CHAPTER XI
A PIECE OF LEAD IN THE AIR
"Get your wind back," advised Tom. "Also ease your shoulder a bit."
"And then?"
"We'll carry the trunks up the slope and dump them in some depression in the rock."
"What's the use of the trunks, anyway?" Harry wanted to know. "No one else will shelter us in this country. We can't get a wagon to take our trunks away in. Surely, you don't intend to shoulder these trunks to the railway station—seventy miles away?"
"No," Reade admitted. "We'll have to abandon our trunks. All I wanted to be sure about was to get them out of Don Luis's house. And now I am just as anxious to get them out of sight of his porch. As long as the trunks stand here they'll tell Don Luis of our discomfort. I don't want that thieving rascal to have the satisfaction even of laughing at our trunks."
"All right, if that's the way you feel about it," Hazelton grunted.
"I'm ready to shoulder mine."
"Come along, then," Tom nodded. "Up the slope we go."
Their climb was a hard one. But at last they halted, dropping their heavy baggage on a flat surface of rock that was not visible from the big white house. Then up a little higher the now unencumbered engineers trod. When they halted they could see far and wide over this strange country.