“I thought I was doing a big thing,” he muttered. “Now I see I might better have followed the man.”
“You have done a big thing,” said the lieutenant; “and, to show my appreciation of what you have done, I am going to send all the pickets for half a mile down the river to hunt the man. If any of your friends should slip across the river at that point, I shall not know it. And now, I’d advise you to hunt up Captain Peak and go to bed—that is, unless you and he should decide to do a little more scout duty before daylight.”
Billie was not slow to take the hint, and started for the hotel. He had not gone twenty paces when the two troopers who had ridden in with him overtook him.
“Just tell Captain Peak,” said one of them, “that there’ll be ten of us waiting for you down below the custom house. We’ll be in our shirt-sleeves, as it wouldn’t do to be found dead in our uniforms if anything should happen.”
Billie’s heart gave a great bound. “I see,” he said. “You won’t have to wait long.”
Five minutes later he was in Captain Peak’s room telling his story. In another ten minutes the two of them emerged from the hotel and walked swiftly down the street. In still another ten minutes, men who looked like cowboys, but each carrying a Winchester, might have been seen going toward the river below the custom house. Half an hour later the streets again took on a deserted appearance, save for the two or three policemen who suddenly emerged from unknown quarters and resumed their beats.
[CHAPTER XXIX.—IN THE DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN.]
Promptly at the appointed hour—the darkest hour in the whole twenty-four, the hour before dawn—Pancho Villa appeared at the door of General Sanchez’s headquarters. Almost simultaneously General Sanchez appeared in the doorway.
“Is everything in readiness?” he inquired, as he recognized Villa.
“Everything but the men, general.”