"By whom?" the gambusino impudently asked.
"By you, perhaps," the squatter answered furiously.
Andrés began laughing.
"You are mad, Red Cedar," he said: "danger has made you lose your head. You know very well that I have not stirred from here."
The reasoning was unanswerable.
"And yet, I would swear that one of us has been the traitor," the squatter continued passionately.
"Instead of recriminating as you are doing," Andrés said, with an accent of wounded dignity, perfectly played, "you would do better to fly. You are too old a fox to have only one hole to your earth—all the issues cannot be occupied, hang it all: while you are escaping, I, who cannot walk, will cover the retreat, and you will thus see whether I was the traitor."
"You will do that?"
"I will."
"Then you are a man, and I restore you my friendship."