'I've never seen the regular troops wearing them,' he said. 'Did you notice that the stripes were vertical! That means that they are President's men. The de Costa's colours are black and green, but the stripes are worn horizontally, and of course they aren't allowed to wear them.'
He shook his head very ominously.
'Things are going to hum to-day. You'd have been wiser to stay on board. You're too like your brother.'
You can guess that this only made it more jolly exciting.
Every now and then we met long trains of mules or donkeys, with huge bundles on their backs, pacing wearily down the road.
'They're carrying rubber or cocoa down to Los Angelos,' Mr. Macdonald said. 'The President makes them bring all their rubber through Los Angelos; that's one of the grievances they have against him.'
Jolly interesting everything was, and once the men with one long mule train took off their big hats, bowing and saying, 'buenos.'
'They're doing it to you, not to me,' Mr. Macdonald said. 'They're from Paquintos, close to your brother's estate, and think you are he.'
It was a jolly funny feeling to land at this out-of-the-way spot and find so many people appear to know me; don't you think it was?
By this time we had left the shade of the tropical trees below us, and the road and the side of the mountain were simply bare rock—the heat terrific. At half-past ten we were at the top, and got our first glimpse of Santa Cruz spread out in a hollow beneath us, with mountain ridges all round it. Our mules roused themselves into a trot, and we slung along at a good rate, kicking up a cloud of dust. The Hercules mids. had been gradually drawing closer, and now they came along at a gallop, and would have passed us, singing out rude remarks, but the Angel seized the whip and beat our poor brutes into a gallop too, and the teams simply tore along, side by side, the drivers having all they could do to keep on the road. The two carriages bounced along close together, I thought the wheels would lock every other second, and the mids. were hitting at each other with their sticks and shouting.