Frank soon followed the three and Hockley did the same. The bully presently ranged up beside the smaller youth.
“Just you wait, I’ll get square yet,” he said, in a low tone.
“I’m not afraid of you,” retorted Frank, who was satisfied that he had fully “kept up his end of the log,” as the saying is.
“The next time we come to blows I’ll not be so easy on you,” went on Hockley. He was very angry to think that the smaller boy had not been afraid of him.
“Perhaps I won’t be so easy either, Hockley,” was Frank’s answer, and then he ran on, to aid the others in getting Mark to the mule path.
Down on the path they found the native, a little, dried-up old Venezuelan, who had seven mules in his charge. The patient little beasts were scarcely higher than Darry’s shoulder. Four had been unloaded but the others stood in the road with loads of sugarcane cuttings so large that only their eyes and noses could be seen.
“Gracious what loads!” murmured Darry, as he gazed at the mules.
“These mules will carry about all you can put on them,” said the professor, with a smile. “I have seen one mule carrying three men, and trotting along at that.”
The mules to be used by our friends were soon ready, and then Mark was placed on the back of the one the native said was the best. Presently all were “aboard,” as Darry expressed it, and the native led the procession in the direction of Caracas.
They could already see the outskirts of the city, which is located on the southern slope of the La Silla Mountain. To every side were mountain peaks, with here and there a small valley with streams of water of more or less importance. On the sides of the mule path were plantains and palms, and further out the sugar and coffee plantations, with their queer little huts and houses of pink, blue, and white.