Free The Mystery of the Headless Horse by William Arden Page A

campfire! Before three o’clock, he had the hat. After three o’clock, he was with us, and then fighting the fire. If the sheriff is sure Pico didn’t have his hat at the fire, then it was lost — or stolen — some time between our leaving school that day and our arriving at the site of the brush fire!”
    “Jupe?” Bob said slowly. “What if Pico lost his hat while we were on the way to the fire? He was riding in the back of the truck. What if the wind blew his hat off and carried it to the campfire?”
    “Pico’s hat could not blow off,” Diego stated. “It has a draw-cord under the chin. Pico always pulls it tight for a ride.”
    “And there was hardly any wind that day,” added Pete. “That’s what kept the brush fire from getting out of control.”
    “Anyway,” Jupiter said, “that brush fire was certainly started before we arrived at the ranch. So if the hat blew off in the truck, it wouldn’t matter. It would mean that the hat got near the campfire after the brush fire started.”
    “Except,” Bob went on in dismay, “we can’t really prove it, can we? I mean, we know Pico had the hat at three p.m., but it’s only our word against that of Cody and Skinny!”
    “Well, our word is certainly worth something,” said Jupe huffily. “But you’re right. We don’t have any real proof. So we’ll have to find it! We have to discover exactly what did happen to the hat.”
    “How do we do that, Jupe?” Pete asked.
    “The first move, I think, is to talk to Pico and see if he can remember exactly when he last had his hat,” Jupiter decided. “But we must also continue our search for the Cortés Sword. I am convinced that Skinny and Cody know we’re looking for the sword, or for something valuable that will help the Alvaros keep their land, and that Pico’s arrest is an attempt to stop us!”
    “So it’s back to the Historical Society to look for any other references to Don Sebastián,” Bob said.
    Pete groaned. “That could take another hundred years!”
    “It won’t be fast work, Second,” Jupiter conceded, “but not quite that bad. We have just two days to concentrate on — 15th and 16th September, 1846. Don Sebastián was a prisoner until he escaped on 15th September, and no one ever saw him again. And it was the very next day, 16th September, that those three soldiers were found to be missing. No one saw them again, either.”
    “No one we know about, you mean,” Bob said. He leaned forward in his chair. “First, I’ve been thinking about Condor Castle. We’ve been assuming that it’s a clue to the hiding place of the sword. But maybe it’s just what it ought to be up at the top of a letter — Don Sebastián’s address!”
    Jupiter shook his head. “Don Sebastián’s address was the Cabrillo house — or his hacienda.”
    “Not necessarily,” Bob said. “Fellows, I remember reading about a man in the same kind of trouble as Don Sebastián. He was a Scotsman named Cluny MacPherson. When the English invaded the Scottish Highlands in 1745 and beat the Scots at the battle of Culloden, they tried to kill or imprison all the Highland chiefs. Most of the chiefs who escaped fled the country — but not Cluny, the chief of Clan MacPherson. Even though he knew the English were after him, he refused to leave.”
    “What did he do, Bob?” Diego wondered.
    “He lived in a cave right on his own land for almost eleven years!” Bob replied. “His whole clan helped to hide him. They gave him food and water and clothes, and the English never knew where he was until things were safe and he came out on his own!”
    “You mean,” Pete exclaimed, “you think Condor Castle was a clue to where Don Sebastián himself was going to hide?”
    Bob nodded. “You remember how Pico wondered why no one saw Don Sebastián again if he wasn’t shot and lost in the ocean? And where he went if he did escape? Well, I think he planned to hide right on his own ranch somewhere near Condor