. But Ramon was further back
within his cave this time, and they whistled over his head. The chips of
brittle limestone fell with a metallic clink on the hard stone floor.

El Sarria saw from whence one at least of his enemies had fired. A
little drift of white reek was rising from the mouth of a cavern on the
opposite escarpment of the Montblanch. He knew it well, but till now he
had thought that but one other person did so, his friend Luis Fernandez
of Sarria. But at the same moment he caught a glimpse of a blue jacket,
edged with red, round the corner of a grey boulder up which the young
ivy was climbing, green as April grass. The contrast of colour helped
his sight, as presently it would assist his aim.

"The Lads of the Squadron!" he murmured grimly. And then he knew that it
had come to the narrow and bitter pass with him.

For these men were no mere soldiers drafted from cities, or taken from
the plough-tail with the furrow-clay heavy upon their feet. These were
men like himself; young, trained to the life of the brigand and the
contrabandista. Now they were "Migueletes"--"Mozos de la
Escuadra"--"Lads of the Squadron," apt in all the craft of the smuggler,
as good shots as himself, and probably knowing the country quite as
well.

For all that El Sarria smiled with a certain knowledge that he had a
friend fighting for him, that would render vain all their vaunted
tracker's craft. Miguelete or red-breeched soldier, guerilla or
contrabandista, none could follow him through that rising mist which
boiled like a cauldron beneath. Ramon blew the first breath of its sour
spume out through his nostrils like cigarette smoke, with a certain
relish and appreciation.

"They have found me out, indeed, how, I know not. But they have yet to
take Ramon Garcia!" he muttered, as he examined the lock of his gun.

He knew of a cleft, deep and secret, the track of an ancient
watercourse, which led from his cave on the Puig, past the cliff at the
foot of which was perched the great and famous Abbey of Montblanch, to
another and a yet safer hold among the crags and precipices of
Puymorens.

This none knew but his friend and brother, dearer to his soul than any
other, save little Dolores alone--Luis Fernandez, whose vineyard had
neighboured his in the good days when--when he had a vineyard. He was
the groomsman, who, even in those old days, had cared for Dolores with
more than a brother's care. The secret of the hidden passage was