Free (#44) The Clue in the Crossword Cipher by Carolyn Keene Page B

for alerting me.”
    Bess, George, and the Ponces were sorry to hear what had happened. They hoped that the police would pick up Luis Llosa quickly.
    “I hope so too,” said Nancy. “I am also interested in how Llosa got his arrayánes wood and what he was doing with it. Remember the police in Bariloche found a quantity of similar wood in Wagner’s home. I feel sure he has been supplying Llosa with it.”
    “Of course,” said George. “They’re part of the same gang. The question is, What are they doing with this wood?”
    Carla’s mother said she was mortified that their old family mystery was causing such a furor.
    Her husband smiled. “My dear,” he said, “aren’t you pleased that these evildoers are being apprehended?”
    “Oh, yes,” Senora Ponce replied. “But I wish the girls could have more fun and less worry.”
    Nancy put the plaque in her suitcase, then Carla’s father drove the girls to the airport. The plane to Cuzco was an old type which was not pressurized.
    After it had been in the air a short while, the pilot announced that in order to go over the Andes they would have to fly at a great height, where the air was thin. The stewardess came to each passenger. She unfastened an oxygen tube from under the window and indicated that it was to be held near the mouth to keep from feeling faint.
    The scenery below was very beautiful— mountain crags, forests, and streams blended into a breath-taking panorama. About two and a half hours later the pilot announced that the oxygen tubes were no longer needed. The plane was coming down into Cuzco.
    The girls from River Heights, seeing the city from the air, were amazed at its size. They had expected it to be much smaller.
    “Imagine living in the mountains twelve thousand feet above sea level!” said Bess.
    “Yes,” George replied. “And I read in a guidebook this is known as a mountaintop valley. The people who lived here centuries ago were called ‘valley people.’ ”
    When the plane landed, the four girls found a taxi and Carla suggested that the driver take them for a quick tour around the city before going to the hotel.
    Fortunately he spoke English and evidently was quite experienced in lecturing to tourists. He began by pointing out the huge stones in the old foundations of buildings. “They were built by the Incas. When the Spanish came, they tore down temples and palaces but left the foundations and put their own buildings on top of them.”
    The driver smiled. “The sun god punished them, though. When an earthquake came, the Spanish buildings fell over, but the foundations remained.”
    Next, he showed the girls a narrow Incan street. Both sides of it had high stone walls and the driver stopped so the visitors could walk down a short distance to see the famous twelve-sided stone which was part of it. Each girl counted the sides and marveled at the way the ancient stonecutters had trimmed this enormous rock to accommodate the ones fitted around it.
    The young tourists noticed that all the stones were so perfectly fitted that there was not one single opening or crack between them. Not even an earthquake could damage this amazing artisanship!
    Presently the driver stopped again where a modern church had been built on the old Incan foundation. “This was where the Temple to the Sun once stood,” he explained. “Beyond it, at that time, was a beautiful park with trees, flowers, and golden statues. At the far end was a palace.”
    “How I wish,” said Nancy, “that I could have seen them!”
    The man smiled. “If you had been an Inca maiden, you would have been wearing a long, one-piece dress made of alpaca wool. Your hair would have been in long braids tied with many colored ribbons of wool. You would have worn sandals and perhaps a sash, as well as a long shawl to cover your head and hang far down the back.”
    “It sounds very attractive,” she remarked.
    “Perhaps you would like to buy such a dress for a souvenir,” the guide