as how he guessed Mexico would be the best place for them, as the United States Government hadn’t no control down there. Then one of the others says Mexico would suit him. So I guess they went. Now, is there anything else I can let you have?”

“Thanks, this will be all,” replied Jerry, paying for the bacon.

The boys waited until they were some distance on the road before they spoke about the news the storekeeper had told them.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Noddy and his gang had gone to Mexico,” said Ned. “That’s the safest place for them, after what they did.”

“I wish they weren’t there, if we are to take a trip in that country,” put in Bob.

“It’s a big place, I guess they won’t bother us,” came from Jerry.

But he was soon to find that Mexico was not big enough to keep Noddy and his crowd from making much trouble and no little danger for him and his friends.

They arrived at camp early in the afternoon and told Nestor the news they had heard. He did not attach much importance to it, as he was busy over an order for new mining machinery.

There was plenty for the boys to do about camp, and soon they were so occupied that they almost forgot there was such a place as Mexico.

CHAPTER IV.
OVER THE RIO GRANDE.

A week later, during which there had been busy days at the mining camp, the boys received answers to their letters. They came in the shape of telegrams, for the lads had asked their parents to wire instead of waiting to write. Each one received permission to make the trip into the land of the Montezumas.

“Hurrah!” yelled Bob, making an ineffectual attempt to turn a somersault, and coming down all in a heap.

“What’s the matter?” asked Nestor, coming out of the cabin. “Wasp sting ye?”

“We can go to Mexico!” cried Ned, waving the telegram.

“Same thing,” replied the miner. “Ye’ll git bit by sand fleas, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, horse-flies an’ rattlesnakes, down there. Better stay here.”

“Is it as bad as that?” asked Bob.

“If it is I’ll get the finest collection of bugs the college ever saw,” put in Professor Snodgrass.

“Well, it may not be quite as bad, but it’s bad enough,” qualified Nestor. “But don’t let me discourage you. Go ahead, this is a free country.”

So it was arranged. The boys decided they would start in three days, taking the professor with them.

“And we’ll find that buried city if it’s there,” put in Ned.

The next few days were busy ones. At Nestor’s suggestion each one of the boys had a stout money-belt made, in which they could carry their cash strapped about their waists. They were going into a wild country, the miner told them, where the rights of people were sometimes disregarded.

Then the auto was given a thorough overhauling, new tires were put on the rear wheels, and a good supply of ammunition was packed up. In addition, many supplies were loaded into the machine, and Professor Snodgrass got an enlarged box made for his specimens, as well as two new butterfly nets.

The boys invested in stout shoes and leggins, for they felt they might have to make some explorations in a wild country. A good camp cooking outfit was taken along, and many articles that Nestor said would be of service during the trip.

“Your best way to go,” said the miner, “will be to scoot along back into New Mexico for a ways, then take over into Texas, and strike the Rio Grande below where the Conchas River flows into it. This will save you a lot of mountain climbing an’ give you a better place to cross the Rio Grande. At a place about ten miles below the Conchas there is a fine flat-boat ferriage. You can take the machine over on that.”

The boys promised to follow this route. Final preparations were made, letters were written home, the auto was gone over for the tenth time by Jerry, and having received five hundred dollars each from Nestor, as their share in the mine receipts up to the time they left, they started off with a tooting of the auto horn.

“That’s more money than I ever had at one time before,” said Bob, patting his money-belt as he settled himself comfortably down in the rear seat of the car, beside Professor Snodgrass.

“Money is no good,” said the naturalist.

“No good?”

“No; I’d rather catch a pink and blue striped sand flea, which is the rarest kind that exists, than have all the money in the world. If I can get one of them or even a purple muskrat, and find the buried city, that will be all I want on this earth.”

“I certainly hope we find the buried city,” spoke up Ned, who was listening to the conversation, “but I wouldn’t care much for a purple muskrat.”

“Well, every one to his taste,” said the professor. “We may find both.”

The journey, which was to prove a long one, full of surprises and dangers, was now fairly begun. The auto hummed along the road, making fast time.

That night the adventurers spent in a little town in New Mexico. Their arrival created no little excitement, as it was the first time an auto had been in that section. Such a crowd of miners and cowboys surrounded the machine that Jerry, who was steering, had to shut off the power in a hurry to avoid running one man down.

“I thought maybe ye could jump th’ critter over me jest like they do circus hosses,” explained the one who had nearly been hit by the car. Jerry laughingly disclaimed any such powers of the machine.

Two days later found them in Texas, and, recalling Nestor’s directions about crossing the Rio Grande, they kept on down the banks of that mighty river until they passed the junction where the Conchas flows in.

So far the trip had been without accident. The machine ran well and there was no trouble with the mechanism or the tires. Just at dusk, one night, they came to a small settlement on the Rio Grande. They rode through the town until they came to a sort of house-boat on the edge of the stream. A sign over the entrance bore the words:

Ferry Here.

“This is the place we’re looking for, I guess,” said Jerry. He drove the machine up to the entrance and brought it to a stop. A dark-featured man, with a big scar down one side of his face, slouched to the door.

“Well?” he growled.

“We’d like to be ferried over to the other side,” spoke Jerry.

“Come to-morrow,” snarled the man. “We don’t work after five o’clock.”

“But we’d like very much to get over to-night,” went on Jerry. “And if it’s any extra trouble we’d be willing to pay for it.”

“That’s the way with you rich chaps that rides around in them horseless wagons,” went on the ferrymaster. “Ye think a man has got to be at yer beck an’ call all the while. I’ll take ye over, but it’ll cost ye ten dollars.”

“We’ll pay it,” said Jerry, for he observed a crowd of rough men gathering, whose looks he did not like, and he thought he and his friends would be better off on the other side of the stream, on Mexican territory.

“Must be in a bunch of hurry,” growled the man. “Ain’t tryin’ to git away from th’ law, be ye?”

“Not that we know of,” laughed Jerry.

“Looks mighty suspicious,” snarled the man. “But, come on. Run yer shebang down on the boat, an’ go careful or you’ll go through the bottom. The craft ain’t built to