Chapter Thirty Six.
The Bandits at Bay.
I went not without a guide, else I might have climbed Ixticihuatl in vain.
The stage-driver still acted in this capacity. By good fortune he had made the ascent before—on some speculative expedition during a recess, when the ribbons were out of his hands; and he knew of a second “robbers’ nest” still higher up than that chosen as the scene of the nuptials.
It was a lone log hut, the residence of a reputed charcoal burner; but the situation was too high to be convenient for charcoal burning; and, in Sam Brown’s opinion, the “carbonero” was in reality a bandolero.
There was just a chance we might find Carrasco at this hut; if not, somewhere else among the mountains.
How different were the feelings with which I now prosecuted the search. No longer indifferent about the escape of the robbers, I was determined on tracking them up, if I should have to traverse every defile in the Cordillera, or climb to the summit of Popocatepec!
Like a second Ordaz, I could have plunged into its fiery crater to rescue the captive, who but a short hour before might have leaped into it, without my stretching forth a hand to restrain her!
It was all changed now. The wound, that had been bleeding for six long months, had become suddenly cicatrised. A load seemed lifted from my heart.
I felt light and lithe as I sprang up the acclivity. No Alpine climber could have equalled me in energy: for never went one with such a purpose to stimulate his strength. It were a trite triumph to scale the summit of the Matterhorn, compared with that of rescuing Mercedes Villa-Señor!