The bank president came while the sergeant and the landlord were in Billy's room investigating. Bridge had followed them.
“It was the gringo,” cried the excited Boniface. “This is his room. He has cut a hole in my floor which I shall have to pay to have repaired.”
A captain came next, sleepy-eyed and profane. When he heard what had happened and that the wealth which he had been detailed to guard had been taken while he slept, he tore his hair and promised that the sentry should be shot at dawn.
By the time they had returned to the street all the male population of Cuivaca was there and most of the female.
“One-thousand dollars,” cried the bank president, “to the man who stops the thief and returns to me what the villain has stolen.”
A detachment of soldiers was in the saddle and passing the bank as the offer was made.
“Which way did he go?” asked the captain. “Did no one see him leave?”
Bridge was upon the point of saying that he had seen him and that he had ridden north, when it occurred to him that a thousand dollars--even a thousand dollars Mex--was a great deal of money, and that it would carry both himself and Billy to Rio and leave something for pleasure beside.
Then up spoke a tall, thin man with the skin of a coffee bean.
“I saw him, Senor Capitan,” he cried. “He kept his horse in my corral, and at night he came and took it out saying that he was riding to visit a senorita. He fooled me, the scoundrel; but I will tell you--he rode south. I saw him ride south with my own eyes.”
“Then we shall have him before morning,” cried the captain, “for there is but one place to the south where a robber would ride, and he has not had sufficient start of us that he can reach safety before we overhaul him. Forward! March!” and the detachment moved down the narrow street. “Trot! March!” And as they passed the store: “Gallop! March!”
Bridge almost ran the length of the street to the corral. His pony must be rested by now, and a few miles to the north the gringo whose capture meant a thousand dollars to Bridge was on the road to liberty.
“I hate to do it,” thought Bridge; “because, even if he is a bank robber, he's an American; but I need the money and in all probability the fellow is a scoundrel who should have been hanged long ago.”