Don Luis gave another shrug of his shoulders.

"You would be held _incommunicado_, Senor Reade, until the judges were ready to try you."

"And that might be years off," Tom muttered.

Don Luis beamed delightedly, while a thin smile curled on Dr. Tisco's lips.

"You are beginning, senor, to get some grasp of Mexican law,"

laughed Montez.

"In other words, Don Luis," said Tom, dryly, "it's a game wherein you can't possibly lose, and we can remain out of prison only as long as you are gracious enough to will it?"

"That might be rather a strong way of stating the case," murmured the Mexican. "However, after your unlawful act of last night, you undoubtedly are liable to a long confinement in one of our prisons. But believe me, Senor Reade, you may command me as far as my humble influence with our government goes!"

The situation was certainly one to make Tom think hard. He was certain that Don Luis had engineered the whole situation, even to urging Gato on to a part in this grin drama.

"Well, you've got us!" sighed Tom.

"You will find me your best friend, always," protested Montez.

"You have us," Tom continued, "but you haven't our signatures to the report on your mine. That is going to be more difficult."

"Time heals all breaches between gentlemen who should be friends,"

declared Don Luis, quite graciously.

After that it was a silent party that rode in the touring car.

Though the road back to the estate was worthy of no such name as road, the big car none the less "ate up the miles." It was not long before the young engineers caught sight of the big white house.

"Come, gentlemen," begged Don Luis, alighting, and turning to the young engineers with a courtly grace that concealed a world of mockery. "You will find your rooms ready, and my household ready to minister to your comfort."

Tom Reade, as he stepped upon the porch, drew himself up as stiffly as any American soldier could have done.

"We've had to come this far with you, Don Luis," admitted the young engineer, dropping all his former pretense of dry good humor, "but you can't make us live under your roof unless you go so far as to have us seized, tied and carried in."

"I have no intention of being anything but a gracious friend and host," murmured Montez.

"Then, while we probably must stay here," Tom resumed, "we'll leave your place and go to live somewhere in the open near you.

We can accept neither your house nor your food."

"Very good," answered Montez, meekly, bowing again. "I will only suggest, _caballeros_, that you do not attempt to go too far from my house. If you do, the soldiers will surely find you. Then they will not bring you back to me, and you will learn what _incommunicado_ means in our Mexican law. _Adios_, _caballeros_!"

"Am I still the servant of the American gentlemen, Don Luis?"

asked Nicolas, humbly.

"You may go with them. They will need you, little Nicolas," answered Don Luis, and watched the three out of sight with smiling eyes.

Montez could afford to be cheerful. He knew that he had triumphed.

CHAPTER XVI

TWO VICTIMS OF ROSY THOUGHTS

"There is one thing about it," remarked Reade, as he rose and stood at the doorway of the tent. "We're not being overworked."

"Nor are we getting awfully rich, as the weeks go by, either,"

smiled Harry.

"No; but we're puppets in a game that interests me about as much as any that I ever saw played," Tom smiled back.

"This game--interests you?" queried Harry, looking astonished.

"That is a new idea to me, Tom. I never knew you to be interested, before, in any game that wasn't directly connected with some great ambition."

"We have a great ambition at present."

"I'd like to know what it is," grumbled Harry. "It's three weeks since that scoundrel, Don Luis, brought us back in triumph. We refused to enter his house as guests, and started to camp in the open in these two old tents that Nicolas secured for us. In all these three weeks we haven't done a tap of work. We haven't studied, or read because we have no books. We sleep, eat, and then sleep some more. When we get tired of everything else we go out and trudge over the hills, being careful not to get too far, lest we run into the guns of Gato and his comrades, for undoubtedly Gato was turned loose as soon as he was lost to our sight. We don't do anything like work, and we're not even arranging any work for the future. Yet you say that you're boosting your ambitions."

"I am," Tom nodded solemnly. "Harry, isn't it just as great an ambition to be an honest engineer as it is to be a highly capable one?"

"Of course."

"Don't capitalists usually invest large sums on a favorable report from engineers?"

"Often."

"And, if the engineers were dishonest the capitalists would lose their money, wouldn't they?"

"Certainly."

"Then here's our ambition, and we're working it out--finely, too," Tom went on, with much warmth. "Don Luis has a scheme to rob some people of a large sum of money by selling them a worthless mine in a country where there are several good ones. If he could get us to help him, to our own dishonor, Don Luis Montez would succeed in swindling this company of men. Harry, we're just lying around here, day after day, doing no hard work, but we're blocking Don Luis's game and saving money for honest men. Don Luis doesn't care to have us a.s.sa.s.sinated, for he still hopes to break down our resistance. He can't bring the capitalists here to meet us until we do give in, and so the game lags for Don Luis. He can't bring in other engineers, for they'd meet us and we would post them. The American engineer must be a serious problem for Don Luis. He thought he could buy almost any of us. Our conduct has made him afraid that American engineers can't be bought.

Evidently he must have his report signed by American engineers of repute, which means that he is trying to sell his worthless mine to Americans. Harry, we're teaching Don Luis to respect the honesty of American engineers; we're saving some of our countrymen from being swindled, probably out of thousands of dollars; we're proving that the American engineer is honest, and we're discouraging rascals everywhere from employing us in crooked work. Now, honestly, isn't all that ambition enough to hold us for a few weeks?"

"I suppose so," Harry agreed. "But what is the end of all this to be. Won't Don Luis merely have us a.s.sa.s.sinated in the end, if we go on proving stubborn?"

"He may," Tom answered, pressing his lips grimly. "But, if he does, he'll pay heavily for his villainy."

"How?"

"Every man has to pay for his sins."

"That's what we were taught in Sunday school," Harry nodded, "and I've always believed it. Yet here, in these remote mountains of the state of Bonista, if anywhere, Don Luis would appear to be safe. If a few of his men crept up here, late some night, with pistols or knives, and finished us before we had time to wake up, do you imagine that any one hereabouts would dare to make any report of the matter? Would our fate ever reach the outside world?"

"It would be sure to, in time, I believe," Tom answered, thoughtfully.

"How?"