with you. Where are you taking us?"

"That will have to be decided," said the officer. "Nowhere for
the presents my men are tired and need rest. We will not humiliate
you, Senor Reade, by placing you in irons, but I will ask your
word of honor that you won't attempt to escape from us."

"I give you that word of honor," said Tom, simply.

"And I have only to remind you, senor, that, if you make the mistake
of breaking your word, bullets travel fast and several of my men
are sharpshooters."

"I am an American and a gentleman," Reade returned, with offended
dignity. "My word of honor is not given to be broken."

"Then you will seat yourself, senor, or stroll about and amuse
yourself within the narrow limits of this small camp."

Tom stepped over, rested his hand on Harry's shoulder, then dropped
to a seat beside his chum.

"Can you beat it?" Tom demanded, in ready American slang.

"It would be hard to, wouldn't it?" Harry asked, smiling sheepishly.

Pedro Gato turned to regard them with a surly grin. Though handcuffed,
Gato seemed to feel that he was now enjoying his own innings.

For an hour or more the soldiers continued to rest. All of them,
including the lieutenant, who sat stiffly aloof from his men,
rolling and smoking cigarettes.

"I see a bully argument against cigarette smoking," whispered
Tom in his chum's ear.

"What is it?" Harry wanted to know.

"All of these fellows are smoking cigarettes. I am proud of myself
to feel that I don't belong in their class."

"A year ago Alf Drew would have felt at home in this cigarette-puffing,
sallow-faced lot, wouldn't be?" grinned Harry.

"I am glad to say that Alf now knows how measly a cigarette smoker
looks," answered Tom.

Alf Drew, as readers of the preceding volume will remember, was
a boy addicted to cigarettes, but whom Tom had broken of the stupid
habit. Alf was now employed in the engineering offices of Reade
& Hazelton.

"There's something coming," announced Reade, presently. "It sounds
like a miniature railroad train."

"I wish it were a real one, and that we had our baggage aboard,"
muttered Harry, with a grimace.

One of the sentries had gone to intercept the approaching object.
Instead the soldier now permitted the approaching object to roll
into camp. It proved to be Don Luis's big touring car. In the
tonneau sat the mine owner and Dr. Carlos Tisco.

"What is this, Senor Reade?" cried Don Luis Montez, in pretended
astoni