Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/239

 CHAPTER XLII.

"EL TERREDO."

Ashley waits until he believes that Capt. Alvarez and his men have got fairly on their way toward Jibana; then he mounts Rozinante and rides back to the hotel.

Half a mile to the eastward, the landlord tells him, a trail leads off into the mountains. Ashley remembers passing it in the morning. Fortifying himself with a dinner, he sets forth.

After he strikes the mountain path, his progress is slow and painful. It is a dreary road, steep and treacherous. About him nothing but rocks, red clay, cactus and bog and a stunted growth of trees.

Ashley left the hotel in the vicinity of 1 o'clock, and by 3 he has hardly covered four miles. "If I do not secure reinforcements within the hour I must 'bout face and ride to Jibana," he reflects. "A man could never find his way out of this howling wilderness after night-*fall! Jove! It must have been a matter of urgent importance that necessitated the dispatching of Don Carlos to Jibana. Poor little chap!" he mutters, and as he thinks of young Navarro lying under the stars with a bullet through his heart, he urges Rozinante at a dangerous pace.

Another half-hour goes by. Ashley is now in the mountains, and yet no living being has he seen to break the depressive solitude. Suddenly there rings out the command:

"Alto, ahi!"

Ashley checks his horse, looks about him and discovers that he is the center of a circle of leveled muskets, the owners of which are hidden from view.

"All right, gentlemen, I'm out," announces Jack, cheerfully, as he removes his eye-glasses and wipes the dust and moisture from them.

Forth from the bushes steps a gaunt Cuban, in a tat