Crossed Trails in MexicoMexican Mystery Stories #3
Before dropping to sleep that night Jo Ann decided that as soon as she got up in the morning she would urge Miss Prudence to let her and Peggy go to the city. "I'll tell her what this house needs worse than another cleaning is some pretty cretonne for curtains and pillows, and some of the lovely Mexican pottery and bright-colored blankets. I could stop at the village and buy the pottery and blankets. There were some pieces of pottery outside that shack near where the smugglers' car was parked. That'd give me a grand chance to find out from the family in the shack about the smugglers. Then I'd have more to tell the mystery man--if I can find him. Finding him--that'll be the hard part."Still visioning ways and plans for this trip to the city, she finally drifted off to sleep. She was roused early the next morning by a cold hand upon her bare shoulder. Horrors! One of those smugglers had grabbed her--she'd jerk away from him! She sprang out of bed with a leap that sent her into the middle of the room, then stood staring dazedly at an amazed Miss Prudence.

"Why, I didn't mean to frighten you, Jo Ann," she said apologetically. "I just meant to wake you early so----"

"O-oh, it's just you!" gasped Jo Ann, feeling very foolish at seeing it was only Miss Prudence. "I must've been dreaming. I thought one of those----" She stopped abruptly. She must not say a word about having seen those smugglers. No use to get Miss Prudence stirred up and excited over them.

"I'm sorry I scared you," Miss Prudence began again, "but I thought we ought to get an early start to----"

"But we're at the end of our journey," broke in Peggy, who was sitting up in bed now, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "We don't have any place to start early to."

"What I began to say was that we ought to get an early start at giving this house a thorough cleaning," Miss Prudence went on, undisturbed by Peggy's interruption.

"The house looks clean to me--very clean," Jo Ann remarked.

"Maria may have gone through the motions of cleaning, but"--Miss Prudence raised her eyebrows skeptically--"a peon housekeeper's ideas of cleaning and an American's are two different things."

"Don't you want us to go to the city to get some--some fumigating stuff--formaldehyde, isn't that what you call it?" Jo Ann asked eagerly.

"No, I've decided it isn't necessary to have the place fumigated. I've 
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