So the three boys rolled into their blankets with the saddles for pillows and dropped immediately to sleep as they were very tired from the long, hard ride. They lay at different points around the fire, which was allowed to die down as the fog seemed like a warm gray blanket over the whole landscape.
Jo sat on a log by the slowly dying fire, with his rifle on his knees looking into the darkness and not far from him lay the Mexican a mere dark lump on the ground, apparently asleep, but keeping a wary eye on all around. Imperceptibly he crept nearer to where Jo was sitting, but he did not have the weapon he would have preferred in his hand, the stiletto, which was as natural to him as the fangs to a rattlesnake.
But it did not suit the long-headed Captain Broom to have the boys killed. He wanted their life as well as their money, but in a different sense than the adage has it. From what he had heard of them, they were boys of unusual mettle and varied acquirements. If caught young, he could train them to good purpose. If they proved worthless, he would hold them for ransom.
So Captain Broom had told Manuello briefly and to the point that there was to be no rib-sticking and the Mexican would have thought as soon of disobeying the commands of the Evil One as of going contrary to the instructions of the Captain. So as he crept towards Jo, he held not a poniard in his clenched hand, but a heavy weapon like a black-jack, made of leather with a weight at the end.
Jo, however, spoiled his first attempt, for when the greaser had got within striking distance, Jo got up and went down to the pool to get a drink. If it had not been so dark, when they arrived, the boys would have seen tracks around the pool that would have aroused their suspicions. But everything seemed to work against them this time.
Jo stooped down at the brink and scarcely put his thirsty lips to the water when some instinct of warning made him look quickly around and he saw a small dark object directly back of him.
"Pardon, Senor, for startling you;" it was the voice of the dwarf, "but I, too, was very thirsty. It is in the air."
"You needn't have been so quiet about it," said Jo, crossly. This little rat always had a way of baffling and irritating him, because he did not have Jim's force, which could beat down the dwarf when occasion demanded it, or the stoicism of Juarez, which blocked the hunchback.
"I came softly, Senor," said the Mexican, imperturbably, "because I did not wish to disturb the slumbers of the Senors who are resting."
"Get down and drink, then," said Jo, who, though he realized that the Mexican was up to some hidden deviltry, did not know how to meet him. Jim and Juarez would have knocked him out of the camp if they had discovered him trailing them, with a warning that he would be shot if he put in an appearance again.