"Shiver me! I can't begin to tell you how surprised I am at the way Cassidy is acting—that is, if he's gone into cahoots with this swab of a Fingal for the purpose of backcapping our plans to save one of our own countrymen. What sort of a two-faced bandicoot is Cassidy, anyhow? He must be mighty sore to act like that. But mayhap you're mistaken, Matt."
"I hope I am," returned Matt gravely. "I always liked Cassidy, and I hate to see a good man go wrong in such a way as that."
The boys had dropped their voices to an undertone. While they talked, they hurried ahead along the dim, winding path, keeping their eyes constantly ahead.
Owing to the close growth of trees, but very little sun filtered to the ground below, and a twilight gloom hovered over the narrow way. Matt was in advance, and suddenly he halted, whirled on Dick and pulled him behind a matted vine that hung from a tree beside the path.
"Hist!" whispered Matt, in his chum's ear. "I can hear voices around the turn in the path ahead. Some one is coming this way. Crouch down and perhaps they'll go past without seeing us."
Scarcely breathing, the two boys knelt behind the matted vine, each holding his weapon ready in case they should be discovered and compelled to fight for their freedom.
It was not long before the men whom Matt had heard came straggling around the turn in the path. To their amazement, no less a person than Fingal was at the head of the column. The light was none too good for making observations at a distance, but there could be no mistaking the burly form in the dingy blue cap and coat and dungaree trousers.
Fingal slouched along with the thwartship roll of a sailor with stable ground under him. At his back came half a dozen nondescript men, of various shades of color from coal black to light yellow.
These men, no doubt, formed part of the rebel army. They were all barefooted, their clothes were ragged, and they wore straw hats. Each had a machete strapped about his waist, but there the uniformity of their accoutrements ceased. Two had no arms apart from the machetes; one of the remaining four had a long-barreled, muzzle-loading rifle, and the other three had revolvers. Fingal had no rifle, but there was a belt about his waist that supported a six-shooter over his hip.
The file was still talking as it passed the two boys, but it was Spanish talk and neither Matt nor Dick could understand anything that was said.