"Why force me to speak, my children?" the hunter answered in a saddened voice. "The secret you ask of me is not mine. If your father did not impart his plans to you, it was doubtless because weighty reasons oppose it. Do not force me to render you more sorrowful by telling you things you ought not to know."
"But I am not a child," Don Pablo exclaimed. "It seems tome that my father ought not to have thus held his confidence from me."
"Do not accuse your father, my friend," Valentine answered gravely: "probably he could not have acted otherwise."
"Valentine, Valentine! I will not accept those poor reasons," the young man urged. "In the name of our friendship I insist on your explaining yourself."
"Silence!" the hunter suddenly interrupted him. "I hear suspicious sounds around us."
The three travellers stopped and listened, but all was quiet. The hacienda was about five hundred yards at the most from the spot where they halted. Don Pablo and Doña Clara heard nothing, but Valentine made them a sign to remain quiet; then he dismounted and placed his ear to the ground.
"Follow me," he said. "Something is happening here which I cannot make out; but it alarms me."
The young people obeyed without hesitation; but they had only gone a few paces when Valentine stopped again.
"Are your weapons loaded?" he sharply asked Don Pablo.
"Yes."