"What is this?" Adair laughed too now, but his face bore a puzzled expression.

"Nothing, dad." Alice wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Don't say nothing to me, child." Adair brandished his cane as though he was going to take Alice over his knee and spank her. "What were you trying to do," he jumped to the correct conclusion immediately, "give me the silent treatment?"

Alice nodded her head half guiltily, half roguishly. The idea had been hers.

"Your mother tried that years ago," Adair reminisced. "It didn't work then, and it's not working now. It's better to give me an opportunity to explode," he advised. "Volcanoes have to erupt or something terrible happens."

"That's what I said, sir." Walker Jamieson agreed with the old man.

"You mean to say, to sit right there and say," Adair exploded "that you had the gall to liken me to a volcano?"

Walker nodded his head in agreement.

"You-you-you, why, I like you!" Adair thrust out his hand and shook that of the young reporter. "You say what you think no matter how dire the consequences. Maybe you're not such a bad reporter after all." He said this as though he was making a great concession.

"Yes, sir. No, sir." Walker hardly knew what to say in the face of all this unexpectedness.

"Now, come on here," Adair turned around and addressed this to the driver. "Can't this old jallopie do more than 15 miles an hour even when it sees its berth in the distance." He too, pointed to the white buildings that stood out from the green foliage around them.

"Not a bad looking place, from here." He went on contentedly. "Supposed to be one of the finest in the district, but you never can tell about such comparisons. Been fooled too many times to believe much of what I hear now. Take everything with a grain of salt.

"Hear that, girl?" He turned to Nan. "Best always not to believe what you hear. Discount at least fifty percent and then draw your own conclusions. That right, Jamieson?"

Walker nodded his head in complete agreement. It was one of the first lessons he had learned as a cub reporter.

Now, as they talked, the car climbed a steep hill. At the top, they turned to the right and came upon the hacienda.

"How perfectly lovely!" Alice's face was all aglow as she caught her first real glimpse of the place. The buildings were in Spanish style of a stucco material of a color bordering on the pink. There were iron balconies, large windows, and a courtyard or patio complete with palms, a fountain, and seats.

The girls had thought that there could be nothing in the world so pretty as the patio in their hotel in Mexico City, but here already was one that surpa.s.sed it.

"Humph!" Adair MacKenzie was as pleased as the others at his first sight of the place, but more cautious than they and more reluctant to let his real feelings be known, he let his "Humph!" be his only comment as he descended from the car and walked with the others through the archway into the courtyard.

There crowds of natives awaited the arrival of the new master, and the overseer of the place hurried forth to greet him.

"Eet ees a pleasure, senor," he said as he took Adair's hand and bowed deeply. The rest in the party smiled and hung back at this bit of Mexican courtesy. Walker grinned broadly.

"You, Senorita, are next," he whispered in Alice's ear. "Are you prepared to have your hand kissed by a servant who would consider it an honor to die in your service?"

"Be still," Alice murmured, and then smiled as the overseer did come forward, take her hand and bow deeply. "Buenos dias, senorita," he greeted her. "May your stay here be as pleasant to you as your honoring us with your presence has been to us."

"Come on, now," Adair was always impatient with the elaborate courtesies of the south, impatient probably because he never felt at ease with them. "I always suspect," Alice laughed once when she and Walker were talking about Adair's abruptness, "that he's more than a little afraid that some day some one of these strangers will break down and kiss him on the cheek."

"I wonder what he would do?" Walker paused in speculation.

"You might try it yourself, sometime, and find out," Alice retorted.

"Do you want to have me ousted bag and baggage from your presence, fair lady?" Walker questioned, but Alice never had a chance to answer, for just at that moment her father came upon the two and demanded all their attention.

Alice smiled over this in recollection now as they went through the door of the main building and into a s.p.a.cious entrance hall with its big winding stairway, its high-beamed ceiling, and its pretty tiled floor.

Walker caught the smile and guessed at its origin, but he said nothing as they were all escorted up the broad steps to their quarters.

"Ours, all ours?" Bess questioned when the Lakeview Hall girls were conducted to a suite of five rooms overlooking on one side the patio and the other, a river, broad fields, and mountains in the distance.

"Si, si, Senoritas," the smiling Mexican maid, Soledad, who was to be theirs during their stay, hadn't understood the question, but "Si, si,"

seemed the proper answer. Now she bustled about trying to help them until her curiosity as to what was going on downstairs got the better of her and on some slight pretext she left.

"Just think of it!" Bess exclaimed when she had disappeared. "A whole suite of rooms of our own, a maid, and everything, oh, everything we can wish for. It's a magic country and Adair MacKenzie is the presiding genie."

"Well, he is in one way," Laura admitted dryly. "When he waves his wand things happen."

"Yes, and he goes up in smoke," Nan added.

"Right," Laura laughed, "and there's no one that can do it more expertly."

Alone now, the girls went from one to another of their rooms enjoying everything. Even Grace, accustomed as she was to luxury, was greatly impressed. She had never been in a house like this before.

The rooms were big and s.p.a.cious with heavy oaken furniture, thick rugs, tapestries, and beds so high that it was necessary to climb up a little ladder in order to get to them. Each room had big double windows opening out onto the patio.

Bess stood out on hers and looked down on the courtyard below where maids were already busy setting a table under a tree centuries old. "Do they ever serenade people here," she directed her question toward those inside.

"I hear that they do, sometimes," Nan called back. "But you have to wait for a clear night, with a sky that's blue as blue can be, a moon big and silver, shining low over these pretty buildings, and stars that are bigger and closer to earth than any you have ever seen."

"Why, Nan Sherwood," Bess came into the room now. "Where did you learn all these things?"

"Oh," Nan shrugged her shoulders, "this atmosphere gets into your blood and you just can't help yourself. There is only one regret that I have."

"And that?" Bess couldn't imagine anyone having any regrets at this time. The world seemed just perfect to her now.

"That Rhoda isn't here with us," Nan replied promptly. She had been thinking of Rhoda a great deal in the past few days that had been such fun.

"I know," Grace agreed with Nan softly. "I have been thinking of her too. We should be hearing from her now in a few days because in those last letters that we sent we told her to direct all future mail to this place."

"I wonder how you get your mail here," Laura said. "Do you suppose a Mexican caballero comes dashing up on a donkey, sweeps his hat in a wide arc toward the ground, and then deposits the bills and things as though they were special messages from the king of Spain?"

"Oh, Laura, don't be silly," Bess was taking her romance seriously and didn't want it to be spoiled with laughter. "Do you suppose," she turned to Nan now, "that all those people that we saw down there in the courtyard live on this estate."

"Probably those and many more," Nan a.s.sented, "but we'll have to wait for the tour of the estate that's been promised before we know for sure.

And there are a million other things, at least that I want to know about."

"Me too," Laura agreed, and the rest chimed in, for this Mexican hacienda was something that captured the imagination of all of them.

CHAPTER XXII