"No," he replied, "I live in Santa Fé. My name is Antonio Martinez. I am on a visit here to my uncle, Señor Galvez, the padron of Hermanos. He is my mother's brother, and as she had not seen him for many years, and as he has always declined to come to us, she sent me here to make his acquaintance. For myself, I had never even seen him until I arrived here two weeks ago, and——"
He checked himself suddenly, looking a little confused; I had an idea that what he was going to say was that he did not much care if he never saw him again.
"And are you expecting to stay here?" asked Dick.
"No, I go back in a day or two. Where do you, yourselves hail from, if I may ask? From Mosby?"
"Yes, from Mosby," replied Dick. "We came down, as my friend said, to do some prospecting up in one or other of these two peaks—we don't know which one yet. How is the country up there? Pretty accessible? You've been up, I suppose."
"No, I haven't," replied the young Mexican. "You think that rather strange, don't you? And naturally enough. Here have I been for two weeks hanging around this village with absolutely nothing to do; I should have been glad enough to make an expedition up into the mountains—in fact, I had a very particular reason for wishing to do so—but when I suggested the idea to the padron, explaining to him why I was so anxious to go, he not only refused emphatically for himself, but declined to let me go either."
"Why, that seems queer!" cried Dick.
"It does, doesn't it? And his reason for refusing will appear to you queerer still—he's afraid!"