"I'm caught. They're sitting on me."
A pause. Then: "Too bad, Dale." Van Alen's deep voice sounded distant
and troubled now. "I'm going to have to--"
His voice broke off abruptly. After a moment of silence, Kesley heard
footsteps pounding rapidly away through the forest. Van Alen running
away? _Why?_
One of the bandits fired. The forest was illuminated briefly by the
flash of gunpowder, and Kesley thought he heard something like a grunt
of pain, followed by a frantic threshing in the underbrush.
"I got him," a voice said.
"What of the other one?"
"We have him here."
"_Muy bien!_ Don Miguel will be glad to see him."
Kesley was lifted to his feet. Dimly, he saw five men guarding him,
and a sixth crouched a few feet away with his hand clapped to a raw
knife-wound in his shoulder.
Efficiently, the bandits roped his arms to his sides.
"I have a safe-conduct from Duke Miguel," Kesley protested, as they
hustled him out of the copse.
One of the bandits snorted derisively. "Safe conduct? Pah! Don Miguel
gives no safe conducts!"
"But--"
They were in the open now. There was no sign of van Alen or of van
Alen's horse.
The six small ponies of the bandits were grazing in a wide circle; near
the edge of the copse lay the two horses van Alen's blaster had brought
down, and a few feet away were the sprawled, blackened corpses of the
two dead bandits.
The night was silent. Even the birds had ceased their harsh noise.
Kesley tensely allowed himself to be tethered to a pommel.
"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.
The bandit leader chuckled, showing a set of gleaming teeth.
"Buenos Aires. The capital of Duke Miguel, no? Miguel is collecting
_norteamericanos_ this week!"