CHAPTER XLI.

THE MEETING AT CADOZA.

It is something like ten miles to Cadoza, another and smaller railway town, and Ashley arrives about noon. There is no American hotel here. Instead, a lazy Cuban keeps a shiftless hostelry to which only necessity would drive a man. A party of soldiers are gathered at the inn and the yard is filled with their horses.

Ashley tethers his horse at a spot which he can overlook, as Rozinante is an animal that would tempt a man even more upright than a soldier in time of war. As he gives the bridle an extra hitch, a hand is dropped on his shoulder and a familiar voice whispers:

“Jack Ashley, by all that’s holy!”

Ashley turns and cries out:

“Hello, Barker, old man! Where’d you get your uniform?” surveying the detective’s distinctly military attire.

“Hist!” cautions Barker, glancing over his shoulder. “Buy a drink at the hotel and then ride up the road a piece. I’ll join you there.” Saying which the detective walks away and Ashley enters the hotel.

The drinking-room is filled with Spanish caballeria, who glance curiously at the American; after procuring a glass of wine and a cigar, Ashley mounts and rides leisurely up the road. A quarter of a mile from the hotel he finds Barker waiting, and he remarks, with a grin: “Barker, you’re a fashion plate. Where on earth did you get those togs?”

“Hang it! Will you be serious ten minutes,” growls Barker. “Let me tell you that the commanding officer of the gang at the hotel is Capt. Julio Alvarez, who is none other than our old friend Ralph Felton.”

“So? And to trail him you turned trooper, eh?”

“Exactly. Through him I expect to find the other Felton, his father.”

“I can tell you a quicker way.”

“Ah!”

“Push along to Jibana, ten miles east of here. I left Cyrus Felton, Phillip Van Zandt and Louise Hathaway there this morning.”

“Quick! Tell me all you know,” demands the detective, aroused by the information imparted to him by his co-worker.

Ashley supplies the needed details, and Barker asks: “You are reasonably sure that Felton and Van Zandt will remain in Santiago for a fortnight?”

“I think you can depend on that.”

“Then affairs are shaping themselves advantageously for our purpose. Our command will go to Jibana this evening, but I don’t want any collision there. See the position of the game. Van Zandt, if he is Stanley, is tracking the son through the father, and I am trailing the father through the son, intending to bag both of them, as I have an interesting bit of what may prove strong evidence against Ralph Felton. But I can’t do anything with them at Jibana, and if Van Zandt runs afoul of young Felton to-day he is likely to kick over all my plans. Santiago is the place to play the last hand in this interesting game.”

“I get the idea,” remarks Ashley. “But what is this new evidence against young Fenton?”

“This: That I believe he is wearing about his neck at the present time the locket that was removed from Roger Hathaway’s watch-chain the night of the murder and bank robbery.”

Ashley whistles softly. “That’s interesting,” he says. “But how did you learn this? And while you are explaining kindly give an account of yourself from the time you jumped New York.”

The detective complies, and when the interesting tale is completed, Ashley says earnestly: “Barker, old chap, my confidence in you has been increased tenfold in the last month.”

“Thank you,” responds the detective, though he suspects some raillery in the newspaper man’s remark.

“Yes. There was a time when I doubted you a bit. And when you made arrangements to arrest Cyrus Felton I about concluded that the case was to prove after all an ordinary affair. But you have redeemed yourself, Barker. You have proved that the detective I have long admired in the pages of fiction is not a myth, but has his prototype in real life.”

“Indeed?” grunts Barker. “Go on.”

“Yes; just before you descended upon your victim with a triumphant swoop, said victim gave you the slip. Undaunted by such a trifling discouragement, you struck a bee line for Havana, and there—”

“Come, stow your chaff. I’d like to know whose tomfoolery prevented Felton’s arrest in New York. By thunder, if I could have got your ear a moment after I discovered Felton’s departure for Cuba, I’d have given you a dressing-down that would have knocked some of the self-sufficiency out of you.”

“Well, you can consider yourself forgiven,” says Ashley, soothingly. “What’s up at Jibana? Anything special?”

“Yes; a rather important bit of work. This morning Capt. Alvarez, to give him the name he chooses to sail under, learned that a large force of insurgents under El Terredo were encamped somewhere between Cadoza and Jibana. He wired the fact to Havana and not ten minutes later received instructions to intercept a courier for the rebels who was on his way from Santiago to Jibana, presumably with dispatches to El Terredo. Although only his orderly, I am pretty close to Alvarez. The chap has taken quite a fancy to me, and to give him his due he is a devilishly clever fellow, with more pluck and fighting blood in him than a dozen Spaniards. American blood will tell, my boy.”

“Well, what’s the plan for the night?”

“This: We are to flag the train about a mile below Jibana and do the trick quietly, as the feeling about here is pretty strong against the Spanish; arrest the courier, secure the papers, and wire Havana that the road is clear, as I understand the dispatches relate to the big supply train which is on its way from the capital to Santiago. Truenos, you know, is shifting his headquarters to the latter city.”

“Then the supply train has already left Havana?”

“Presumably. The rebels at the Santiago end of the line got wind of the shipment, and have sent Don Carlos to put El Terredo onto the fact.”

“Don Carlos!” repeats Ashley, with a start that Barker does not notice; “and what disposition will you make of the prisoner?”

Barker shrugs his shoulders. “He will probably be honorably shot.”

“Unhappy youth!” murmurs Ashley.

“It is rather tough,” remarks Barker, coolly. “But it is the fortune of war.”

Ashley’s forehead is wrinkled in thought. “I’d like to take a hand in the fun to-night,” he remarks carelessly. “I’ve been journeying through the desert for more than three days, with not a sign of adventure. I don’t suppose it would do for me to show myself to Alvarez. How many men has he with him?”

“Twenty, including himself.”

“Does he intend to take the entire command with him to hold up the train?”

“No; the affair is to be transacted in the quietest manner. Alvarez, myself and four more men are to leave the hotel about 9 o’clock—the train is due at Jibana at 10—and proceed down the track a mile or so. A few swings of the lantern and the train will stop, Don Carlos be removed and the train signaled to go ahead. If the arrest were made publicly, word might get to El Terredo, and the government’s plans for a safe passage of the supply train would be frustrated.”

“Your business completed at Jibana, I suppose you will push directly on to Santiago?”

“Yes, and you?” queries Barker.

“I shall probably follow at a respectful distance. I have been stopping at the Hotel Royal in Santiago, and you will probably find me there if I am in the city.”

“How is Felton looking?” asks the detective.

“Badly; I shouldn’t wonder if he had a presentiment that some sort of disaster was impending.”

“And Miss Hathaway?”

“Superb as ever. There is apparently a tender regard existing between her and Van Zandt.”

“Strange, strange are the workings of fate,” philosophizes Barker, and with a sly grin he adds: “How are your studies in statuary progressing, Jack?”

“Suspended for the present, most sympathetic Barker. Just now I am interested in a study of the life.”

“Ah; some dark-eyed Cuban senorita?”

“The most beautiful woman in the world,” is Ashley’s enthusiastic tribute.

Barker laughs good-humoredly, then suddenly exclaims: “Hello! There’s the trumpet call. I must be off. By the way, I’ve changed my name to Parker.”

“Parker! Why don’t you get a name to match your clothes?”

“Go to thunder!” retorts the detective. “So long. I’ll see you at Santiago.” Barker plunges into the woods beside the road and returns to the hotel by a circuitous route.

“You’ll see me again before you reach Santiago,” soliloquizes Ashley, gazing after his friend’s retreating form. “If Navarro is in these mountains I’ll search him out, and we’ll have a hand in the game at Jibana to-night that will remind Capt. Alvarez of a certain little straight flush he ran up against once upon a time. And if Navarro is not to be found, then, by George, I’ll play the hand alone!”