"This is getting hot," thought the youth, and started to retreat, when he heard more soldiers coming from the direction of the cave. As there now seemed no help for it, he crossed the trail and plunged along a side path, leading eastward,—a trail running directly to Guantanamo.
Walter felt that the best thing to be done was to put distance between himself and his enemies, and he did not stop running until several miles had been covered. He had, meanwhile, crossed one small mountain stream, and now he found himself on the bank of another. There was no bridge, and the watercourse looked rather dangerous to ford.
"I might as well follow the bank down to the ocean," he reasoned. "But I must have something to eat first." And finding a secluded nook, he built a tiny fire and broiled his two little birds, both of which made hardly a meal. Then, obtaining the purest drink possible from the river, he continued his journey.
By nightfall Walter had covered many miles, yet no ocean came to view, and now he felt that he must be lost in the wilds of the island. As this conclusion forced itself home to him he smiled grimly.
"Lost in Cuba, and I came down here to help man a gun on the Brooklyn," he muttered. "Was there ever such a turning-around before! I wonder what I had best do next."
This was not an easy question to answer. It was already dark under the thick trees, and to spend the night in such a spot was not pleasant to contemplate.
At last he came to a clearing. Here he was about to settle down, under the shelter of a small cliff of rocks, when something appeared that caused him to yell with all the strength of his lungs. It was a snake, five feet long, and it advanced rapidly, hissing as it came.
Walter had met snakes before, harmless reptiles not half as big as the present one. But he did not know but that this reptile might be poisonous, and gaining the top of the rocks he blazed away with the pistol, not once, but several times. The last shot hit the snake in the tail, and away it darted, out of sight and into the river.
"Ugh! what a horrible creature!" he murmured, as he stood still, watching for the possible reappearance of the reptile. "I wish I was out of this. I'd give a year's wages to be safe on board of the Brooklyn once more."
The words had just left Walter's lips, when he heard a movement behind him. Turning swiftly, he beheld a Spanish soldier gazing at him from a distance of less than fifty feet. The soldier had his rifle, and now the weapon was aimed at the boy's head.