As they peered through the openings in the bushes they saw Piola still sitting on the ground, just as before, but he was alone. Manos Duras had disappeared.
The fellow was smoking and looking about uneasily, as though instinctively, with the sharp senses of the desert dweller, he had become aware of the hidden enemy. Every now and then he stretched his neck and stared into the distance as though expecting a new arrival.
It apparently was a small matter to him that the mountaineer held his gun in front of him ready to aim. Rojas and Watson had no arms but their revolvers.
“Don’t forget there’s another one somewhere about,” said Watson.
“Well, what of it?... That makes two, and there are two of us. Let’s go for them. I want to take a crack at that fellow!”
And he pulled out his revolver, apparently with the idea of firing from where he was, without taking any account of the distance the bullet would have to travel. Watson checked him, laying a hand on his arm, and whispering in his ear,
“There are two other men that I haven’t located yet. We’d better wait for Robledo and the rest.”
They waited in a state of painful indecision, fluctuating between the determination to wait prudently and the impulse to try their luck and attack without knowing the exact number of the enemy to be reckoned with.
But it was not long before Watson discovered the whereabouts of Manos Duras’s other companions. Suddenly the silence was broken by the furious barking of dogs in the distance. Piola stood up with a shout. Manos Duras came out of the ranch house and went around the corner of the adobe building, remaining in full sight of the two men spying upon him from among the _matorral_ bushes.
Two other mountaineers were arriving. After the morning’s work, they had gone to Manos Duras’s ranch to get the troop of horses that were to accompany them on their journey into the mountains, carrying the food and the other supplies necessary for so long an expedition, and the dogs of the ranch had come along with the party.
In a few minutes the two new arrivals, armed with rifles and bringing six horses loaded with sacks and roped bundles, reached the sandy elevation. The dogs, after leaping about among the decaying buildings, joyfully greeting the master they could not see, began to bark uneasily and nose anxiously about. Then they broke into shrill fierce howls. Their mouths dripping, their backs bristling, they tried to spring up the sand slope, sliding back and running to the _gauchos_ to warn them of the hidden enemy.