“No. Children sometimes amuse themselves with it if the llama is willing. Rich people give them to their sons occasionally. Christobal probably had his.”
“I would never have believed a llama capable of going so far, and so fast.”
“No pack-llama could. But that was a good one, trained to carry light weights and travel fast. Probably used to being ridden by children.... I wonder where they found it... Your nephew’s horse, too... in the hacienda stables, I suppose.... A tragedy might have been avoided had they not.”
The little party had ridden on, and now, taking a sharp corner, came suddenly upon Dick and the Marquis, the former on foot, and the latter mounted. Little Christobal was not there.
V
Dick was pale, but the Marquis was livid. So they appeared to Natividad; as to Uncle Francis, he had not his glasses on, and noticed nothing disquieting in their appearance.
“Those scoundrels have both my children now,” groaned Don Christobal in answer to Natividad’s eager questions, and told what had happened.
Badly mounted for mountain roads, the Marquis had found great difficulty in following. Several times he had been on the point of abandoning his horse, but, thinking it might be valuable later on, had kept to it. Once or twice he had been obliged to dismount and drag the unwilling beast behind him. At dawn, he reached the Indians’ camp, which he searched in vain for some personal sign of his daughter. She was evidently too well guarded. Finally he found the llama’s body, but being convinced that Dick was with little Christobal, had not worried overmuch. Then, a little further on, he found Dick, but alone.