost trembled in their excitement. At their gate their jolly letter carrier waved something at Cliff. “I declare,” Cliff, eyes fixed on him, heard him banter. “How did you ever get you a girl so far away? Why, it would cost you a year’s allowance to go and call on her!” He skimmed a fat missive toward the porch. Cliff ran half way down the steps and caught it. From above him, the others stared. There was no mistaking that unusual stamp. The letter was from Peru. |
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