“And then—­what?” pressed one of the rough men.  “Are we to kill the Americanos from ambush?”

“Eh?” gasped Tom Reade, with a start.

“If you have to,” nodded Pedro Gato.  “Though, in that case, I shall call you clumsy.  I shall pay you just four times as much if you bring them to me as prisoners.  Remember that.  Before I despatch these infernal Gringos I shall want the fun of tormenting them.”

“Oh, you will eh?” thought Tom, with a slight shudder.

“I heard, Gato,” ventured one of the Mexicans, incautiously, “that one of the Americanos beat you fearfully—­that he threw you down and stamped on you.”

“It is a lie!” uttered Gato, leaping to his feet, his face distorted with rage.  “It is a lie, I tell you.  The man does not live who can beat me in a fight.”

“I was struck with amazement at the tale,” admitted the Mexican who had brought about this outburst.

“And well you might be,” continued Gato, savagely.  “But the Americanos procured my discharge.  And that was humiliation enough.”

“Yet what difference does it make, Gato.  As soon as Don Luis is through with the Americanos he will restore you to your old position.”

“It is because the Americanos treated me with such contempt,” retorted Pedro.  “No man sneers at me and lives.”

“You unhung bandit!” muttered Tom under his breath.  “Why don’t you tell your bandit friends that you are angry because of the trouncing I gave you before a lot of men?  But I suppose you hate to lose caste, even before such ragged specimens as your friends.”

Suddenly one of the men around the fire snatched at his rifle.  Next scattering the embers of the fire, the fellow threw himself down flat, peering down the road.

“The troops are coming,” he whispered.  “I hear their horses.”

“The horses that you hear are mules,” laughed Gato, harshly.  “It is the nightly transport of ore down to El Sombrero.  Just now Don Luis is having fine ore brought over the hills from another mine and dumped into El Sombrero.”

“Why should he bring ore from another mine to El Sombrero?” asked one of the men, curiously.

“How should I know?” demanded Gato, shrugging his shoulders and spitting on the ground.  “Why should I concern myself with the business that belongs to an hidalgo like Don Luis?”

“It is queer that—­”

“Silence!” hissed Gato.  “Do not meddle with the secrets of Don Luis Montez, or you will be sorry for it.”

Gato’s explanation about the mule-train had quieted the fears of the bandits as to the approach of troops.  In some mountainous parts of Mexico the government’s troops are nearly always on the trail of bandits and the petty warfare is a brisk one.

“Go to sleep, my friends.  There will be nothing to do until day comes.”

“Then, good Gato, take us somewhere off this road,” pleaded one of the men.  “It is too public here to be to our liking.”