the dark doorway, just as they had made
entrance into the mouth of the mountain cavern.

While listening to the hoof-strokes of the animals ringing on the
pavement of the _patio_ inside, the sentinel had his reflections and
conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been
to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other
conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble
him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his
time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his _sueldo_ and rations?
He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he
wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned against the wall, and soon
after succumbed to the state of semi-watchfulness from which the
unexpected event had aroused him.

"Carrambo!" exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after
looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a
well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and
glasses between them. "It's been a long, tedious tramp, hasn't it?
Well, we've not wasted our time, nor had our toil for nothing. Come,
_teniente_, fill your glass again, and let us drink to our commercial
adventure. Here's that in the disposal of our goods we may be as
successful as in their purchase!"

Right merrily the lieutenant refilled his glass, and responded to the
toast of his superior officer.

"I suspect, Roblez," continued the Colonel, "that you have been all the
while wondering how I came to know about this caravan whose spoil is to
enrich us--its route--the exact time of its arrival, the strength of its
defenders--everything? You think our friend the Horned Lizard gave me
all this information."

"No, I don't; since that could not well be. How was Horned Lizard to
know himself--that is, in time to have sent word to you? In truth, _mio
Coronel_, I am, as you say, in a quandary about all that. I cannot even
guess at the explanation."

"This would give it to you, if you could read; but I know you cannot,
_mio teniente_; your education has been sadly neglected. Never mind, I
shall read it for you."

As the colonel was speaking he had taken from the drawer of a cabinet
that stood close by a sheet of paper folded in the form of a letter. It
was one, though it bore no postmark. For all that, it looked as if it
had travelled far--perchance carried by hand. It had in truth come all
the w