ly, when their beats
met before the door, they let the butts of their guns rest on the ground,
and exchanged pleasant talk about pretty, dark girls that they had known
in far-away Spain. One boldly lighted a cigarrito and the other encouraged
by his example did likewise. Hark, what was that? "A lizard in the grass,"
said Carlos. "Yes, certainly," said Juan. They continued to smoke their
cigarritos blissfully, and talk of the pretty, dark girls that they had
known in far-away Spain.

As they smoked and talked, and found smoke, talk and company pleasant,
they did not see a shadow glide swiftly from the bushes and pass to the
rear of the log prison that they were guarding so well. Nor could they
see the shadow, since the building was now between them, resolve itself
again into the figure of a man, who stood upright against the wall, his
face at one of the little slits of windows.

Their own talk was so pleasant, and the sound of their voices was such a
cure for lonesomeness on a dark night, that they did not hear the man at
the little slit of a window utter a faint warning hiss. Nor did they hear
something a moment later fall with a slight metalic sound on the bark
floor of the prison. The sound was repeated in an instant, but still they
did not hear it, and then the figure of a man, melting back to a shadow,
glided away from the house and into the bushes and thence to the forest,
where it was lost.

Carlos and Juan chatted until their cigarritos were smoked out. Then they
shouldered their muskets and continued the watch that seemed to them so
easy. How could unarmed men escape through such a thickness of logs? The
shadow in the forest was lost to the sight of any possible Spaniard, but
not to the sight of another shadow that arose from the bushes and flitted
after it. The two shadows were now deep in the forest, but the second hung
close on the first, making no noise, and sinking quickly to the ground,
when the other looked back.

This second shadow, as it passed through a partially open space, also
revealed itself in the moonlight as a man, but a man ghastly and terrible
in appearance. He had a hideous, feline face, and he was naked, save a
breech-cloth at the waist. He carried but a single weapon, a knife in his
ready hand, but the eyes were those of the most utter savage expecting a
speedy prey.

The first shadow reached a little grove free from undergrowth and stopped.
He was about to lie down, rifle by his side,