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Updated: June 12, 2025
"We've had enough to eat and I want to make a good distance before we camp for the night." He wanted to get the colored man busy so the Mexican would have no chance to further question him. "Surely the senors are not going to start off again at once immediately!" protested Delazes. "We have not yet taken the siesta the noon-day sleep, and "
We've got to the city of gold first!" "Andy Foger!" hoarsely whispered Tom to Ned. The next moment the stone gate went up with a rush, and there, in the light of the gas torch, and in the glare of many burning ones of wood, held by a throng of people on the other side, stood Andy Foger, his father, Delazes, and a horde of men who looked as wild as savages.
"They are the same ones," went on Delazes, "and they have been following us all day perhaps longer though this is the first I have noted them." "Followed!" murmured Tom. "I wonder " From his valise he took a small but powerful telescope. In the fast-fading light he focused it on the two ox carts. The next moment he uttered an exclamation of anger and dismay.
"Probably he's going to suggest that we take a few days' vacation," ventured Ned. "He doesn't like work." "Senor," began Delazes addressing Tom, who called to Eradicate to bring his oxen to a halt, "are you aware that we are being followed?" "Followed? What do you mean?" cried the young inventor, looking quickly around. "Bless my watch chain!" gasped Mr. Damon. "Followed? By whom?"
He hoped they had not heard the word the colored man so carelessly used, for it had been the agreed policy to keep the nature of their search a secret. But at the mention of "gold" Miguel Delazes, the head ox driver, locked up quickly, and sauntered over to where Tom and the others were seated on the grass.
"Very well," assented the contractor again, and then he said something in Spanish to the aged Mexican. What it was Tom could not catch, for Delazes spoke rapidly and seemed to use some colloquial, or slang phrases with which our hero was not familiar. The old Mexican assented by a nod, and then he brought out some corn meal which Eradicate took.
"I might have known you had a good reason, Tom." "Send on two carts," ordered the young inventor, and now Delazes understood the reason for the strategy. He chuckled as he ordered two of the drivers to start off, and come back after covering a couple of miles. It was rather dreary waiting there at the fork of the trail, and to beguile the time Tom ordered fires lighted and chocolate made.
The occupants of them did not appear to know that they were under observation, and at that distance they could not have made out our friends without a telescope. Tom ascertained that the Fogers were not using one. "Has Senor Swift any orders?" asked Delazes. "Who are these Fogers? Enemies of yours I take it.
Food and supplies were put aboard, spare garments, all their weapons and ammunition, and then Tom paid Delazes and his men, giving them a month's wages in advance, for he told them to wait in camp that long. "But they won't," the young inventor predicted to Ned. There was nothing more to be done. All that they could do, to insure success had been completed.
This Delazes was a Mexican labor contractor, and it was through him that Tom had hired the other men and the ox carts. "Ah, senors!" exclaimed Delazes as he approached, "I fear you are going in the wrong direction to reach the gold mines. If I had known at the start " "We're not looking for gold mines!" interrupted Tom quickly.
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