"Then you find fault with the work?" asked a bulky, stiff-necked Spaniard, with pock-marked face, who had once before accosted Tom. He it was, in fact, who had so cunningly watched the altercation between our hero and Jack Barwood. "The work? That is good enough as work goes, friend," Tom answered sulkily; "but had I my way I would be back there at home lolling away my time. Who wants to work, and for these British? And then, think of the pittance we earn." Tom was romancing with a vengeance, for if anyone liked work it was he. To be idle with him, as with the majority of decent fellows, was to be supremely miserable. As for the pay, a British army has the reputation of being liberal, and Wellington's was no exception. "Ah!" exclaimed the bull-necked fellow, leering cunningly at Tom, and expectorating to a distance. "The British! I hate them as I hate the French. But as for pay, there are ways of getting rich even when one is only a muleteer." Tom pricked up his ears instantly. He had taken note of this thick-necked, stumpy fellow before, he with the pock-mark face, a face which even if it had not been marred by disease would still have been the reverse of attractive. "Getting rich? How?" he asked. "Ah! That's telling. But there are ways, easy ways, ways unknown to the others." "And there is good money in it, my friend?" "Doubloons in plenty, I tell you," came the slow answer, while the man looked about him craftily. "Come to my wagon," said Tom, at once, anxious to allay any suspicions, and prepared to lead the man on. For here might be something in the nature of a clue. "I have a friend there who also would make money, if it is to be made readily. There is danger?" "Poof! Who thinks of danger when there is gold?" exclaimed the man loftily, though the flicker about his eyes belied his vaunted courage. "I will come gladly. You have a bottle of wine, perhaps. That would be interesting." Tom had a bottle of excellent stuff, as a matter of fact, and had obtained it with a view to a possible meeting of this sort. And, after all, the offer of a good glass of wine on a campaign such as that of the Peninsula was often more binding than a greater service. It followed that, within ten minutes, the three, this muleteer, Tom, and his cousin, were as bosom comrades, while before the fellow left he had made a cunning appointment. "Listen," he said, staring about him. "To-morrow we come to the city of Madrid. There I have friends, and you will meet them. I will give you the time and place of meeting. There you shall learn how money can be earned, and with such a spice of adventure about it that you will be charmed. Look for me to-morrow, then." "On the track at last," murmured Alfonso breathlessly when the man was gone. "You think he is one of the gang, Tom?"