"Si, senor," he muttered, hoarsely, "I and two or three others, the
lucky ones left at liberty, buried them all in one grave near the ashes
of their ranch, under the tree that had shaded its roof."
It was to him, too, that Hernandez came after he had deserted, three
years afterwards. He had still his uniform on with the sergeant's
stripes on the sleeve, and the blood of his colonel upon his hands and
breast. Three troopers followed him, of those who had started in pursuit
but had ridden on for liberty. And he told Charles Gould how he and
a few friends, seeing those soldiers, lay in ambush behind some rocks
ready to pull the trigger on them, when he recognized his compadre and
jumped up from cover, shouting his name, because he knew that
Hernandez could not have been coming back on an errand of injustice and
oppression. Those three soldiers, together with the party who lay
behind the rocks, had formed the nucleus of the famous band, and he, the
narrator, had been the favourite lieutenant of Hernandez for many, many
years. He mentioned proudly that the officials had put a price upon his
head, too; but it did not prevent it getting sprinkled with grey upon
his shoulders. And now he had lived long enough to see his compadre made
a general.
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