The Young Engineers in Mexico Part 20

"If there is, I can't keep it away," Tom rejoined. "Harry, this idle life is getting into my blood, I fear. Now, I know just how happy a tramp feels."

"Go ahead and enjoy yourself, then," laughed Hazelton. "For fifteen minutes at a time you'd make an ideal tramp. Then you'd want to go to work"

"I wouldn't mind having a little work to do," Reade admitted.

"Harry, it took nerve to throw up our connection with Don Luis.

At least, that meant some work to do."

"It did not," Harry contradicted. "Don Luis didn't want us in his mine at all, and showed us that as plainly as he could. All the work he wanted out of us was the writing of two signatures.

The need of the signatures was all that ever made him bring us down from the United States."

"He'd he such a charming fellow, too, if he only knew a little bit about being honest," sighed Tom, regretfully.

"There is one thing about his rascality that I shall never forgive,"

growled Hazelton. "That was, dragging his innocent daughter into the game, just in the hope that her presence would influence us to sign."

"I trust, _caballeros_, that you did not find me too slow and lazy," broke in the soft voice of Nicolas, as that servant stole back in on them. He was well laden with parcels, at sight of which Reade sat up with a jerk.

"Anything in that lot that's all ready to be eaten without fussy preparation, Nicolas?" the young chief engineer asked eagerly.

"Oh, _si senor_!"

"Then lead us to it, boy!"

The Mexican servant unwrapped a package, revealing and holding up a tin.

"Food of your own kind, from your own country, _caballeros_,"

the Mexican announced proudly.

"Canned baked beans," chuckled Harry, after glancing at the label.

"Hurry and get the stuff open."

Nicolas opened two tins of the beans, then produced a package of soda biscuits.

"This will be enough for one meal, _caballeros_?" he asked.

"Oh, plenty," nodded Tom.

"And then I have some of our Mexican beans, dried," Nicolas continued.

"They will do when we are not so near a food supply. I have also a little dish in which to boil them over a fire. Oh, we shall get along excellently, _caballeros_."

Shortly the very simple meal was ready and eaten in record time.

"And here is something else that we shall drink in the morning,"

Nicolas announced, presently as he held up a package. "It is chocolate."

As Tom and Harry both detested this beverage, they were forced to feign their enthusiasm.

"Now, I feel as though we ought to do some walking," Tom declared, rising and stretching.

"Walking?" queried Nicolas. "Where?"

"Over the hills to the nearest telegraph station. There is one within twenty miles, is there not?"

"There is, _caballero_," Nicolas a.s.sented, gravely, "but it will be impossible for us to reach it."

"Impossible? Why?" Reade demanded.

"On my way back I kept my eyes open," the Mexican explained.

"As a result I discovered who is in these hills about us."

"Who, then?" Harry asked.

"Pedro Gato," Nicolas affirmed solemnly.

"Who?" said Tom. "Oh, Gato? Only he?"

"Only he and some of his worthless, criminal companions," the servant went on, solemnly. "Senor Reade, at no greater distance than this from Don Luis you may be safe from Gato. Yet, if you stroll but a few miles from here Pedro Gato will not so greatly fear the hidalgo. Then Gato will work his own will with you."

"He will, oh?" Tom demanded grimly.

"Of a surety, senor!"

"If I should see Pedro Gato first, he would be likely to come in for another walloping," Tom laughed, dryly.

"But you would not see him, senor. You would hear him only, and Gato's message would be a bullet."

"Can Gato shoot any better than he fights?" smiled Reade.

Bang! An unseen rifle spoke. Judged by the sound the marksman was not more than three hundred yards away.

"Sz-z-z-zz!" the leaden missile sang through the air. It flattened against a rock in front of which the young chief engineer was standing.

"You are answered, _mi caballero_!" cried Nicolas, throwing himself flat on the earth. "Drop to the earth, senor, before the second shot is fired!"

CHAPTER XII

NICOLAS DOES AN ERRAND

Tom did not follow the advice to flatten himself on the ground.

Instead, he stood straighter--even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the shot to have come.

"Gato, you treacherous scoundrel!" Read roared, in Spanish. "Do you call yourself a brave man, to fight an unarmed foe like this?"

All was silent amid the rocks in the distance.