"Now, Señor Hugh, will you give me the details of your plan. How do you propose that the troops are to be close at hand when required without their presence being suspected?"
"The doctor's idea was this, señor. That you should this morning send a letter by a servant to the commandant. Will you tell him that you believe you have a clue to your daughters' hiding-place, but that everything depends upon the troops getting near the spot without suspicion being excited. Will you beg him to maintain an absolute silence as to any movements of the troops until to-night, and to issue no orders until the gates are shut and all communication closed. Will he then order an officer and twenty men to be ready at four o'clock in the morning to start under the guidance of a miner who will to-night arrive at the fort bearing your card.
"This will, of course, be the doctor. Request the officer to place himself absolutely in his hands. Our plan is that they shall keep the other side of the river, travel some thirty miles up, and then halt until nightfall. At that point they would be as far off from the brigands' hiding-place as they are here, and if the fact that a detachment has started becomes known to the friends of the brigands, it will not be suspected that there is any connection between their journey and the affair with your daughters. After nightfall they will start again, cross the river, and meet you and myself at one o'clock, near the village of Ajanco. Thence we shall go up into the hills, rest there all day, and come down upon the gulch where the brigands' haunt lies."
"That sounds an excellent plan, señor; but how do you propose that we shall get away without being noticed to-morrow evening?"
"The doctor and I agreed that the best plan you could adopt would be to ride over and see your banker the first thing in the morning. That will seem perfectly natural. Then in the evening, after dark, you and Don Carlos should again ride down to him. You will naturally take at least four of your men down with you as a guard. You will leave your horses with them when you enter the banker's. You will then pass through his house, and at once leave by the back entrance, wrapped in your cloaks. You will then proceed to a spot half a mile out of the town, where Juan, who you say knows the country, will be waiting with your horses, and I also will be there.
"The people who are watching you—and you will certainly be watched—will naturally suppose that you are at the banker's. At ten o'clock he will come to the door and tell your men to return home with your horses and to bring them back at ten in the morning, as you and your son will sleep there. Even should anything be suspected—which is hardly likely—the scoundrels would have no clue whatever as to the direction you will have taken, as, at any rate, you will have had two hours' start before they can begin to think that anything is wrong."
"That is a capital plan, señor. You keep on adding to our already deep obligations to you."
Everything was carried out in accordance with the arrangements. Hugh returned at once to El Paso, and in the evening the doctor mounted his horse and rode to the fort. The next day passed quietly, and as soon as it became dark Hugh went out to the stable, saddled his horse without seeing any of the men about the yard, and rode off in the direction of Don Ramon's, and then, making a circuit of the town, arrived at the spot where Juan was waiting with the horses. They had been placed in a thicket a short distance from the road so as to be unobserved by anyone who might happen to pass. Hugh took his post close to the road, and an hour later Don Ramon and his son came up. The horses were at once brought out, and they mounted and rode off, Juan riding ahead to show the way.
They maintained a fast pace, for at one o'clock they were to meet the troops at the appointed place. They arrived a quarter of an hour before the time, and ten minutes after the hour heard the tramping of horses. The doctor was riding ahead, and halted when he came up to the group.
"Has all gone well, Lightning?" he asked.