Teorías del Comercio Internacional

IT WAS easy to figure the answer, lying there on their stomachs watching Farid Hamil.

Somewhere along the way, Hamil had picked up this companion in the Red army uniform who was sitting beside him. And while Tom Brewster had gone on happily in the belief that he had shaken Hamil off his trail, Hamil hadn’t been shaken at all. The agent obviously had been following the engineer and the Sherpa guide ever since they had left Katmandu. He probably had watched the two men hide their jeep and pick up their ponies in Musarri. That was probably where he had picked up the Chinese soldier and his own ponies. So Biff knew now that it was Hamil, his companion, and their two horses whom they had seen in the gorge and mistaken for their fathers. By the time the Williwaw arrived at the gorge, their fathers already had passed through it and were on up the trail.

Ironically then, if they had ignored the two figures

they had seen from the Williwaw and had kept going just a little farther up the trail, they would have seen the two men the monk saw—one of whom had colored his face brown—the man who almost had to be Tom Brewster.

But fate had tricked them in the gorge and grounded them in the Williwaw. The combination had resulted in Hamil and his Red friend having just enough time to interpose themselves between the fathers and the sons—making it impossible for Biff and Taz to get by and warn Tom Brewster and Izling Norkay that they were being followed.

As Biff lay thinking, a lovely, mournful bird song rose to his ears from the valley far below. It reminded him of something his father had said in the hotel at Katmandu just the day before—a homesick remark about wanting to hear the whistle of a good old bobwhite quail.

Biff whistled the plaintive call tentatively to himself, softly, experimentally—an idea forming in his mind.

He looked at their surroundings—the narrow trail, the high walls, the narrow gorge—absolutely no way to get around Hamil to warn their fathers that they had not shaken pursuit, but were being shadowed all the way.

“Hamil seems in no hurry. Our fathers must have stopped to eat,” whispered Taz.

“Or to sleep maybe,” Biff murmured. “They didn’t have a wink last night.”

He went back to his experimental whistling again, the plan slowly ripening in his mind. And then it was ready.

Biff pursed his lips, looked down at the two men waiting below to observe the effects of what he was about to do, and then blew sharply the one short, one long whistle of the bobwhite quail.

Taz jumped. Biff calmed him with a wave of the hand and a wink.

Again, Biff whistled the quail call—louder this time, watching the men carefully to see if they had detected anything strange, anything artificial in the whistle.

But Hamil and his friend seemed totally unaware that the whistles were not a part of the chirps and calls of the rest of the birds in the valley.

Now Biff decided to use full volume. He slid back into a depression in the rock wall to provide himself with a megaphonic, reflecting background. He took a deep breath, pursed his lips, and blew.

Three longs—two shorts—three longs. The international distress call—SOS—but as a quail would call!

Would his father, numb from hours without sleep, catch the significance of the whistles? Would he remember his innocent remark about quail to his son the day before?

And the men below—would they suddenly awake to the realization that never a quail in all the world whistled like this?

But the men smoked on. Biff’s heart beat fast, the minutes ticked by, his hopes rose, then slowly fell.

Then when he had nearly given up hope—

Almost lost in the whisper of the dying wind, a plaintive, answering call—the call of a bobwhite quail.

Three long—two short—three long.

Biff lifted his fist triumphantly to Taz. He looked down at the men below, who had now raised their heads and were looking down the valley.

“Let’s not push our luck,” whispered Biff. “We’ve done what we came for. They’re warned. Let’s shove off.”

They turned the ponies and headed back down the trail toward the south. They had traveled less than a half hour from the spot where they had overtaken Farid Hamil and his Chinese companion, when Taz again, stopped suddenly.

The Sherpa boy drew back against the rock cliff, yanked Biff after him, and pointed.

Far ahead, three men were hiking toward them.

Even at this distance, it was easy to see who they were.

Suvaji and the two commissars from Mussari!

The boys collapsed against the rock wall as though each had just been hit in the solar plexus.

“Holy cow! Caught in a squeeze between Hamil and Suvaji!” Biff groaned.

“We’ve got to turn around again,” Taz whispered.

As they crept up to the spot which they thought fearfully was the end of the line, the spot where Hamil

had been camped, he was gone!

“Well, I’ll be—” said Biff, stepping out to the flat spot overlooking Hamil’s camping ground. “I wonder how Hamil got wise? How he knew our dads had moved?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” said Taz, “but let’s hope they keep moving up ahead so we can keep moving back here.”

They followed the ponies down the narrow trail, making certain they stayed out of sight of the three men behind them. In the clear air of these mountains, it was easy to see things for long distances, and the boys didn’t want to have Suvaji catch even a glimpse of them.

Then time took care of the danger of their being seen. Night fell.

“This will give us an advantage, I think,” said Taz. “I doubt that Suvaji is an experienced mountain man. He probably won’t dare to keep moving in the dark.”

Almost as he said it, they saw a strong electric torch blink on far behind them. In its beam, they could see the outline of three men, still walking—still following.

“Any more brilliant theories?” Biff asked.

“Mush!” growled Taz.

CHAPTER XI