Montez could afford to be cheerful. He knew that he had triumphed.
CHAPTER XVI
TWO VICTIMS OF ROSY THOUGHTS
"There is one thing about it," remarked Reade, as he rose and stood at the doorway of the tent. "We're not being overworked."
"Nor are we getting awfully rich, as the weeks go by, either," smiled Harry.
"No; but we're puppets in a game that interests me about as much as any that I ever saw played," Tom smiled back.
"This game—interests you?" queried Harry, looking astonished. "That is a new idea to me, Tom. I never knew you to be interested, before, in any game that wasn't directly connected with some great ambition."
"We have a great ambition at present."
"I'd like to know what it is," grumbled Harry. "It's three weeks since that scoundrel, Don Luis, brought us back in triumph. We refused to enter his house as guests, and started to camp in the open in these two old tents that Nicolas secured for us. In all these three weeks we haven't done a tap of work. We haven't studied, or read because we have no books. We sleep, eat, and then sleep some more. When we get tired of everything else we go out and trudge over the hills, being careful not to get too far, lest we run into the guns of Gato and his comrades, for undoubtedly Gato was turned loose as soon as he was lost to our sight. We don't do anything like work, and we're not even arranging any work for the future. Yet you say that you're boosting your ambitions."
"I am," Tom nodded solemnly. "Harry, isn't it just as great an ambition to be an honest engineer as it is to be a highly capable one?"