The Jungle Pyramid by Franklin W. Dixon

glance at the man’s rifle.
    â€œNo. The gun is strictly for self-defense against the dangerous animals of Yucatán and the jungles south of Brazil. I’ve seen them all.”
    â€œYou mean jaguars?” Biff asked.
    â€œThat, and big snakes—boa constrictors, for instance.”
    Chet grimaced. “I hope I don’t meet one.”
    â€œYou never can tell what you may meet in the jungle,” the guide responded. “I—”
    â€œTime 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!”
    â€œHowever 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.
    â€œRumble Murphy?”
    As the men shook their heads, Rose said, “Why are you looking for these people?”
    â€œBecause 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.”
    â€œBut they’re part of our mystery,” Joe pointed out.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWhat 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.
    â€œWell, 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.”
    â€œYes, we did,” Frank said.
    â€œWell,” the archaeologist continued, “Chichén Itzá also had its Temple of the Warriors, its Court of the Thousand Columns, and its Observatory.”
    â€œObservatory?” Tony asked. “Did those people study astronomy?”
    â€œOh, 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.”
    â€œPalango was minor compared to Chichén Itzá,” Pendleton put in. “But it did have a pyramid—the lost pyramid.”
    â€œBoy, 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