y at this particular nipa hut, too. Next to it
was a shiny limousine, the property of Irineo Lazada.

Chahda whispered, "We get close. Be very quiet and follow me."

It was dark enough. Chahda led the way, and Rick and Scotty followed.
There was little cover, but there was no guard outside the house.
Apparently Lazada and Nast felt quite safe. They did not know how
effectively Chahda had shadowed them.

Chahda made his way slowly until they were beside the big limousine.
There was a murmur of voices from above, Lazada's predominating.

Rick swallowed hard as Chahda left the limousine and and walked right
under the hut, but he and Scotty followed, scarcely daring to breathe.
It was dark and he almost knocked over a stack of wooden boxes. Then,
under the hut, there was light.

Rick had not realized that the bamboo floor was nothing more than a
latticework of bamboo strips. He could look right up between them and
see the occupants of the room!

There was Lazada, of course, and Nast. And with them were two Chinese.

Nast was talking, "Don't you worry about delivery. If I say I'll get the
skull into Macao, I'll do it. You just worry about the price."

Rick recognized the name of Macao. It was the Portuguese colony on the
Chinese coast just below Hong Kong. It had the reputation of being the
gathering place for smugglers, gun-runners, Chinese river pirates, and
equally unsavory folk.

One Chinese spoke in sibilant, accented English. "The price you ask is
too much. The skull is worth its exact weight in gold, at fifty American
dollars an ounce. What do we care if it is a very old native religious
object? That has value only for an Ifugao, not a Chinese, and our
customers are not Ifugaos."

Rick gasped. Lazada and Nast were intending to sell the skull just for
the gold in it!

Lazada put his hand on a box that sat beside him on the floor. "The
customers you have usually want bullion gold, true. But perhaps you have
one very wealthy customer who could use a museum piece of great value."

"If we could have the skull legally, yes. But it is the only one of its
kind. In a few days the press will have sent its description to every
city in the world, because its loss is a good news story. No one in his
right mind would buy such an object."

"I'm afraid he's right," Nast said. "We'll have to settle for its value
in weight. But that's worth something."

Chahda pulled Rick's sleeve, then Scotty's. The boys followed him f