Profiting by this accident, General Herran spurred his own horse through the ranks of the volunteers, gaining at last, after much energetic pushing and shoving, the top of the hill. Here he paused to look back, with an inward chuckle, at the excited throng of men and boys from whom he had escaped, and to pick up again his fellow traveler, David. But David was nowhere to be seen. Herran expected to find him on the level space at the top of the hill; that he was not there filled him with anxiety. Reasoning, however, that if the volunteers had attacked David he would have heard of it, and convinced that the American was not with the mob he had just left, he set spurs to his horse, expecting to find him further on. After all, he argued, it was natural that a Yankee, traveling alone, should put as great a distance as possible between himself and these volunteers. But, whatever the explanation, David was not to be found. There were no cross trails from the main Bogota road into which he might have blundered, and his disappearance, therefore, became more of a puzzle as Herran traveled mile after mile, at the best speed of which his horse was capable, without trace of him. In a way General Herran felt responsible for the safety of the man with whom he had been traveling, the more so that this man was a foreigner, belonging to a nation whose citizens were not welcome just then in Colombia. Had David been other than an American, Herran would have taken his disappearance, puzzling though it was, with the cheerful indifference peculiar to him. But the fact that he was an American, alone in a hostile country, appealed to a chivalrous strain in his nature, urging him to do the best he could for his rescue. Unfortunately, the solving of the simplest of problems was not in the General's line, and he painfully turned the matter over and over without result, one way or the other. David, he told himself, had forced his way through the ranks of the volunteers without attracting attention. He felt sure of this because he had watched his ascent of the trail for a good part of the way. Hence, he could not be with the volunteers now. Only a few of the latter were mounted, and these marched in the front ranks where they had been carefully noted by Herran. If David had remained in the rear ranks of the regiment, voluntarily or as a captive, his horse would have made him conspicuous. Of course, during the commotion following the accident to Pedro and his burro almost anything might have happened; David might have been captured, bound and gagged, his horse taken away and he himself hidden by the peons who held him prisoner in the hope of future ransom. But this was all too bewildering, too complex for Herran seriously to consider. Instead, he convinced himself that David had escaped the volunteers, that he was no longer behind him on the trail, that he must therefore be in front, and that to find him there was only one thing to do--push forward as fast as possible.