As their jaded ponies took doggedly the initial rise, the younger and taller of the two policemen—he called Miguel—drew from his breast a yellow paper on which was mimeographed a copy of a typewritten telegram. He commenced to read aloud.
The great Manuel Morales—his full cuadrilla—an American, the Senor Don John Fremont Carson, and a Frenchman, name unknown. It is especially important that you discover news of the American, Carson; he is a millionaire and of high social position in his own country. Both the American Ambassador and the Bank of Spain desire to ascertain his whereabouts, his reason for carrying such a large sum of money upon his person, and his purpose in setting off into the wilderness. The Bank of Spain is also much interested in the well-being of Manuel Morales, for he also withdrew a large account by telegraph before disappearing from sight.
The nine men left the Seville-to-Madrid at Alcazar de San Juan, four days ago, secured horses and enough provisions to last them a week and, traveling together, rode southward towards the Sierra Morena. They were well-armed, having bought carbines and automatic pistols from the Jewish cacique of Alcazar, Dicenta. They told no one their errand. They took no guides.
You of the Guardia Civil, find them and give them escort. Report all information to me—Echegaray, Ministro de Gobernacion.
He looked up now, the young smooth-faced policeman who had been reading, and turned his handsome head to gaze back over the long monotony of purgatorial desert. It was the words, scribbled in ink in a strong hand and added like a postscript or annotation to the telegraphed instructions, which he went on to read aloud now:
They are somewhere in Ciudad Real or Jaen. The country they are traversing is lawless and sparsely-populated, a country infested with ladrones, among whom the most notable is the notorious Quesada.
Spain will never forgive us if any harm should come to the great Morales. And we must answer to the American Ambassador should this John Fremont Carson be not safeguarded. The Constabulary will please give its most careful attention to the search.—Alvarez, Captain-General of the Guardia Civil for the District.
Putting the yellow paper back in the breast of his tight blue jacket faced with red, the younger policeman, Miguel, rode on up the slope beside his compañero?—a squat, fiercely mustached and apelike fellow.
"Pascual," he asked presently, "would you know that magnificent one, Morales, should you meet him face to face—"
"Seguramente, yes! Have I not watched him murder a thousand bulls?"
Then, thoughtfully, the apelike one added:
"Once we chance upon their spoor, once we scent them from afar, it should be a most simple matter for us of the Guardia Civil to run down these fools-errant of Manuel Morales. We know these plains and foothills; they do not. And they are a large troop and must make a great to-do of noise and dust whenever they move about. It is not as though we seek a bandolero riding alone, friend Miguel. A bandolero riding alone is a very fox to catch!"
"Ah, that Jacinto Quesada!" ejaculated the other with boyish enthusiasm. "Is not he the crafty lizard, the sly tricky one? He has given us more work to do than any twenty other lawbreakers in Spain. If Morales and his fools-errant—as you call them, Pascual—conceal their movements but half so well as does he, we will be chasing will-o'-the-wisps for the next hundred years! But, by the way, Pascual, could you describe Jacinto Quesada to me?"