Jupiter left his friends standing in the drive and hurried to the side of the yard. Mr Barron looked around and scowled as he approached, but Jupe pretended not to notice.
“You really appreciate old things,” he said to Barron. “We have an old claw-legged bathtub over near the workshop, and a buckboard that looks old, but isn’t. It was made for a western movie and it’s in perfect condition.”
“We don’t need a bathtub,” said Barron, “but I might have a look at that wagon.”
“I’d forgotten about it,” said Uncle Titus. “Jupe, thank you for mentioning it.”
He and Aunt Mathilda led Barron and his wife away from the Headquarters area, and Jupe returned to his friends.
Jupiter, Pete, and Bob were still loitering near the office when Barron and his wife came back, having decided against the buckboard. They stood in the driveway with Uncle Titus and began to discuss arrangements for having their purchases delivered.
“We’re about ten miles north of San Luis Obispo and four miles off the main highway,” said Barron. “I can send a man down here with a truck to pick the things up, but I’d prefer not to. My people are busy right now. If you can deliver the stoves and the other things, I’ll pay you what it’s worth.”
He paused and looked suspiciously at Uncle Titus. “I will not pay more than it’s worth,” he added.
“And I wouldn’t charge more than it’s worth, Mr Barron,” said Uncle Titus. “Just the same, we’re not really set up to handle deliveries so far away. . . .”
Mr Barron began to look angry.
“Just a second, Uncle Titus,” interrupted Jupe. His round face was earnest under his shock of dark hair. “You were thinking of going north anyway, remember? To check out that block of old apartment buildings in San Jose, the ones that are scheduled for demolition and that might have some usable salvage. You could drop off Mr Barron’s things on the way, and the delivery wouldn’t cost too much.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Barron. “A young person who can think ahead. Will wonders never cease?”
“Young people are often very intelligent,” said Uncle Titus coldly. “All right. That’s a good idea. Someone should see that demolition job in San Jose. But that’s a two-day trip. I couldn’t go for at least a week.”
“We could go,” said Jupe quickly. “You promised that we’d have a chance to try buying salvage one day soon.” Jupe turned to include Pete and Bob in the conversation. “What about it?” he said to them. “Want to go up north?”
“Well, okay,” said Pete. “If my folks don’t mind.”
Bob nodded in agreement.
“Then it’s settled!” said Jupiter quickly. “Hans or Konrad can drive the truck for us. We’ll stop at Mr Barron’s ranch on the way to San Jose.”
Jupe walked away quickly before Charles Barron or Uncle Titus could think of a better plan.
“What’s the big idea?” said Pete when the boys were in Jupe’s outdoor workshop, safely out of earshot. “We’re probably going to have to unload that truck at Barron’s place, and that will be one huge job. Since when are you so eager for extra work?”
Jupe leaned against his workbench and grinned. “First of all, Uncle Titus has been promising us a buying trip for a long time, and something has always gotten in the way.”
“Yeah, like a sinister scarecrow,” said Bob, remembering a buying trip that had recently been cancelled by a fiendish apparition in a corn patch. That had been one of the scariest mysteries The Three Investigators had ever solved.
“And second of all,” continued Jupe, “it would be a good idea for us to get out of town right now.”
Pete gaped. “Why?”
“Because of the really huge job Aunt Mathilda has for us. She wants us to scrape the rust off some old playground equipment and then paint everything. But it’s not worth the effort. The metal is too badly rusted. I told her that, but she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m just trying to get out of work.”
“Which you are,” said Bob.
“Well, yes,” admitted Jupe. “But maybe while we’re gone, Hans or Konrad will start the job and Aunt Mathilda will see it isn’t worth the time and will sell the playground things for scrap metal.
“And there’s a third reason for going north,” added Jupe. “The Barrons are a very odd couple, and I’d like to see their place. Do they really have a ranch that’s entirely self-sufficient? Do they have only old things, or do they use modern technology, too? And is Mr Barron always so angry? And Mrs Barron–does she really believe in the rescuers?”
“Rescuers?” said Pete. “Who are they?”
“A race of superbeings who will rescue us when a great disaster overtakes our planet,” said Jupe.
“You’re kidding!” said Bob.
“Nope,” said Jupe, and his eyes sparkled with glee. “Who knows? Maybe the disaster will hit when we’re at the ranch, and we’ll get rescued! It could be a very interesting trip!”
2
The Fortress
IT WAS AFTER NOON the next day when Hans’s brother, Konrad, set out with the larger of the two salvage-yard trucks. Mr Barron’s purchases had been loaded in the back, and Jupiter, Pete, and Bob had wedged themselves in among the old stoves and the other items from Uncle Titus’s stock.
“Did you find the newspaper article about Barron?” Jupiter asked Bob as the truck sped north along the Coast Highway.
Bob nodded and took several folded sheets of paper out of his pocket. “It was in the financial section of the Times four weeks ago,” he reported. “I made a copy of it on the duplicating machine at the library.”
He unfolded the papers. “His full name is Charles Emerson Barron,” Bob said. “He’s a really rich guy. He’s always been rich. His father owned Barron International, the company that makes tractors and farm machinery. The Barrons owned Barronsgate, too–the town near Milwaukee where Charles Barron was born. It was an old-time company town, and everybody who lived there worked in the tractor factory and did what the Barrons told them to.
“Mr Barron inherited Barron International when he was twenty-three, and for a while everything was okay. But then the workers at Barron International went on strike for shorter hours and more money. Eventually Mr Barron had to give them what they wanted. That made him mad, so he sold the tractor factory and bought a company that made tyres. But before long the government fined his tyre factory for polluting the air. He sold that and bought a company that had some patents on photographic processes, and he got sued for discriminatory hiring practices. At different times Barron has owned newspapers and a chain of radio stations and some banks, and he has always gotten tangled up in government regulations or labour troubles or lawsuits. So finally he sold everything and moved to a ranch in a valley north of San Luis Obispo, where he lives in the house he was born in–”
“I thought he was born near Milwaukee,” said Pete.
“He was. He had the house moved to California. You can do that sort of thing when you’ve got heaps of money, and Mr Barron sure does have heaps. He always made a profit when he sold things. They called him the Robber Barron.”
“Of course,” said Jupe. “He’s just as high-handed as the robber-barron industrialists of the last century. What else could they call him?”
“I suppose they could call him the world’s champion grump,” said Bob. “According to Barron, savages are taking over the world and nobody takes pride in his work any more and soon our money won’t be worth anything. The only things worth having will be gold and land, and that’s why he bought Rancho Valverde. He says he’s going to spend the rest of his life on Valverde and raise his own food and experiment with new crops.”
Bob put the newspaper article back in his pocket and the boys rode on in silence. The truck sped past small towns and then through open country where the hills were beginning to turn brown under the summer sun.
It was almost three when Konrad turned off the Coast Highway on to State Highway 16SJ, a two-lane road that ran towards the east. In a few moments the truck climbed a short, steep hill. Then the road dipped suddenly into a narrow valley. There were no houses and no other cars.
“This gets to be wild country awfully fast,” observed Pete.
“It’s going to get wilder still,” Jupe told him. “I looked at the map before we left Rocky Beach. There isn’t a town between here and the San Joaquin Valley.”
The truck rumbled up over more hills, then slowed as it started down a series of hairpin curves. The boys saw that they were headed down into a vast natural bowl, flat at the bottom and bounded with sheer cliffs. The road twisted and doubled back on itself, the engine groaned and complained, and at last they were at the bottom and driving along on flat land. The dark growth of scrub plants crowded the road on the right, and a high chain-link fence edged it on the left. Beyond the fence there was a hedge of oleanders. Occasional breaks in the hedge showed fields where new crops grew in feathery green rows.