“How are you now, my boy? I knew how it would be. Tired out? Stiff with so long a ride? Lean over this way and I’ll help you down. Come!”
Ned leaned over and tried to pull his feet out of the stirrups. They did come out somehow, and then he made an extra effort not to fall asleep with his head on the general’s shoulder.
“Used up completely!” exclaimed Zuroaga. “Can you walk? Stretch your legs. Kick. It’s your first long ride? You’ll soon get used to it. There! Now I’ll put you into my tent, but we must be on the march again by six o’clock in the morning. You can sleep till breakfast.”
“I can walk, thank you,” responded poor Ned, and he did so, after a lame and awkward fashion, but he was glad to reach the tent. “It’s big enough for two,” he said, as he crawled in.
“Is it?” said the general. “Bah! I do not use one half the time. I am a soldier and a hunter, and I prefer to bivouac in such weather as this. I must be on the lookout, too, to-night. Crawl in and go to sleep.”
Ned was already in. Down he went upon a blanket, without even unbuckling his machete, and that was the last that he knew that night of the camp or of anybody in it. Probably, nothing less than the report of a cannon fired over that tent would have aroused him to go for his horse-pistols or draw his Mexican sabre.
Señora Tassara and her daughter had disappeared immediately, and they, also, must have been wearied with their long, hot journey, but all the rest of the party were old campaigners, and they were ready to take care of the horses and eat cold rations, for no fires were kindled.
A few minutes later, if Ned had been awake instead of sleeping so soundly, he might have heard what two men were saying, in half-whispers, close to the door of his tent.
“Colonel,” said Zuroaga, “we are well-hidden in here. The bushes are very thick along the edge of the road.”
“Hark!” interrupted Tassara. “Do you hear that? There they are!”