"That's the impression I'm trying hard to convey," Laura responded. "And I think that if you two lugs want any breakfast at all, you better get a hustle on." With this she closed the door definitely and disappeared.

Needless to say, Nan and Bess hurried as they had not hurried for a long time. "Getting ready for an early morning cla.s.s in the winter has nothing on this," Bess laughed as she tied a bright three-cornered scarf around her neck and pulled it in place.

"I'll say it hasn't," Nan agreed, quickly tying the laces in her white oxfords. "A lick and a promise and we're ready to go." With this she bounded across the room and opened the door wide for her friend.

"Such energy!" Bess exclaimed as though horrified. She was never one to be as exuberant as Nan. She was always more dignified and more correct.

Nan was more natural and more full of fun. She did what she liked to do, for the most part, simply because it was fun. Bess was more apt to do things because other people did them. Nan was a leader, and Bess, the follower. That was, perhaps, the reason they had been friends for so long. They were alike in some respects, but totally different in others.

Now, as they came down the broad stairway of the big hotel lobby together, this difference was most plain. Adair MacKenzie, pacing up and down the lobby even as he did in his office when he was at work, stopped to look at them.

"She'll get by," he thought with satisfaction as he noted Nan's bright face and free, graceful walk. "'bout time you two made your appearance,"

he said aloud and a.s.sumed a grim appearance. "Finished a day's work myself already. Guess it's another to get you people started."

"Started?" Nan questioned.

"Can't stay here all the time." Adair answered her question. "Anyway, I just got word that the housekeeper is arriving tomorrow and I've got to get down there and have things straightened around before she puts in an appearance. These ornery housekeepers, you know, have to be babied. If you don't, they leave every time you turn around. Someday, someone will invent a robot that will do the work, and then--"

"You won't have a housekeeper to scold anymore, daddy," Alice interrupted and finished for him.

"Serve her right," Adair answered as though the housekeeper would be the loser. "Can't see that she's any good anyway."

"So we're leaving." Walker Jamieson joined the rest in the lobby. He had been out for an early morning walk and looked fresh and full of life as he came in. "Got your camera, Nan?" he turned to her when he spoke.

"Upstairs," Nan answered.

"Let's take a few pictures," Walker suggested. In the face of Adair's morning state, this seemed a daring thing to suggest, and Nan looked at Adair to see his reaction. He seemed not to be listening.

"Run along," Alice gave Nan a little shove. "Dad's going to be busy for the next half hour or so, finishing up some business here, so if we hurry, we can take all the pictures we want to."

At this Nan did go upstairs for her camera. She was anxious enough to, but she had hesitated because she never liked to be the one to arouse her cousin.

Now, she almost petted the camera as she returned with it. She loved it and was already looking forward to the day when she could own one herself, for she had made up her mind, since Walker had been giving her instructions to learn all she possibly could about taking pictures. This was the reason she took pictures of everyone and everything she saw until Walker declared that the authorities would be questioning her on suspicion that she was a spy of some sort.

"Me, a spy?" Nan laughed at the thought.

"Well, you do look harmless," Walker agreed, "but then strange things do happen, especially to people who spend all their time taking pictures.

How many have you got now?"

"Oh, I don't know," Nan laughed.

"Come on, 'fess up'," Walker urged.

"Let's see there must be a dozen rolls upstairs," Nan admitted. "It will cost a fortune to develop them, won't it?"

"What do you say to my buying some developer and pans and whatever else is needed and taking them along to the hacienda with us?" Walker asked.

"We could develop all your films there then, for practically nothing."

"I'd like that," Nan agreed enthusiastically, "but I thought you had some big story you were going to work on down there."

"Oh, that can wait." Walker Jamieson acted as though stories did wait for people and laughed at himself while he did it. "Anyway it will only take a jiffy to teach you all I know about the photography business."

"All right then," Nan agreed.

So it came about that Nan and Walker went to the hacienda supplied with everything to develop pictures. How fortunate this was! But then that story belongs to later chapters.

"Well, eagle eye, how's the camera working this morning?" Laura inquired as Nan and Walker went out into the lovely patio of their hotel. "Want to take some pictures of me draped around one of those tall white pillars?"

"Do one of you strung from that balcony, up there, kid," Walker offered generously.

"Thank you, kind sir," Laura replied graciously, "but since I'm going to need my neck for a little while longer, I must refuse--with regret of course."

"On second thought, perhaps that is best," Walker agreed. "It would be a shame to spoil this lovely scene this fine morning."

"It is pretty, isn't it?" Nan looked about her with great satisfaction.

The patio or courtyard so familiar to Spain is a part of the Mexican scene too, and this one where Nan was taking pictures was particularly lovely with its gay flowers, deep green foliage, and pond all surrounded by the pinkish colored walls of the hotel itself.

"Oh, but I hate to leave all this," Nan remarked when the pictures were taken and she and Laura and Walker were returning to the hotel lobby.

"And so do we," the other girls chorused, as the party all came together.

"Ah, you go, but you return." Walker sounded quite poetic as he said this. "And then, remember, you have no conception of the adventures the hacienda holds in store for you."

"Have you?" The girls looked suspiciously at Walker, when Nan asked this question.

His answer was a mysterious look.

CHAPTER XXI

THE HACIENDA

"That must be it over there," Walker Jamieson pointed to a low rambling building nestled among the hills, as the car swung around a curve in the road.

The party had, despite sundry irritating delays, left Mexico City in the middle of the forenoon, and now, as evening approached they did sight the hacienda, their destination and proposed home for the summer.

"About time," Adair MacKenzie said curtly. "Hundred miles from Mexico City. Humph! That's what they told me in Memphis. Hundred miles maybe, as the crow flies, but on this treacherous piece of bandit-infested highway it's at least two hundred."

He looked about him, as he finished, as though he was daring someone to gainsay him. No one accepted the dare.

"What's the matter?" he surveyed the silent group. "All worn out?"

Again, there was no answer.

"Say, you," he looked directly at Nan now, "are you backing down on your old cousin? Don't know what's happened," he continued. "Can't even get anyone to fight with me any more." He really sounded pathetic.

At this, the whole group broke down in laughter.