The trampling of their pursuer's horses could, in fact, now be heard quite distinctly in the gulch below. Suddenly all sound ceased.
"They've stopped to listen," whispered Jack. "I only hope they hear our horses up ahead."
Apparently the searchers did hear, for, after a brief pause, on they came again. As nearly as the boys could judge, there seemed to be several of them. They made a formidable noise, as they came crashing along below. Hardly daring to breathe, the boys crouched back into their retreat. Their nerves were strung as taut as vibrating electric wires, their hearts pounded till they shook their frames. The crucial moment was at hand.
If the insurrectos passed the cave-mouth without glancing upward and noticing it, the boys were out of the most imminent part of their peril. If, on the other hand—but none of the party concealed in the cave dared to think of that.
On came the trampling, and now it was quite near. A few moments would decide it all. Voices could be distinguished now. Among them the boys recognized the quiet tones of Madero himself.
"You say, Señor Harding," he said, using English, "that those boys came this way?"
"I am almost certain of it, general," returned the voice of the traitor. "I saw their tracks, and, as you know, called your attention to them."
"If you find them, Harding, you shall have the reward I promised. I would not have them slip through my fingers now for anything in the world. Merrill's son, you said, was one of them, Señor Ramon?"
"Yes," rejoined another of the horsemen, "and the young brat is as slippery as an eel. He and this Coyote Pete, as they call him, escaped me once before in the Grizzly Pass. I have a debt to even up with both of them."
Ramon did not mention the hidden treasure of the mission. Perhaps he had reason to fear that to do so would be to bring the anger of General Madero upon him, for he was now apparently posing as a patriot and an active insurrecto agent.