At that moment a renewed outburst of cheering signalized the advent in the arena of the bull which Juan Salento would be called on to fight, and big Bob heaved a sigh.
“Golly, listen to that. Did we come out here on a wild goose chase? I don’t believe those two rascals are going to appear, after all. And we’ll go and miss the fight.”
But hardly had he completed his lament than Captain Cornell’s warning voice ordered him to stoop below the side of the car, and Bob crouched down. None too soon, if he wanted to escape being seen, for two figures emerged from the exit and stood looking about. There was no mistaking them.
Bob was too busy watching through eyes which just topped the side of the car that hid him from view, to talk. He wondered what they would do, but was not long left in doubt. Apparently satisfied, after a long look behind him up the stairway, that he was not for the moment pursued, Ramirez started to cross the road.
He did not head directly toward the position where the two Americans crouched in hiding, but, instead, made an almost straight line from the exit. This enabled the two in hiding to keep the body of the car between them. Ramirez would reach the parked cars, however, not twenty-five feet away.
Captain Cornell did some rapid thinking. How to keep his quarry in sight would be a problem if, as he suspected, Ramirez got into his own car. The two Mexicans would drive off, and—
“Hey,” whispered Bob, “if they have a car here, we’ll be out of luck, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless we steal one and follow. This flivver right here isn’t locked. And you can start her battery with almost any old key,” said Bob.
“Good boy,” approved the army man. “We may have to do that very thing. Some poor devil would be out a car, but, of course, we could square that. And there’s not much chance,” he added, thinking fast, “that he’d discover his loss and start the police on our track before the end of the bull fight. By which time we ought to be all right, hey?”