The Mystery Boys and the Inca Gold

The whole mysterious affair puzzled Cliff. To have those queer strangers appear suddenly at Aunt Lucy’s with their unusual questions threw him a little off his stride. “No,” he answered the stocky Spaniard with the crafty, shifty eyes, “I did not get a letter from Peru. Who wrote it? Is it from my father? How do you know about it?” While the Spaniard interpreted the answer to his companion Cliff studied them both. If the tall, stalwart man with copper skin and piercing eyes was not an Indian, Cliff had never seen a truthful picture of one. He wore European clothes but he was not at his ease in them. While he listened to the queer language which the Spaniard used he kept his eyes boring Cliff and Cliff saw that his denial was not believed. Copper-skin muttered something and the Spaniard turned again to Cliff. “You not get letter? Mi amigo, my friend, say it mail ‘nine, ten week’ ago.” “I can’t help that,” Cliff declared, “It hasn’t come. Who is it from—my father?” Cliff had not heard from his father in nearly five years: naturally he was anxious about the scholar who studied ancient civilizations and who had gone to Peru to write a book about the Incas.