They scattered, picking up rocks by instinct and instinctively planning and carrying out their attack without word of common counsel. It was the primitive man, no doubt, aroused by rage; at all events the mule, mechanically grazing, got, next moment, a whack on its rump with a rock that made it squeal and wheel only to get another on its flank. It flung its heels up as if trying to kick heaven.
“Stand clear,” cried Hank. The sack, provender and shovels had fallen to the ground and the mule, seeing an open course and impelled by another rock, was off.
Hank flung himself on the sack. There was no Tommie in it, only seaweed. Candon, recognising this, made off, running after the Mexicans, but something was protruding from the provender bag that was not provender. Hank pulled it out. It was a parcel done up in oil cloth and tied clumsily with tarred string.
“Lord!” cried George. “The boodle!”
The shock of the discovery almost made them forget Tommie for a moment.
“Hounds,” said Hank. “They must have been digging last night after we turned in.”
“And they’ve opened it,” said George. “Look at the way it’s tied up again—and that knot’s a granny. Oh, damn! What’s the use of bothering? We haven’t got her. Hank, clutch a hold of the damned thing and hide it somewhere and come on. Scatter and hunt.”
Candon had made off due east. They heard his voice shouting, “Hi, there, hi there! Tommie! Ahoy there!” Then Hank, throwing the parcel at the foot of a prominent upstanding rock, made off south and Bud north.
The eagle of the Simaloa hills, having fed its young that morning, had returned to its watch tower and from there she saw the hunt. She saw Hank overtaking and kicking a Mexican, Bud chasing another Mexican, Candon pursuing a third. Philosophising, perhaps, on the craziness of human beings, she saw the chase of the Mexicans relinquished and the pursuers each now seemingly in pursuit of something else.
An hour later Hank, returning to the rock where he had flung the bundle, found Bud.