The Jungle Pyramid (9 page)

“Could be somebody doesn't want us to get to Palango,” Frank observed in a shaky voice.

The plane flew across Yucatán and came down for a landing at Mérida, the main city in the northern Mayan region. The boys climbed out. All were shaken by the near crash.

“T-t-terra firma
for me,” Chet stuttered.

“For me, too,” Biff added.

“The Mayas had the right idea,” Tony said. “They never fooled around with planes.”

The Hardys tried to cheer their pals. “We got here, didn't we?” Joe pointed out.

“Better than hacking our way through the jungle,” Frank declared.

The pilot inspected his plane. “Somebody tampered with the engine,” he said grimly. “I'll have to repair it.”

His passengers checked with airport officials to see if anybody had seen a private plane marked “Mexico City.” Nobody had, so the boys decided to go right on to Palango. Frank rented a jeep and drove to Chichén Itzá. All of them marveled at the ruins of temples and pyramids that once were the center of the Mayan culture of northern Yucatán. They asked a policeman about Palango.

“Take the dirt road northeast,” the man replied, “and then follow the jungle trail. The Palango dig is at the end of it.”

The boys set out, with Biff at the wheel of the jeep. The dirt road ended and the jungle trail began. It was so rough and bumpy through the dense tropical vegetation that they felt sore and bruised. Even well-padded Chet complained. “I'm not made to be a rubber ball,” he said.

Biff shifted into low gear. “We should have rented a Sherman tank,” he grumbled.

Joe laughed. “How about a swamp buggy?”

The jeep jounced over a large bush. An enormous hole loomed directly ahead! Biff stepped on the brake and the jeep halted at the edge of the hole with a jerk that nearly sent Chet flying over the windshield.

Frank pointed to a pile of fresh earth beside the trail. “Somebody dug that hole recently. I wonder—”

A splintering sound interrupted him. A giant tree beside the trail began to sway. It toppled toward the jeep!

Biff reacted instantly. He stepped on the gas, wrenched the wheel to the left, and scooted into the jungle undergrowth flanking the trail just before the tree fell with a crash. The boys ducked as the branches lashed over the jeep. Then Biff cut back out onto the trail beyond the hole and stopped.

He sighed with relief. “Anyone hurt?” he asked.

The others said no, then Frank proposed that they look around before going on.

The boys walked to the fallen tree. As Chet inspected the tangle of heavy branches, he remarked, “It's lucky we got out from under.”

“The tree would have smashed us,” Tony agreed.

“Look at the trunk!” Joe declared.

It had been chopped nearly all the way through!

“Someone was setting a trap for us!” Tony exclaimed.

Frank nodded. “He dug the hole to make us stop, cut the tree with an ax till it was barely standing, and then pushed it over to make it topple on us.”

Biff clenched his fists. “That means he must still be around here somewhere. I'll take him over the hurdles!”

He ran back up the trail. Frank and Joe took the underbrush on one side, Chet and Tony the other. The boys scouted through the area but found nothing except scuffed footprints near the base of the fallen tree.

“He got away!” Biff lamented.

“We may as well call off our search,” Joe said. “It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, only this haystack is the Yucatán jungle.”

An hour later the group bounced into Palango. A Mayan temple had been partially reclaimed, and nearby a deep excavation revealed further work in progress. Several tents had been set up in a cleared area. Four Americans were there along with a dozen Mexicans, descendants of the Mayas, who had been recruited to help with the dig.

The leader of the archaeological expedition came forward to meet them. He was tall and handsome with black wavy hair. “I'm Steve Weiss,” he introduced himself. “It's a surprise to see you. Usually visitors don't get this far in the jungle.”

Frank explained that he and his companions were trying to find gold.

“We have already found quite a bit!” said a voice behind them.

The boys turned to see a man wearing white shorts and a pith helmet. He had a superior smile on his face, as if to say that he was doing the visitors a favor by speaking to them. He carried a swagger stick, which he slapped against his leather boot.

“I'm Melville Courtney, assistant archaeologist on the dig,” he announced. “I'm also a Hawkins man.”

“He means Hawkins College,” Joe thought.

“We have already found gold, son,” Courtney repeated, “and are scarcely in need of your assistance on that score. The Mayas buried the gold. We retrieved it after much exertion and loss of perspiration.

“I'm sure you realize,” Courtney continued, “that your help would be superfluous.”

“A job is not what we have in mind,” Frank told him.

“Do you have armadillos in mind?” asked a woman who had just walked up. She was short, had golden hair, and a heart-shaped face. She wore a denim shirt and slacks.

“Rose Renda, our biologist,” Steve Weiss introduced her. “She just joined us a few days ago.”

“I'm an armadillo freak,” Rose declared.

Chet scratched his head and gave her a blank look. “Armadillo freak?”

“As you no doubt know,” Rose explained, “an armadillo is an armored animal native to these parts. It's about five feet long from snout to tail in the biggest species. The armor on its back is approximately three feet long. The problem I'm researching is this: how is the armadillo related to the glyptodon?”

Now Tony looked blank. “What's a glyptodon?”

Rose smiled. “You mean, what was a glyptodon? It lived millions of years before the armadillo, was about nine feet long, and had five feet of armor. The armor was completely smooth, and had a number of hinges that permitted it to turn more easily.”

“And you want to find out how the glyptodon evolved into the armadillo?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Rose replied.

A man carrying a rifle joined the party. He was over six feet tall, slim, and quiet.

“This is Frank Pendleton,” Rose said, “our jungle guide. He knows everything about this area.”

“I should after twenty years,” Pendleton said, smiling.

“I take it you hunt, too?” Tony said with a glance at the man's rifle.

“No. The gun is strictly for self-defense against the dangerous animals of Yucatán and the jungles south of Brazil. I've seen them all.”

“You mean jaguars?” Biff asked.

“That, and big snakes—boa constrictors, for instance.”

Chet grimaced. “I hope I don't meet one.”

“You never can tell what you may meet in the jungle,” the guide responded. “I—”

“Time for chow,” Weiss interrupted.

Melville Courtney slapped his swagger stick against his boot again. “Dinner is indeed served, such as it is,” he said in his high-pitched voice. “K rations and coffee. Really!”

“However you say it,” Weiss laughed, “we're all ready to eat.” He invited the Bayporters to share their fare, and they sat in a circle on the ground.

After a while Frank asked, “Has anybody here seen a private plane marked ‘Mexico City'? We're trying to find it.”

No one had.

Joe put the next question to the group. “Have you ever met a man named Pedro Zemog?”

Again, everyone said no.

“Rumble Murphy?”

As the men shook their heads, Rose said, “Why are you looking for these people?”

“Because we're trying to solve the mystery of a gold theft,” Joe replied. He told the group about the Wakefield heist and the theft of the ancient horse from the Scythian collection.

Courtney coughed. “Mr. Zemog and Mr. Murphy are obviously not gentlemen,” he stated. “I would not care to associate with them.”

“But they're part of our mystery,” Joe pointed out.

“I don't think you'll solve your mystery here,” Weiss said. “There's no reason for these gold thieves to bring their loot down here. They'd stick to Mexico City.”

Rose lowered her coffee cup. “It looks as if you boys have come a long way for nothing.”

Chet grinned. “Not me. I want to look at the Mayan gold you found, because I'm adept in gold artifacts.”

“What in the world is that?” Rose asked.

Chet explained his correspondence-course diploma.

Courtney gave him a supercilious look. “That is not like a degree from Hawkins,” he stated.

Chet looked hurt.

“Well, it's an interesting title,” Steve Weiss interjected to make Chet feel better. “Sure, you can see our gold. The Mayas buried it to keep the Spaniards from getting it. Palango was once a thriving Mayan city. It was subordinate to Chichén Itzá, which you passed through to get here. You must have seen the temple-pyramid there.”

“Yes, we did,” Frank said.

“Well,” the archaeologist continued, “Chichén Itzá also had its Temple of the Warriors, its Court of the Thousand Columns, and its Observatory.”

“Observatory?” Tony asked. “Did those people study astronomy?”

“Oh, sure, and in a big way. They kept records of the stars and planets so they could be sure their Mayan calendar was accurate. They needed to know which days of the year to hold their religious festivals and other ceremonies.”

“Palango was minor compared to Chichén Itzá,” Pendleton put in. “But it did have a pyramid—the lost pyramid.”

“Boy, how can you lose a pyramid?” Biff quipped. “Kind of careless.”

Rose laughed. “The fact is that jungle growth covers everything in a few years.”

Weiss nodded. “And the jungle's had almost five hundred years to cover the pyramid. When the trees, moss, vines, and creepers have done their work, you can walk within yards of a Mayan building and never spot it.”

Pendleton continued. “We know the lost pyramid is about twenty miles from here because a hunter spotted it fifty years ago. But he didn't give the location. Even if we knew that, it would be very hard to hack our way through the jungle. There's the vegetation, the heat, and the insects. As things are, every attempt to find the pyramid has failed because it's like looking for a minnow in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“We may never discover it,” Rose added, “but we expect to run into a lot of armadillos. The jungle here must be loaded with them.”

“It is,” Pendleton assured her. “We'll go out after armadillo tomorrow. Like to go along with us, fellows? You can help capture one.”

Biff spoke for them all. “That would be great!”

Weiss dug into the camp stores for more tents. Frank and Joe pitched the one they would share on the edge of the clearing near the Mayan temple. Branches of large trees, which surrounded the ancient building, were festooned with trailing moss, giving the scene an eerie look.

The Hardys said good night to their friends and were sound asleep when they were awakened by a terrified shout from Biff's tent. It woke up others in the camp and brought footsteps pounding in his direction.

Joe snapped on his pocket flashlight and opened the flap of his friend's shelter.

“Biff, what's wrong?” he asked.

“On the ground!” Biff cried.

Joe trained the beam of his light lower. A long sinuous form was coiled just inside the door of Biff's tent. The reptile raised its head in a menacing stare and started to hiss.

“It's a boa constrictor!” Chet bellowed. “That thing will squeeze him to death!”

 

 

 

 

BIFF crouched at the rear of his tent and eyed the big snake apprehensively. His friends formed a semicircle at the open flap of the canvas, not daring to get too close. The boa constrictor Nicked its tongue menacingly.

“What'll we do?” Chet wailed.

“Step aside!” a woman ordered. Rose Renda walked into the tent. She was carrying a large burlap bag, the mouth of which she opened by releasing a draw-string. Just then three Mexican workmen, alerted by Pendleton because of their experience in handling snakes, joined the group.

The jungle guide teased the boa constrictor with a stick until it struck ferociously. As its head hit the ground, Pendleton's hand flashed out and closed on the neck just behind the head.

Two of the other men grabbed the reptile around the body, while the third seized the lashing tail. The four lifted the boa off the ground and dropped it, tail first, into the open burlap bag that Rose was holding. Then they crammed in the sinuous body, and finally Pendleton shoved the head, instantly pulling his hand away. Rose drew the mouth of the bag taut.

“This will make a fine addition to the Mexico City Zoo,” she commented.

“The zoo can have it,” Biff muttered.

Pendleton told everybody to go back to sleep and stop worrying. “It's almost unheard of for a snake of this size to invade an archaeological dig,” he told them.

“This one,” said Frank, “must have lost its way.”

“Poor, crazy mixed-up snake,” Joe said with a grin.

That broke up the tension and all the boys went back to their tents. In the morning, they joined Rose, Pendleton, and Courtney on a trek into the jungle in search of an armadillo. Pendleton wore the rough clothes and floppy hat of an experienced jungle guide. Courtney appeared in spotless white ducks, wearing his pith helmet and carrying his swagger stick.