ringo boy is not safe, now that there has been
bloodshed on the Rio Grande. Take him with you to the house of your
cousin, Colonel Tassara, in the lower part of the city. Then get away to
Oaxaca as soon as you can. President Paredes is still in the city of
Mexico, and he will not go to take command of the army in the north for
some time. You and I believe, of course, that he is really gathering it
to have it led by our one-legged hero, Santa Anna. Paredes, however,
suspects that a revolution is springing up under him, and he is watching
for it. Of course, for that reason, he would shoot you at once as a
returned conspirator against him. As for that matter, be careful how you
land, for there are many spies. No doubt you can go where you please,
after you get back among your own people. Farewell, but do not speak to
me."

He turned and strolled carelessly away, and the senor bowed his head for
a moment, as if in deep thought, while Ned Crawford was aware of an
entirely new idea, which had crept into his mind as he had listened to
the warning utterances of Colonel Guerra.

"I declare!" he said to himself, "he believes that Senor Zuroaga brought
the powder, and he didn't. He believes that the senor is going in for
old Santa Anna, and he isn't. He believes that the senor and I are
enemies of Paredes, and so we are. I am! I hope that he'll be beaten out
of his boots by General Taylor, and then upset by the new revolution. I
guess he's right, though, about this ship, and I must find out how I can
send a letter home. I want father and mother to know all about this
business. Go ashore and hide? I'm ready for that, but I'd like to get a
good look at the old city somehow."

Ned had been laboring under many perplexities and a great deal of
depression of spirits during several days, but now he felt a kind of
exhilarating fever creeping all over him, and at first he did not know
exactly what it might be. When his father had taken him with him across
the Atlantic,--it seemed so long ago now,--he had gone eagerly enough,
and he had had a grand time looking at Liverpool and London. It had been
a rare treat for a youngster who had but recently passed up from a
grammar school into the counting-room of a New York shipping-house.
After that, when he had been sent on this trip, to make his voyage home
by way of Mexico, he had considered himself exceedingly lucky. But what
was all that in comparison with this in the way of strange and wild