friend, captain, in fact, a kinsman.”
“And who, sir, are those gentlemen riding along the beach?”
Henry looked quickly at the group of horsemen, took the binoculars from the skipper’s hand, and gazed through them.
“It’s the Jefe himself,” he reported, “with gendarmes.”
“They tried to hang me yesterday,” Francis laughed. “And tomorrow they were going to hang Henry.”
Here Enrico Solano approached Henry and held out his hand.
“I have made a grave mistake, Senor Morgan,” he said. “My beloved brother, Alfaro… I was thinking you were guilty of his murder. The evidence was all against you. I regret. I am sorry. And I am proud once again to welcome you into my family. You will marry my Leoncia.”
Chapter VII
“And now we’ve lost both the Gringos,” Alvarez Torres lamented. “The Queen of my Dreams! She is gone and away, with the two Morgans. I saw her on the schooner!”
“They will not get out of Chiriqui Lagoon,” the Jefe said solemnly. “I know it. That captain will try to go past Bocas del Toro, or through the Cartago Passage. Even so, we will outwit him. Listen. It is a long ride. We will catch them.”
Leoncia awoke first. She looked down upon the two young men. They were so alike, and she loved both of them. She remembered the kisses of Henry on her mouth, and the kisses of Francis, and was puzzled. She loved two men at the one time. And she could not understand that.
Three hours later, she was taking her first lesson of the compass under Francis’ tuition. Henry was searching the sea through the binoculars.
Francis put the wheel up. His hand rested on Leoncia’s hand. They thrilled, and the skipper grinned.
“It’s not so far to shore,” Henry said as he turned to Enrico. “What kind of a shore is it, Senor Solano?” he queried. “Maya Indians[50] and haciendados[51]?”
“Haciendados and Mayas, both,” Enrico answered. “But I know the country well. If the schooner is not safe, we will be safe ashore. We can get horses and saddles and beef and corn. The Cordilleras are beyond.”
“But Leoncia?” Francis asked.
“Was born in the saddle,” came Enrico’s answer.
Chapter VIII
“If we remain on board the gendarmes will capture us and the Angelique as well,” Francis said. “We will go to the hills. The Angelique will go free. And of course they won’t catch us.”
So they came to the beach and disappeared into the dense green wall of vegetation. Leoncia was going beside her father. Her brothers, Ricardo and Alesandro, in the middle, were burdened with the dunnage[52], as were Francis and Henry. When they came to the plantation, they bought horses and food from a haciendado. So the cavalcade started.
Soon the haciendado observed the group of men, with Alvarez Torres in the lead.
“Senor,” Torres said. “We are in search of Senor Enrico Solano, his daughter, his sons, and two tall Gringos with them. It is the Gringos we want. Have they passed this way, Senor?”
“Yes, they have passed. Have they committed some crime? But I must not ask. Senor Enrico Solano is a honorable man…”
“Which way did they go?” the Jefe demanded.
The haciendado indicated an entirely different direction. Torres noted one of the peons[53], who was leaning on his spade. Torres showed a silver dollar to the peon. The peon nodded his head in the right direction and caught the coin.
“We will go the other way,” Torres said. “A little bird has told me that our friend here is mistaken and that they have gone the other way.”
The haciendado and his helper looked at each other in amazement. That peon was working furiously, but another peon indicated him to the haciendado.
“There’s the little bird,” the haciendado cried. “Beat him, beat him, the beast who betrayed my dearest friends!”
The Solano party was crossing a shallow stream. Next, Alvarez Torres in the lead like a hound, the gendarmes at his back, and the Jefe in the rear, the pursuit arrived at the stream.
Chapter IX
In the meantime the Solanos Henry told Francis:
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