Quintana laughed and seated himself. Sanchez, with a hang-dog glance at him, turned and sneaked back on the trail they had traversed. Before he was out of sight Sard saw him fish out a Spanish knife from his hip pocket and unclasp it.
Almost nauseated, he turned on Quintana in a sort of frightened fury:
"Come on!" he said hoarsely. "I don't want to travel with that man! I won't associate with a ghoul! My God, I'm a respectable business man——"
"Yaas," drawled Quintana, "tha's what I saw always myse'f; my frien'
Sard he is ver' respec'able, an' I trus' him like I trus' myse'f."
However, after a moment, Quintana got up from the fallen tree where he had been seated.
As he passed Sard he looked curiously into the man's frightened eyes.
There was not the slightest doubt that Sard was a coward.
"You shall walk behin' me," remarked Quintana carelessly. "If Sanchez fin' us, it is well; if he shall not, that also is ver' well. … We go, now."
* * * * *
Sanchez made no effort to find them. They had been gone half an hour before he had finished the business that had turned him back.
After that he wandered about hunting for water — a rivulet, a puddle, anything. But the wet ground proved wet only on the surface moss. Sanchez needed more than damp moss for his toilet. Casting about him, hither and thither, for some depression that might indicate a stream, he came to a heavily wooded slope, and descended it.