“Yes, dree—two Cubans and an Americano.”
“My father!” I cried. “Oh, Captain Guerez, cannot we overtake them before they manage to get him to some fort or prison?”
“We’ll try our best, Mark,” replied Alano’s father.
“Why can’t we travel after them at once?” put in Alano, fairly taking the words out of my mouth.
“We will,” replied his father. “The long noontime rest has left our horses still fresh. Forward, all of you! We will take a short cut, and not visit Rodania at all.”
During the halt I had taken the opportunity to brush off my clothing, which was now thoroughly dry. I had taken a bath at noon, so now felt once more like myself, although several blisters on my neck and hands, received from the fire, hurt not a little. I told Jorge of the bums, and he ran into the woods for several species of moss, which he crushed between two rocks, putting the crushed pulp on the blisters.
“Take burn out soon,” he announced; and he was right. In less than half an hour after the application was made the smarting entirely ceased.
We were now in the depths of a valley back of Rodania, and here the trail (they are called roads in Cuba, but they are only trails, and sometimes hardly that) was so choked up with vines and so soft that our progress was greatly impeded, and about eight o’clock we came to a halt in the darkness.
“The mud beyond is all of two feet deep, and we can’t get through it,” declared one of the men, who had been sent in advance. “We’ll have to go back.”
This was discouraging news, and I looked in perplexity at Alano’s father, whose brow contracted.