“Do you wish to go after the man?” asked Enrique Morano.
“Oh, well, you might as well let him go,” yawned Hockley. “If we make another complaint and he is locked up, we may have to stay here as witnesses against him.” Hockley would have liked to see Dan Markel behind the bars but he was afraid that the rascal might tell of some things which would prove discreditable to both of them.
“I’d really like to know if that other man was a victim,” mused Frank, as they continued on their way. “If he is, he ought to be warned.”
There the matter was dropped, and for the time being Dan Markel was forgotten. When they came back to Caracas at nightfall they looked in several directions for the rascal but could catch no sight of him. The truth of the matter was that Markel had recognized several of the boys on the instant of passing them, and although partly intoxicated he still had wit enough left to keep hidden.
The party were to leave for La Guayra at nine in the morning, and the boys were up long before that time, taking a last look at their surroundings. Then came a good breakfast, and soon they were on the cars and winding over and around the mountains which separate the capital city of Venezuela from the seacoast.
“Here is where we had to get off and walk,” said Mark, as the train rushed on. “Do you remember that, Frank?”
“To be sure I do. And I remember how you got lost in a hole under the cliffs, too.”
“Yes, and not far away is the spot where you and Hockley pitched into each other,” whispered Mark, with a sly look at the bully, who sat just ahead. He did not think the lank youth heard, but he was mistaken.
“Raking up old sores, eh?” growled Hockley, swinging around and with his face very red. “I thought all that was to be dropped.”
“It is to be dropped, too, Jake,” answered Mark, quickly.