terprise.
Bottles were unsealed and they began to prepare the morning meal.

My presence caused considerable comment. I was a complication at which
most of the men were ill pleased, especially when the arriving bandits
told who I was, and that the patrols of the United States were
doubtless even now trying to find me.

But De Boer silenced the grumbling with rough words.

"My business, not yours. But you will take your share of his ransom,
won't you? Have done!"

And Jetta, she had caused comment also. But when the bottles were well
distributed the grumbling turned to ribald banter which made me
shudder that it should fall upon Jetta's ears. De Boer had kept his
men away from her, shoving them aside when they crowded to see her.
She was in a little tent now, not far from the base of my ledge.

My meal presently was brought from where most of the bandits now were
roistering at the long table in the center of the cave.

"Eat," said Gutierrez. "I eat with you, Americano. _Madre Mia_, when
you are ransomed away from here it will please me! De Boer is fool,
with taking such a chance."

* * * * *

With the meal ended, another guard came to take Gutierrez' place and I
was ordered into my tent. The routine of the camp, it seemed, was to
use the daylight hours for the time of sleep. There were lookouts and
guards at the entrance, and a little arsenal of ready weapons stocked
in the passage. The men at the table were still at their meal. It
would end, I did not doubt, by most of them falling into heavy
alcoholic slumber.

I was tired, poisoned by the need of sleep. I lay on fabric cushions
piled in one corner of my tent. But sleep would not come; my thoughts
ran like a tumbling mountain torrent, and as aimlessly. I hoped that
Jetta was sleeping. De Boer was now at the center table with his men.
Hans was guarding Jetta. He was a phlegmatic, heavy Dutchman, and
seemed decent enough.

I wondered what Hanley might be doing to rescue me. But as I thought
about it, I could only hope that his patrols would not find us out
here. An attack and most certainly De Boer and his men in their anger
would kill me out of hand. And possibly Jetta also.

I had not had a word alone with Jetta since that scene in the control
room. When we disembarked, she had stayed close by De Boer. But I knew
that Jetta had fathomed my purpose, that she was working to the same
end. We must find a way of arranging the ran