Our young friends, too, had come to the end of the plain. Before them stretched a gradual slope leading up into the hills.
“I think we can halt to breathe our horses,” proposed Hal. “What do you say?”
Ramirez nodding, both threw themselves out of saddle to stretch their legs.
“It’s odd that we haven’t met a single passer-by,” commented Hal.
“What else would you expect?” demanded the Cuban, shrugging his shoulders. “Spain has burned down all the country homes, and driven the people into the cities. Even if pacificos had the courage to remain out here in the country, on what could they subsist? There is not enough food out here to feed a rat.”
“They would have almost as much to eat here as in the cities,” remarked Maynard, growing misty-eyed over the remembrance of the thousands of starving Cuban reconcentrados he had seen in Havana. “But we must go on, Juan. The more I think, the hotter my blood becomes. I shall not be happy until I stand under the Cuban flag.”
Ramirez stretched out his hand, grasping our hero’s warmly.
“I can never forget, mi amigo,” he murmured, huskily, “that it was you who gave me the happiness of being able to take to the long grass.”
Mounting again, Hal gave the signal to go forward. Up the slope they moved at a jogging gait, being compelled once more to lead their pack horses.
Hal reached the highest land just in advance of his comrade.