"This won't help us," he exclaimed. "Let us decide what has happened. Ah, Pedro is killed! Strange, he often had an idea that a man would stab him. I saw a man dressed as a Chinaman strike at him." "It was a Chinaman," declared Miguel. "I saw him distinctly. I fired direct at him, but the bullet drilled a hole through the pack saddle." "Pack saddle, man! Pack saddle!" shouted Jaime, a horrible suspicion crossing his mind. "What do you mean?" Miguel felt frightened for the first time for many a day. Jaime glowered at him and toyed with his revolver, as if he would willingly shoot him if his answer were not satisfactory; then he blurted out the truth. "Why, the pack saddle with the two bundles of notes chained to it," he said sullenly. "The Chinaman stole them." "And you let him go free! Gurr!" Jaime stamped in his anger. He kicked the ground as if it had done him some injury. Then he stepped across to the spot where the five figures had been stretched when Jim and his friends first looked into the clearing. "The girl?" he demanded. "She has gone too? With the Chinaman?" "With another man. I just caught a glimpse of him; he was standing in the centre of the hollow that carries the stream." Slowly the matter dawned on Jaime in its true light. He came to see that this attack was not what he had at first suspected--a sudden raid made by natives living in the forest, a raid led by some stray Chinaman, who had taken service with them. It was an organized raid, an attack made by those men from Colon. In a flash he realized that his carefully laid schemes had come to naught, that his track through the forest had been discovered, and that already his enemies were about him. The thought sent the blood flying from his swarthy face till the skin looked ashen grey and lifeless. He growled out violent exclamations beneath his breath, and for a while paced to and fro restlessly. Then--for custom is so strong that few can resist it--the fingers of his right hand dived into his pocket, and within a moment he was rolling a cigarette.