"Look sharp, then."
The young man stooped, took the gambusino in his arms, and laid him across his shoulders as easily as if he had been a child. Ten minutes later Andrés Garote was in the cavern lying before the fire, and Fray Ambrosio was bandaging up his arm.
"Well, gossip," the monk said, "you have been very cleverly wounded."
"Why so?" the Mexican asked in alarm.
"Why, a wound in the left arm will not prevent your firing a shot with us in case of an alarm."
"I will do so, you may be sure," he replied, with a singular accent.
"With all that, you have not told me by what chance you were on the mountain," Red Cedar remarked.
"It was simple; since the destruction and dispersion of our poor cuadrilla, I have been wandering about in every direction like a masterless dog; hunted by the Indians to take my scalp, pursued by the whites to be hanged, as forming part of Red Cedar's band, I did not know where to find shelter. About three days back chance brought me to this sierra; tonight, at the moment I was going to sleep, after eating a mouthful, a fellow whom the darkness prevented me recognising, suddenly threw himself on me; you know the rest—but no matter, I settled his little score."
"Good, good," Red Cedar quickly interrupted him, "keep that to yourself; now, good night, you must need rest; so sleep, if you can."
The gambusino's stratagem was too simple and at the same time too cleverly carried out, not to succeed. No one can suppose that an individual would voluntarily, give himself a serious wound, and any suspicions on Red Cedar's part were entirely dissipated by the sight of Don Pablo's hat. How could he suppose that two men of such different character and position should be working together? Anything was credible but that. Hence the bandits, who recognised in Garote one of themselves, did not at all distrust him.