Antonio briefly told him our story.
"Hm!" grunted the padron, glowering at us from under his bushy eyebrows. "But what are these boys skulking around here for? They don't pretend, I suppose, that they have come all the way down from Mosby just to tell me they have seen El Tejon."
"Not at all," replied Antonio, with considerable spirit. "They are gentlemen, and they don't pretend anything. That bigger one of the two, the freckled one with the hook-nose and red hair"—it was Dick he meant, and intense was my desire to wink at him and laugh—"that one passed through here before; he noticed how every house contained its copper bowl and dipper—just as I did—and he has come down here with his friend—just as I wanted to do—to try to find out where the copper came from. We have had a long talk about it, and we have concluded that it probably came from somewhere up on the north peak. What I brought them down here for was to ask you whether you thought The Badger would let them alone if they went up there—that's all."
"That's all, is it? Well, perhaps it is. But I'm suspicious of strangers, Antonio, especially since——"
He paused, seemingly considering whether he should or should not mention the subject he had in mind, but at length—evidently supposing that we could not understand what he was saying—he went on:
"I had not intended to say anything to you about it, but three days ago—the day you rode over to Zapatero to spend the night—something occurred here which makes me rather uneasy. I had been away all day myself that day and on my return I found a young man in the village who had come, he said, from Santa Fé. For a young man to come to this out-of-the-way place, all alone, from Santa Fé, or from anywhere else, for that matter, was a strange thing: it made me suspicious that he was after no good. And I became more than suspicious when I found that he had spent the day going from one house to another inquiring after El Tejon!"
"Inquiring after El Tejon!" repeated Antonio. "That was strange; especially considering that El Tejon has been practically dead for a dozen years. Did he offer any explanation?"
"No. To tell the truth, I did not give him the opportunity. When I found out what he was doing, how he had slipped into the village during my absence and had gone prying about among these ignorant peons, asking questions concerning my enemy, I was so enraged that I threatened to shoot him if he did not depart at once. I made a mistake there, I admit; if I had curbed my anger, I might have found out what his object was. But I did not, so there is no more to be said."
"That was unfortunate," said Antonio; "but, as you say, it can't be helped now. So the stranger went off, did he? Did he return to——"
"No, he didn't," Galvez interrupted, "or, at any rate, not immediately. I'll tell you how I know. I was so distrustful of him that I followed his trail next morning—it was dark when he left, and I couldn't do it then. It was an easy trail to follow, for his horse was shod, and ours, of course, are not. It led eastward for a mile and then turned back, circled round the village and went up into the north mountain. I have not seen him, nor a trace of him since."