“Eh, Perico!” cried he, speaking loud enough to be heard by the men.
“Hola! Who calls me?” responded Perico.
“I—Juan el Zapote.”
“Zapote! how is it that you are here? Where did you come from?”
“From the camp,” replied Zapote, with wondrous impudence. “Our Captain has sent—”
“Oh! the Captain knows, then, that we are in pursuit of a royalist who has taken shelter in the chapparal? We have had a time of it after him, and he’s not found yet. We have scoured the thicket all the night in search of his hiding-place; and, out of ten of us who came after him, eight only remain. Two, Suarez and Pacheco, he has killed somewhere; but if I may judge by the signal cries to which we have responded, there should be at least twenty of our comrades at present looking after him.”
At this moment another man joined company with the three already on the ground. Fortunately for Juan el Zapote and the messenger, these four were precisely the same whom Pepe Lobos had ordered to go round by the Huajapam road, and as they had not yet been in communication with the party from the camp, they were ignorant of the fact that their old comrade, Zapote, was himself being pursued as a deserter. “Well,” continued Zapote, “as I was saying, our Captain has sent me on an errand with my companion, Gaspar, here; and we are in the greatest haste.”
“What errand?” demanded Perico.
“Carrambo! A secret mission; one that I daren’t disclose to you. Adios, amigo! I am in a terrible hurry.”
“Before you go,” cried one of the men, “tell us if you saw anybody?”