Gato's explanation about the mule-train had quieted the fears of the bandits as to the approach of troops. In some mountainous parts of Mexico the government's troops are nearly always on the trail of bandits and the petty warfare is a brisk one.
"Go to sleep, my friends. There will be nothing to do until day comes."
"Then, good Gato, take us somewhere off this road," pleaded one of the men. "It is too public here to be to our liking."
"You may go to a quieter place," nodded Gato. "You know where—the place I showed you this afternoon. As for me, after the mule-train has left the mine, I must go there. I will join you before daybreak."
"We'll go now, then," muttered one of the men, rising.
They were coming up the road in the direction of the young engineers. There was no time to retreat. Tom glanced swiftly around. Then he made a sign to Harry. Both young engineers flattened themselves out behind a pile of stones at the roadside. Their biding-place was far from being a safe one. But four drowsy bandits plodded by without espying the eavesdroppers. As for Nicolas, he had vanished like the mist before the sun.
"Ha-ho-hum!" yawned Pedro Gato, audibly.
Tom raised his head, studying their immediate surroundings. He soon fancied he saw a safe way of slipping off to the southward and finding the road again below where Gato stood.
Signing to Hazelton, Reade rose softly and started off. Two or three minutes later the young engineers were a hundred yards away from Gato, though in a rock-littered field where a single incautious step might betray them.
"Come on, now," whispered Tom. "Toward the mine."