"Jacinto Quesada!"
Minas de la Sierra was a long distance above and far back in the sierras. With great surprise the bandolero recognized the child to whom he had waved a hand and called a laughing "á Dios" some time before.
"Are you alone?" The carbine still threatened.
"See for yourself, maestro! But I am altogether alone."
The bandolero rode nearer. When the horse shouldered up, the little Jacinto was compelled to squeeze into the very crevices of the rock wall, so narrow was the path.
From his lofty seat on the big, rawboned black horse, Pernales looked down at the son of the widow Quesada and measured, with his eyes, the boy's extreme youthfulness and preposterous lack of strength and size. Jacinto was only thirteen years old.
What he saw altogether reassured Pernales. His blue eyes twinkled; he smiled; he grinned, his lips working and twitching; and at last he broke out in a frank and free burst of laughter.
"Cascaras!" he roared, between guffaws. "How came you here, lively little one? Have you the sharp hoofs of the ibex to gallop you from crag to crag, across gorges and gargantas and all? Or have you the griffon vulture's wings that you may fly over mountains? You are no real flesh and blood child! You are a sprite, a—"
Jacinto Quesada, imperious with a great desire, brushed his bantering words aside. Trembling with eagerness, he cried:
"Take me with you, Pernales! I would be a bandolero, too! Lift me up behind you on your horse, and I will go with you through Spain and be your compañero and your dorado—your golden one, your trustworthy one! Take me with you, please, please, Pernales!"