9 New plans
　　Kiki was glad to see the two men go. ‘Shut the door!’ she shouted after them. ‘Shut the door!’
　　The men ran off, and only stopped when they were well away from the shed. Juan mopped hisforehead.
　　‘What do you make of that?’ he said. ‘A voice – and nothing else!’
　　The other man was rapidly recovering.
　　‘Where there’s a voice there’s a body,’ he said. ‘There’s somebody here – somebody playingtricks on us. I thought when I saw that flattened¹ piece this morning that we were not alone here.
　　Who’s here? Do you think anybody’s got wind of the treasure?’
　　The four children, hidden well in the leaves of the tree, just above the heads of the two men,pricked up their ears at once. Treasure! Oho! So that was what the men were after in this lonely,deserted valley. Treasure!
　　‘How could anyone know what we know?’ said Juan scornfully. ‘Don’t get nerves just becauseyou heard a voice, Pepi. Why, maybe it was just a parrot.’
　　Pepi laughed loudly. It was his turn to be scornful now. ‘A parrot! What will you say next,Juan?’ he said with a sneer².
　　‘Have you ever known parrots to live here before? And talking ones too? If that’s a parrot, I’lleat my hat and yours as well!’
　　The listening children grinned at one another. Lucy-Ann thought she would like to see Pepi,whoever he was, eating his hat. He would have to eat Juan’s too, for Kiki was most certainly aparrot.
　　‘It’s somebody hiding about here,’ said Pepi. ‘Though how they got here goodness knows. Juan,maybe there is a cellar beneath that cowshed. We will go and find out if anyone is hiding there. Hewill be very – very – sorry for himself.’
　　The children didn’t like the tone of his voice at all. Lucy-Ann shivered. What horrid³ men!
　　They went cautiously to the cowshed. Juan stood at the broken- down doorway⁴. He calledloudly: ‘Come out of the cellar, whoever you are! We give you this one chance!’
　　No one came out, of course. For one thing there was no one to come out, and for another therewas no cellar to come from. Juan held a revolver in his hand. Kiki, rather alarmed at the shoutingvoice, said nothing at all, which was fortunate for her.

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