“Embezzlement case looks good to me!” shouted Jimmie.
“Hiding in the mountains of Peru?” repeated Sam. “Now I wonder if a man hiding in the mountains of Peru has loyal friends or well-paid agents in the city of Quito.”
“There!” exclaimed Mr. Havens. “Sam has hit the nail on the head the first crack. I never even told the boys when they left New York that they were bound for Peru on a mission in which I was greatly interested. I thought that perhaps they would get along better and have a merrier time if they were not loaded down with official business.”
“That wouldn’t have made any difference!” announced Carl. “We’d have gone right along having as much fun as if we were in our right minds!”
“When I started away from the hangar in the _Ann_,” Mr. Havens continued, with a smile at the interruption, “I soon saw that some one in New York was interested in my remaining away from Peru.”
“Redfern’s friends of course!” suggested Mellen.
“And Redfern’s friends appeared on the scene last night, too,” Jimmie decided. “And they managed to make quite a hit on their first appearance, too,” he continued. “And this man Doran is at present ready for another engagement if you please. He’s a foxy chap!”
“I’m sorry he got away!” Mellen observed.
“Yes, it’s too bad,” Mr. Havens agreed, “but, in any event, we couldn’t have kept him in prison here isolated from his friends.”
“There’s one good thing about it,” Ben observed, “and that is that we’ve already set a trap to catch him.”
“Mr. Mellen has employed a detective to follow Doran’s companion on the theory that sometime, somewhere, the two will get together again.”
“That’s a very good idea!” Mr. Havens declared.
“Now about this man Redfern,” Mr. Mellen went on. “Is he believed to be still in the mountains of Peru?”
“I have at least one very good reason for supposing so,” answered the millionaire. “Yes, I think he is still there.”
“Give us the good reason!” exclaimed Carl. “I guess we want to know how to size things up as we go along!”
“The very good reason is this,” replied Mr. Havens with a smile, “the minute we started in our airships for the mountains of Peru, obstacles began to gather in our way. The friends or accomplices of Redfern began to flutter the instant we headed toward Peru.”