A week later the little cavalcade was returning to the estancia, having paid the last of their visits.
"On the whole we have been very successful," said Dudley, as he and Harold rode side by side. "We have interviewed all the ranchers our employer sent us to see, and they have agreed to bring their men at once should they receive a signal. At the same time we have arranged to keep one another informed of the movements of the natives and of any strange whites. By the way, I can't say I like that last fellow we went to see."
"Nor I," was the prompt answer. "He was a surly beggar, and I caught him many a time scowling at you, Dud. I thought, too, that his promises were not sincere. He seemed eager to hear all about this intended organization of the ranchers, and yet gave me the impression that he cared little what became of those owning estancias on either side of him."
"Of whom Mr. Blunt is one, Harold. Yes, I too thought the man queer. We will ask Pepito about him."
A call brought the gaucho cantering up at once, and in a minute he was ambling along beside our hero.
"I can tell you little about the owner of the last estancia we visited, señor," he said. "There is no love between his men and ours, and were it not for the belt of forest which divides us I think there would be trouble. As it is, our gauchos have met those from the estancia we speak of, down in the settlements, and knives have been drawn, and shots fired. It is even whispered, señor, that those who pose as gauchos are merely robbers. One of the men here can tell a tale which will open your ears."
"Then call him," was the prompt answer.
A short and very swarthy gaucho galloped up at Pepito's call, and sat his horse jauntily beside Dudley while Pepito interpreted what he had to say.
"This man says that once he met a gaucho down at the cattle station on the river, and heard more than he was intended to hear. The fellow had a pocketful of money, and spoke over freely in his cups. He said enough in any case to show our friend here that service on this estancia from which we are now riding was far more profitable than service elsewhere. He scoffed at the very name of ranching, and hinted that there was other work."
"Other work! What can that have been?" asked Dudley curiously, for to tell the truth the impression he had gained of the last estancia owner he had interviewed was not very good. The fellow had been curt and almost openly rude. He was a swarthy, truculent man, short of stature, broad, and with a decidedly unpleasant cast of countenance. As to his nationality, he was in all probability an Italian. He could speak English fairly well, and Harold, who watched him closely, could have sworn that the fellow had an antipathy to all that was English. In fact, after the interview was over, the two left the house with a feeling of doubt, vaguely wondering whether the individual who lived there would even lift a finger if his neighbors were attacked.