“I wish I could find out who originated this plan,” quoth Jack, murderously. “But I suppose it’s one of you girls, and I can’t revenge myself. Oh, when will this barrier between the sexes be removed!”
“I trust not in your lifetime,” shuddered Polly, “or we might as well begin to ‘stand round our dying beds’ at once.”
CHAPTER II
THE JOURNEY
“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness.”
Whatever the distance was in reality, the steamer had consumed more time than usual, and it was quite two o’clock, instead of half-past twelve, as they had expected, before they were landed on the old and almost forgotten pier, and saw the smoke of the Orizaba as she steamed away.
After counting over their bags and packages to see if anything had been forgotten, they looked about them.
There was a dirty little settlement, a mile or two to the south, consisting of a collection of tumble-down adobe houses which looked like a blotch on the brown hillside; a few cattle were browsing near by, and the locality seemed to be well supplied with lizards, which darted over the dusty ground in all directions. But the startling point of the landscape was that it showed no sign of human life, and Pancho’s orders had been to have Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega and his wood-cart on hand promptly at half-past twelve.
“Can Pancho have forgotten?”
“Can he have lost his way and never arrived here at all?”