said, "You should have seen this house as it was the first time I saw it. There was a grand piano in every room with a game rooster tied to one of the piano legs."

Miss Prudence gasped. "A rooster in every room! Heavens! You mean to say this whole house was a chicken coop?"

"Not exactly. It was just that Mexican foreman's idea of the luxurious life. He loved music and cock fighting, so he wanted the pianos and roosters handy."

"Heavens!" gasped Miss Prudence again. "Why, I must fumigate this whole house, clean it with Old Dutch Cleanser, Lysol----"

"Oh, Maria cleaned it long ago--thoroughly," broke in Jo Ann quickly, seeing that the anxious-eyed Maria was watching Miss Prudence's frown of evident disapproval and was worried. She turned now to Maria and said in Spanish, "The house is very clean. You have worked hard."

Maria's grave eyes brightened. "Yes, the little girls and I work hard." She gestured to the window and the corners of the room. "See, I clean it good like Carlitos's mamá show me."

Though Miss Prudence had caught from these gestures that Maria was showing how thoroughly she had cleaned the house, she was far from being convinced that it was fit for human habitation. Again she broke into a list of the different kinds of cleansing materials and things that she would need.

"We'll have to go to the city to get all those things," put in Peggy. "They won't have them in the little store in the village."

Jo Ann's eyes suddenly began to shine. Here was her chance to get back to the city to find the mystery man. She could stop in the village and find out what those smugglers were doing there. Maybe they were buying baskets and pottery from the villagers. She'd soon find out now.

The first moment she and Peggy were alone she told her of her plans.

Peggy laughed. "I knew that's what you were planning. You can't resist a mystery, can you?"

"And you're almost as eager as I am to have a finger in my mystery pie. You know you're crazy to go to the city with me."

"Of course I am."

                               CHAPTER IX
                     MISS PRUDENCE'S CLEANING SPREE

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