CHAPTER I
"I'M AFRAID I'M GOING TO LOSE MY LIFE"

Peggy nudged Jo Ann and pointed to the sign ahead: "Speed limit, 80 miles."

Jo Ann's dark brown eyes twinkled. "It's plain to see we're out in the Texas open now--the wide open."

"Too bad poor old Jitters can't accept the invitation to do eighty. She's doing well when she makes forty or fifty. But even if she could go faster, Florence wouldn't let her." Peggy gestured toward the small, trim, fair-haired girl at the wheel.

"Florence has lived in Mexico so long that she's slow but sure like the Mexicans. She's always saying, 'Why the great rush? There's plenty of time!' If I were driving, now--" Jo Ann nodded her mop of unruly black curls vigorously--"I'd encourage Jitters to go her limit, especially since she has brand-new tires."

"Here too. Weren't we lucky to find such a bargain in a car? I'll admit she's not much on looks and that she shakes till she deserves the name of Jitters--but she's ours, all ours." Peggy's hazel eyes gazed admiringly upon their old battered Ford.

"And look where she's carrying us: to Mexico! All the way to the land of mystery and romance!"

"I can hardly wait to get back down there again. I wonder if we'll run into as thrilling adventures as we did last summer when we were visiting Florence."

Peggy smiled. "You will. You're always getting out of one mystery only to tumble headlong into another."

Jo Ann nodded toward the prim, erect, gray-haired woman on the front seat beside Florence and murmured, "Miss Prudence'll keep me on my good behavior this time. Even if some tremendous mystery bumps right into me this trip, I'm not going to pay one bit of attention to it."

"Straight from Missouri am I," Peggy replied, laughing.

"From Mississippi, you mean. From a year's hard work in good old Evanston High. The work's agreed with us, hasn't it? We're both four or five pounds heavier. School's agreed with Carlitos, too." Jo Ann leaned forward to smile at the round-faced eleven-year-old boy sitting on the other side of Peggy. "He's as fat as a butter ball now."

Ever since the five had started on their long automobile journey, Carlitos had been too busy viewing the scenery to talk, but at Jo Ann's words he opened his blue eyes wide and asked in broken English, "Butter 

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