Though the sky was moonless, there were stars. By their light I could distinguish something white above and beyond the pine-covered track. It looked like a patch of fleecy cloud.
“That ere’s the buzzum o’ the White Woman,” remarked the guide, seeing what my eyes were fixed upon. “She lies jest beyont the big black mountain. There’s only a sort o’ a ridge atween ’em.”
“Ixticihuatl!” I said, now recognising the snowy summit. “You don’t mean that the robbers are gone up there?”
“Not so fur as that. If they war, we shed have a climb for it. The place I’m speakin’ o’ is in that dark gulley ye see straight afore you. It’s this side the lower end o’ it whar I’m to meet thar messenger, and deliver up the dollars. That’s jest why I think we might find them at the shanty I’ve told ye about.”
“There can be no harm in our going there?”
“I reckon not,” answered the guide, reflectingly. “If we don’t find ’em thar, we kin get back to the bottom afore daylight, an’ then carry out the other plan. Thar’s one thing we’ve got to do, afore we reach that ere shanty. We’ve got to hev a climb for it; and the last quarter o’ a mile ’ll hev to be made upon Shanks’s mare.”
“No matter for that,” I said, impatient to proceed. “You lead the way. I’ll answer for myself and men being able to follow you.”
“I ain’t afeerd beout that,” rejoined Don Samuel Bruno. “But mind, cap’n!” added he, in the exercise of his Yankee caution, “I haint said we’ll find them thar—only thet it air likely. All events it air worth while tryin’—considerin’ sech a sweet gurl as she air in the hands o’ sech ruffins. She oughter be tuk from ’em anyhow—an’ at any price!”
I needed not to ask him which was meant by the “sweet gurl.” Too well did I divine that it was Dolores.
“Lead on!” I exclaimed, giving the spur to my horse, and the “Forward” to my followers.