“Well, what can the _Americanos_ expect? They have not recognized Carranza yet? What protection should they look for?” A flaming-eyed sallow fellow spoke up. Georgie’s eyes were popping. He was shivering in the heat of the tropic night. “_Cállate, pendejo viejo._ Be still, old fool,” snapped the old _mosa_, “can’t you see you are frightening the poor lads to death. They are not such as the wild mountain youngsters who join the _bandidos_ before they are yet a dozen years from their mother’s milk.” She drew a protecting arm around Raquel’s shoulders, and rising, motioned her into her own quarters. Raquel slept in Old Antonina’s house that night, with Georgie on a palm mat beside her. The cook house with its mud roof was cool as a cave and much pleasanter than the iron roofed hacienda. In the early morning Raquel woke to find Antonina sitting beside her cot braiding her long hair, still thick and dark. “Ah hah!” said the old woman, “you couldn’t deceive me, little one, even though your hair is cropped like a boy’s. Now, why you go about as a youth I do not know, but believe me, Froylan, who sat by the door last night, had his eyes on you.” She paused significantly. She enjoyed dramatizing life, old Antonina. “And Froylan is a bad one, without conscience, without honor, and without money. Which last is perhaps the most dangerous in this case.” “What do you mean, Señora?” Raquel asked. “That you must not stay here, for Froylan will surely try to get ransom money out of you. I don’t trust him. I think he would just as soon be a bandit as a miner--rather!” “But why should he imagine that he could get any ransom money for me?” “Grrr,” growled the old woman. “You might deceive these poor country folk, about here. But I have traveled, me. I have been to Douglas, Arizona, and seen the Gringoes; and Froylan has been even to El Paso.” As they sat at their breakfast of _piñole_ and black coffee a young girl looked in the doorway. She was frankly curious to see the strangers and made conversation which did not in the least deceive the cynical and astute Antonina. “Soldiers came up to Divisaderos (a small place a few miles below the mine), and took away Don Refugio to shoot him. But he swore he was a _Carrancista_, and so they spared him. Froylan is so brave,” she said. “He went before dawn up into the mountains to see that bandits have not mutilated or molested his cattle.” “Hmph,” said Antonina. But when the girl had left she quickly made a little bundle and, after a casual inspection outside her house, beckoned Raquel and Georgie to follow her. They walked slowly past the hacienda, then strolled in a leisurely way up toward the mine, not speaking. Turning aside before they reached the main shaft, the old woman ducked into a narrow and villainously rough little canyon. She parted the scrub oak, brushed through the cactus, Georgie and Raquel following, and in a moment they stood within the entrance of an abandoned shaft.