Then, with a saddle-gun under his knee and his six-shooter hung at his hip, he rode rapidly down the road, turning out from time to time to let long cavalcades of mules string by. The dead-eyed arrieros, each with his combined mule-blind and whip-lash swinging free, seemed to have very little on their minds but their pack-lashings, and yet they must be three days out from Moctezuma.
Their mules, too, were well loaded with the products of the hot country—fanegas of corn in red leather sacks, oranges and fruits in hand-made crates, panoches of sugar in balanced frames, long joints of sugar-cane for the dulce pedlers, and nothing to indicate either haste or flight.
Three times he let long pack-trains go by without a word, and then at last, overcome by curiosity, he inquired about the revoltosos.
"What revoltosos?" queried the old man to whom he spoke.
"Why, the men of Bernardo Bravo," answered Bud; "the men who are marching to take Moctezuma."
"When I left Moctezuma," returned the old man politely, "all was quiet—there were no revoltosos. Since then, I cannot say."
"But the soldiers!" cried Bud. "Surely you saw them! They were marching to fight the rebels."
"Perhaps so," shrugged the arriero, laying the lash of his topojo across the rump of a mule; "but I know nothing about it."
"No," muttered Bud, as he continued on his way; "and I'll bet nobody else does."
Inquiry showed that in this, too, he was correct. From those who traveled fast and from those who traveled slow he received the same wondering answer—the country might be filled with revoltosos; but as for them, they knew nothing about it.