“Tell him my mules are of more consequence than his bark gatherers,” said the colonel, “and that I insist upon the mules being moved.”
There was a laboured interpretation, a short buzz of conversation, and then a reply came through Diego that the head-man would obey the white chief’s orders, and remove the mules to better pasture; but it could not be there, in the place he wished.
“Tell him anywhere, so long as the poor beasts are properly fed.”
The colonel stalked away, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm, the Indians giving place obsequiously; but he turned back to Cyril. “Tell John Manning to stop and see where they are driven, and then come and report to me.—You two follow.”
Cyril gave the colonel’s orders, and then went after him to the hut, where they sat waiting for nearly an hour before Manning arrived.
“Well, where are the mules?”
“They’ve driven ’em out of the bit of forest, sir, and down on the other side toward the slope of that big valley.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the colonel; and then, after a pause, “The very spot.”
“But you said the other side,” said Cyril; “at the back of their huts.”
“Where I knew they would not have them,” said the colonel. “It looked to them, in their childish cunning, like an attempt on my part to get the animals down toward the point from which we came; and, of course, they would not do that. I hardly expected such good fortune, boys; but the mules are in the very place I wish. Now we have to devise a means of getting those mules loaded unseen, and then starting off down the valley as soon after dark to-morrow night as possible.”