In two minutes more our friends had covered over half a mile.
“I heard yells,” muttered Hal, looking backward over his shoulder.
Ramirez looked, too, then broke into a hearty laugh.
Back on a hill, near the mouth of the ravine, they saw a sight calculated to inspire mirth.
Spanish soldiers, some of them nude and many half-dressed, dotted the hill.
In the first fright of surprise, these men had fled. Then, finding that none of their number were killed, and that no foe pursued, they had halted, turned about.
They had probably found their four dead comrades, and must have divined, from the absence of such footmarks as a battalion would have made, that they had been tricked.
So they had pursued until now they had reached a spot whence they were able to see the exact strength of the attacking force.
Frantic shouts now rent the air, reaching our young friends even at that distance.
In the lead of all the Spaniards, Hal could make out the uniform of the Spanish colonel.