“You’d better be lookin’ out for yourselves instead of the Panther,” growled a voice, as a gigantic figure upheaved itself from the arroyo eight or ten yards behind them.  “I could have picked you both off while you were standin’ there shakin’ hands, an’ neither of you would never have knowed what struck him.”

“The Panther!” they exclaimed joyously, and they shook hands with him also.

“An’ now,” said the Panther, “it will soon be day.  We’d better make fur our horses an’ then clear out.  We kin tell ‘bout what we’ve seen an’ done when we’re two or three miles away.”

They found the horses safe in the brushwood, Old Jack welcoming Ned with a soft whinny.  They were in the saddle at once, rode swiftly northward, and none of them spoke for a half hour.  When a faint tinge of gray appeared on the eastern rim of the world the Panther said: 

“My tale’s short.  I couldn’t get into the camp, ’cause I’m too big.  The very first fellow I saw looked at me with s’picion painted all over him.  So I had to keep back in the darkness.  But I saw it was a mighty big army.  It can do a lot of rippin’, an’ t’arin’, an’ chawin’.”

“I got into the camp,” said Obed, after a minute of silence, “but as I’m not built much like a Mexican, being eight or ten inches too tall, men were looking at me as if I were a strange specimen.  One touch of difference and all the world’s staring at you.  So I concluded that I’d better stay on the outside of the lines.  I hung around, and I saw just what Panther saw, no more and no less.  Then I started back and I struck the arroyo, which seemed to me a good way for leaving.  But before I had gone far I concluded I was followed.  So I watched the fellow who was following, and the fellow who was following watched me for about a year.  The watch was just over when you came up, Panther.  It was long, but it’s a long watch that has no ending.”

“And I,” said Ned, after another wait of a minute, “being neither so tall as Obed nor so big around as the Panther, was able to go about in the Mexican camp without any notice being taken of me.  I saw Santa Anna arrive to take the chief command.”

“Santa Anna himself?” exclaimed the Panther.

“Yes, Santa Anna himself.  They gave him a great reception.  After a while I started to come away.  I met Urrea.  He took me for a peon, gave me an order, and when I didn’t obey it tried to strike me across the face with a whip.”

“And what did you do?” exclaimed the two men together.

“I took the whip away from him and lashed his cheeks with it.  I was recognized, but in the turmoil and confusion I escaped.  Then I had the encounter with Obed White, of which he has told already.”

“Since Santa Anna has come,” said the Panther, “they’re likely to move at any moment.  We’ll ride straight for the cabin an’ the boys.”

CHAPTER VI