When they joined the circle, Tonio almost sprang up and shouted. He did make a little jump, but Tita clutched him and held him back. He loosened a pebble at the mouth of the cave by his motion and it clattered down over the rock. The man who had gone for the wood was just putting his load down by the fire when the pebble came rattling down beside him.
“What’s that?” he said, and sprang for his rifle.
Tonio hastily drew in his head. The men all listened intently for a few minutes, and looked cautiously about them.
“It’s nothing but a pebble,” said the Tall Man at last. “No one will disturb us here. And if they should,”—he tapped the handle of his revolver and smiled,—“we’d give them such a warm welcome they would be glad to stay with us—quietly—oh, very quietly!”
The other men grinned a little, as if they [p 138] saw a joke in this, and then they all sat down in a circle around the fire.
II
Pancho and Pedro sat where the children could look right at them. The Tall Man was the only one who did not sit down. He stood up and began to talk.
“Well, men,” he said. “I knew I could count on you! Brave fellows like you know well when a blow must be struck, and where is the true Mexican who was ever afraid to strike a blow when he knew that it was needed?
“We came of a race of fighters! And once Mexico belonged to them! Our Indian forefathers did not serve a race of foreign tyrants as we, their sons, do! Look about you on Mexico! Where in the whole world can be found such a land? The soil so rich that it yields crops that burden the earth, and mountains full of gold and silver and precious stones! And it is for this reason we are enslaved!
[p 139]
“If our land were less rich and less beautiful, if it bore no such crops, if its sunshine were not so bright, and its mountains yielded no such treasure, we should be free men to-day.