The peon nodded.
"To me it is equal where the señor goes, so long as I am paid for the days we spend upon the road."
"Very well," said Cliffe, taking out a handful of silver. "Do you know Don Martin Sarmiento?"
The peon looked doubtful, and Cliffe saw that, as he had suspected, the fellow had some dealings with the President's enemies.
"Don Martin is known to many," he replied cautiously.
Cliffe jingled the silver and awkwardly explained that he was no longer a friend of the President's and wished to see Sarmiento as soon as he could.
For a time the muleteer did not speak; then he looked up with an air of decision.
"It may be difficult, señor, but we will try," he said, and jerking the pack-mule's bridle abruptly left the road.
They passed through a coffee plantation and a field of sugar-cane, and then as they reached thick forest the muleteer stopped and indicated the road that wound in loops down the hillside.
"It is well the President should think we have gone that way," he remarked with a smile. "He has, no doubt, been told how we left the town."