"You are going to desolate us, Jacintito, by absenting yourself?"
"And you are not going to help us assault the hidalgo doctor's casa with bell and book and ring?" from Morales.
Said the American with quiet appeal, "I intended you for my best man, Jacinto."
But to all Quesada shook his head in dissent.
"Down in Getafe," he returned, "there are ten thousand pesetas awaiting me—the reward for my own death!"
"But that affair of the Christ of the Pass!" exclaimed Carson. "You there proclaimed yourself to the police as still alive. The Guardia Civil must know now that Montara and the dead sergeant made a mistake. They may even guess it was Ferou that was killed. To go to Getafe, after all this, will be to put your head into a noose!"
Quesada smiled grimly.
"But they may have taken me for a rank impostor. They may have thought me some serrano friend of the Alvarados who, overhearing the old mother's story and lacking ingenuity, announced myself as Jacinto Quesada just to dumbfound the police and save poor Miguel."
"Hardly likely," remarked Carson drily.
"Ea pues!" exclaimed Quesada. "Well, then! How about the fact that the honor of the Guardia Civil was jeopardized by young Alvarado's treachery and that, before my very eyes, Capitan Luis Guevara and his troop swore themselves to secrecy? Senor Carson, you do not know the Spanish police as do I. Even as Don Jaime and Sargento Esteban Alvarado thought more of their personal honor than they did of the lives of their offspring, even and just so do the Guardia Civil think more of their honor and good name than they do of capturing a mere bandolero, of keeping secure the peace of Spain!