"To undertake some scout duty. Find out just what his force is and the best quarter from which to attack the mine. And, above all, sever his communication with the outside world."

"Cut the wires?" asked Bob Harding eagerly.

"That's it. Make it impossible for us to fail."

"But, general, do not the regulars already know of your presence in this part of the country?" asked Jack.

General Madero smiled.

"The heads of bone which command them know little beyond dancing and how to flirt correctly," he said. "My flying column has, in the past two days, pa.s.sed from one end of the province to the other without their being aware of it. The main part of my army is in eastern Chihuahua, blowing up bridges and otherwise diverting their attention, while I have come into, what you Americans call, Tom Tiddler's ground, where I mean to pick up all the gold and silver I can. Why not?" he demanded, with a sudden access of fury. "Is it not ours? What right have these interlopers of Americanos here? Mexico for the Mexicans and death to the robber foreigners!"

He brought his lean, shriveled hand down on the table with a thump that made the lamp shake. His Latin temperament had, for the moment, carried him away; for a flash the blaze of fanaticism shone in his eyes, only to die out as swiftly as he regained command of himself.

"When shall we depart on this duty, sir?" asked Bob Harding, after a brief pause.

"To-morrow. The hour I will inform you of later. Not a word of this in the camp, remember. I can trust to you absolutely?"

"Absolutely," rejoined Bob Harding, with, apparently, not a single qualm of conscience.

The general's eyes were bent upon the boys who had not rejoined to his question.

"Absolutely," declared Jack, saving his conscience by adding a mental "Not."

Bob Harding, who was sharp enough in some things, was quick to detect a change in the manner of the three supposed soldiers of fortune as they left the general's tent.

"Don't much like the idea of going up against your own countrymen, eh?"

he asked easily.

"No," rejoined Jack frankly, "we don't."

"Now look here, Hickey, isn't that drawing it pretty fine? Merrill and chaps like that have practically buncoed old Diaz into granting them all sorts of concessions, and----"

"I'm pretty sure Merrill never did, whatever the rest may have done,"

was the quiet reply.

"Eh-oh! Well, of course, it's all right to stick up for one's friends and that sort of thing, but I guess that you chaps, like myself, are down here to, line your pockets, aren't you?"

"Perhaps," was the noncommittal reply.

"Well, to be frank with you, I _am_. I'm down here just for what there is in it, and if I can see a chance to line my pockets by a quiet visit to the gold room of a mine, why, that's the mine owner's lookout, isn't it? I run my risk and ought to have some reward for it."

"That's queer reasoning, Harding."

"Say, Hickey, you're a rum sort of chap. So are your chums here, too.

Not a bit what I expected you to be like. I thought you were rip-roaring sort of fellows, and you act more like a bunch of prize Sunday-school scholars."

There was a taunting note in the words that Jack was not slow to catch.

Particularly was the last part of Harding's speech brought out with an insulting inflection. Jack's temper blazed up.

"See here, Harding," he snapped out, "do you know anything about dynamite?"

"Eh? What? Yes, of course. But, good gracious, what's that got to do with----"

"Everything. Dynamite doesn't say or do much till it goes off, does it?"

"What are you driving at, my dear fellow, I----"

"Just this;" Jack's eyes fairly snapped in the starlight, as he looked straight into Harding's weak, good-natured countenance; "don't monkey with high explosives. Savvy?"

Harding's eyes fell. He mumbled something. For a minute he was abashed, but he soon regained his spirits.

"Forgive me, Hickey," he exclaimed, "and you, too, Rafter and Divver.

I thought you were just a bunch of kids, but now I see you are the real thing. Blown in the bottle, this side up, and all that.

"Say, do you know," he went on, lowering his voice cautiously and bending forward as if afraid the coffee-colored sentry pacing near by might overhear, "for a while I even thought you were imposters."

"No!" exclaimed Jack, starting back in well-a.s.sumed amazement.

"Fact, I a.s.sure you. Funny, wasn't it?"

"Not very funny for us had your suspicions been correct," put in Walt Phelps.

"My dear Con, I should think not. Putting your eyes out with red-hot irons would be one of the least things that old Madero would do to you.

Fatherly old chap, isn't he? But, as you said, Hickey: Don't fool with dynamite!"

A few paces more brought the boys to their tent.

"Well, good night, or buenas noches, as they say in this benighted land," said Harding, as they reached it. "Better turn in and have a good sleep. And then to-morrow it's Ho! for Tom Tiddler's ground, a pickin' up gold and silver."

"And maybe bullets," came from Walt.

"Oh, my dear fellow, that's all in the life. Buenas noches!"

And Bob Harding pa.s.sed on, humming gayly to himself.

The boys entered their tent and lit the lamp. It was silent as the grave outside, except for the steady tramp, tramp of the sentries. At long intervals the weird cry of some night bird came from the woods, on the edge of which they were camped, but that was all.

Jack sat down on the edge of his cot and gazed across the tent at the others.

"Well?" he said.

"Well?" came back from his two chums in danger.

Thus began a conversation which, with intervals of silence, when the sentries' heavy footsteps pa.s.sed, continued into early dawn. Then, with a consciousness that the future alone could bring about a solution of their dilemma, the three tired lads tumbled into their cots to sleep the slumber of vigorous, exhausted youth.

CHAPTER XIV.