"Yah," nodded Hans, gravely; "I can belief me. You vas all righdt brofessor, und dot is sdraight."
"Wow!" shouted Scotch, bounding to his feet like a rubber ball. "That's what I call great luck! Why, I thought I must be killed sure! I don't know how I escaped all those bullets. And then the fall! Providence must have been with me."
"Vell, I don'd know apoudt dot pefore you come der town in," said Hans; "but you vos alone mit yourself when we saw you, brofessor."
The landlord of the hotel came bustling up in a perfect tumult of terror, wringing his hands and almost weeping.
"Oh, señors!" he cried, in Spanish, "what have you done? You have ruined me! You stopped at my house, and you shoot the ladrones. Ah, señors, you know not what that means to me. Pacheco will come down on me—he will raid my house; I am a ruined man, and you are responsible for it. You must leave my house without delay! If you remain here, the whole town will rise against me! All the people will know this must make Pacheco very angry, and they will know he must take revenge on the place. They will be angry with me because I allow it. Carramba! How could I help it? I could do nothing. It came, and it was all over before I know what was doing. Señors, you must have pity on me—you must leave my house immeditely."
Bushnell caught enough of this to translate it to the others.
"Ther best thing we kin do is ter git out instanter," he said. "Ef we wait, ther outlaws will watch every road out of ther town, an' we'll hev trouble in gittin' away."
"Then let's get away immediately," fluttered the professor. "If I fall into their hands again, I'm a dead man!"
"Yes, we will get out immediately," decided Frank; "but we'll do it as secretly and silently as possible."
Bushnell nodded his satisfaction, and, thirty minutes later, the party was ready to move. They left the hotel by a back way, and, guided by the landlord, made their way along dark and narrow streets, creeping cautiously through the town till the outskirts were reached.