…with the stolen artifact being ferried on public transportation, and the Up in Smoke-mobile hot on it’s Trail (ha!) there’s no telling how long we might have to witness this ‘chase scene…’

Careful with all the questions, (Rusty?) you’ll give yourself away…

I’ll give credit where it’s due, though… James Allen sure can draw a bus.  Even one that appears to be floating on a cloud.  I guess it has rained a while in the rainforest…

…yea… That’s the ticket!

Boy, these kids are being really cagey, aren’t they?  I guess in today’s rough and tumble world, you really don’t know who to trust!   Certainly not a Grant Wood American Gothic look alike driver of a ridiculously modified van with a sleeping disorder!  Calling Dagwood Bumstead?  I thought he had the market cornered on sleeping his life away…

…and saw his soul…

I don’t know what creeps me out more…  the little dots of india ink that are Joe’s eyes, or the fact that none of the men in the Trailverse have any pigment in their lips…

But who is the guy that was watching them in the temple? 

About the same size as the creepy doll, I’d say… 

As our friendly Toucan in the foreground displays its omnivorous traits (No more nuts… I need me a lizard!) Rusty (who has grown to be 6 feet tall) informs Joe that he (they?) want to go see Santa Poco (because they saw the guy with the stolen mask get on a bus headed that way?) before it gets “too dark.”

Didn’t see that one one coming, huh?  Well, Joe, you can easily underestimate Rusty, as I did yesterday, so I guess we’ll have to see where this all goes…

Lesson from the current story… never judge a book by its cover, or a sleeping man by his apparent ennui…

…and apparently there is a subspecies of Rattlesnake that is indigenous to the Yucatan…  the Crotalus simus tzabcan… above asking Mr. Rat if he wouldn’t be so kind as to check him for gum disease…

That’s right, Joe… because we saw something we were counting on and have bring to your attention!  Oh Rusty, trusting Rusty…  How can you possibly know who is and isn’t in on the caper at this point??  Better to bring this to Mark’s attention and let him start to meddle… which is a Natural State for him…

Credit where it’s due:  This kind of made me chuckle this morning…

…and further evidence that Mark still earns some kind of paycheck… (I know I get fixated on that…) by writing articles for “Field and Forest” or “Woods and Streams” or “Woods and Wildlife” whatever the heck that magazine is called…But it would seem that both Joe and the voice on the radio are readers of said periodical… as Joe corrects and reminds the disembodied voice about a feature of a certain cave adventure that was an early example of the kind of pacing we’d have to endure in the James Allen era…

And the Owl says, “What?”

What complicates things is the fact that you knew that there was a “drop” going down at the temple and yet you brought Rusty and Mara right to it?  Besides sleepy, how dumb are you?

Sleepy Joe continues to prattle on and hold forth like he’s the brains of the outfit… use the kids?  Get them out of the way?  Mark Trail’s reputation?  For what?  Sponging off friends and family?  Never working an honest day in his life?  Being obtuse and not self-aware?

Poor Joe… he sleeps his way through life.  That includes the need to wear a bib, as apparently he drools when he naps.  Ick.

“The Gig?”  What- are they in a band or something?  “Onto” or “on to?”  I think it’s the latter, but then I am not sure… Did Rusty and Mara go in to the Temple or into the temple?  Or they simply entered the Temple…   I recently caught myself saying something that I have been saying probably most of my life- a non-word… “Wholenuther,” as in, “that’s a wholenuther thing you’re talking about…”  I have to laugh.  It’s not a word, obviously, but I think it’s clear what I mean…  Oh well.

“Unfortunate” indeed…  but that’s not a word that a henchman uses… That’s more a word that the mastermind would use, whilst stroking his cat…

So… as Rusty and Mara are chasing the bus on foot, going after the bad guy with the (I guess) genuine historical artifact, Joe is passed out in the van.  One has to wonder who is screaming at him through the radio…

One also has to wonder what it would be like to be chronically in need of sleep.  Oh, wait… I can relate, especially when it comes time to create another entry chronicling the “progress” of one of these James Allen “story” lines…  The Jag in the foreground would seem to agree…

They were about 30 feet from the bus, now it looks like they are going to chase it on foot?

Seriously, Campers, this is getting more difficult by the day.

April 30th…  that’s the day the plane took off for Mexico. That would make it roughly 4 months of nonstop non-intrigue…  Prior to this we were about to meet Manuel Blanco Romansanta…  But then we cut away to the Trails at the Airport…

So yea… This looks like a good idea- boarding an “old Mexican bus” bound for who knows where… Santa Poco?  El Rey?  And thank you Rusty for pointing out obvious facts just to make sure that we, the readership, aren’t left to guess what’s happening.

Just to maintaintain the illusion of movement and pace I am doubling up on the dailies…

Did you, Rusty, compliment Becky?  I don’t recall.  But then I don’t really recall much of what happens, it grinds along so slowly…

Yea! Let’s make sure we get good and lost, or at least find ourselves cornered by bad people…  That will be exciting!

What?  The laconic and naive Rusty grunts…

Mara makes a great point, but in Rusty’s world, everyone is an “Old Friend,” and by extension that included Becky.  But readers of this strip (even in its current incarnation) would have recognized that Becky was no good…  Sort in the Mata Hari sense of the word…

But again, Rusty also jumps to the conclusion that Professor What’s-his-Name is not in on this scam…  Rusty, it is possible that even “Old Friends” can be crooks…

I certainly hope they are whispering…  Hard to tell…

But leave it to Mara to thread all the pieces together…

But where does Becky “make” the three- dimensional copies?  Does she have a secret 3D printer in another trailer??  Or perhaps she’s selling the copies and passing them off as real…  That way she could sell the same fake over and over again…

Oh, the plot do thicken now, don’t it?

Questions abound!  We know that this is tantamount to smuggling rhino horns!   But is she acting alone?  Has she gone rogue?  The black market for historically significant items is probably fairly rich… with collectors, museums, even…  museums that have to keep their collection fresh to keep the patrons patroning…  What’s Rusty to do with this bit of information?  And couldn’t Becky have found someplace a little less public to conduct business??

As Mara starts to take on the dimensions of her namesake, we enter the temple.  And unfortunately, the group, along with Becky has disappeared!!

But thankfully Rust has that innate Trail sense of hearing!  Even though he shares no Trail DNA!!

But lo, there she is!  Apparently in a rendezvous!  No wonder she didn’t want to be found…

And we can surely stretch that into a week’s worth of installments… <<yawn…>>  <<stretch…>>  <<sigh…>>

And so it begins… Mara and Rusty get lost in the temple, never to be heard from again.  Nice Bearded Lizard…

This is nothing new for Rusty…  He gets ignored all the time!

And clearly Becky wants to be un-found…  Again, it’s the only mystery we have to hang our hats on right now, so let’s just go with it… that, and the fact that Mara ages before our very eyes from panel one to panel three…

Story of his life, I am afraid to say…

That Mara is giving him so much attention is practically a miracle…  But hey, orphans are used to that and I suppose grateful for any form of attention or validation…  They’d better hurry though, as the tour is leaving without them.  Or will they be approached by another “tour guide” only this one won’t be “official…”  Enter Dirty Dyer??  Please??  Something interesting?

Amidst all the other “Tourists,” only her Dark Black Tresses stand out…

…and what’s (again) with the awkward hand gesture, Rusty?  Judo chop?