Shaking his head, Juarez mounted his horse and took his place in line, and the procession started again, but always the red-faced, red-necked scout kept them in view for his own purposes. He did not have much trouble to keep up, for the boys did not hurry their horses. They had had a hard pull for several hours that morning, and Jim decided it was best to let them take it easy, as there still was plenty of hard work ahead.
“How soon will we reach your ancient castle, Jeems?” inquired Jim.
“In time for dinner, boss, I reckon,” replied Jeems.
“Dinner be ready for us?” inquired Tom hungrily.
“Well, as I haven’t seen my ancestral walls for nigh on to twenty years,” replied Jeems, “I’m much afeard that the dinner is petrified by this time.”
“We don’t mind that,” laughed Jo. “Haven’t we eaten grub in Mexican restaurants and along the border? Nothing is too tough for us.”
“That’s so,” agreed the chorus.
“This country begins to look very familiar,” soliloquized Jeems. “Here’s a rock I’ve sat on many a time to rest coming home from a hunt, and down there are the three pines struck by lightning, on the Fourth of July, too——”
“Go on with you,” jeered Tom, “don’t give us any tall yarn like that.”
“Halt! there he goes!” cried Juarez, bringing his rifle to his shoulder and aiming it at a fleeting shadow among the pines down the mountain slope. He did not fire, however, and without a minute’s hesitation the boys turned their horses down the steep mountain slope towards the woods where the man had been detected by Juarez’s observant eye.