"It is mother!" exclaimed Ronie, as Riva related the story to him. "I must see this man at once."
"I am sorry, señor, but he disappeared before I started to find you. Knowing how you would feel about it, and not being able to find you at once, I went to speak to him again, fearing he would slip away. He was gone, and no one could tell me where he had left for. I believe he is a spy."
"Do you not know of some one who saw him?"
"I will see what I can learn, Sergeant Rand."
"Thank you, Riva. Meanwhile, the rest of us will do a little looking around. Describe the fellow as minutely as possible."
This Riva did, with the graphic speech peculiar to him, and then the four went out to look for the missing man. In the midst of this unsuccessful search Ronie learned that Castro had returned to La Guayra.
A soldier's first duty is always to obey his superior in command. Upon hearing of General Castro's return to La Guayra, Ronie immediately abandoned his search, leaving his companions to carry it on, while he sought the president. He found him without difficulty, for he was already besieged with callers. But our hero had only to send in his passport from Colonel Marchand to receive an urgent request to come at once.
He was a little disappointed in the personal appearance of the man who had become so prominent in the affairs, and whose name he had heard spoken more often than any dozen others since he had come to Venezuela. He was below medium height, of rather slight build, and moved with a limp in one limb, caused by a wound he had received in battle. His eye was the feature which bespoke most the man, and as Ronie stood before him he seemed to read him at a glance.
"Sergeant Rand," he greeted, in a hearty manner, which quickly won the American boy's friendship, "I welcome you gladly to La Guayra. Colonel Marchand sends his message by you?"
"Here are your dispatches, General Castro. I trust they will prove valuable to you."
"Be seated, sergeant, while I read them."
Ten minutes of silence followed, during which Ronie had ample time to study the man before him, who seemed absorbed in the written messages just placed in his hands. Then he laid the last one down, and said:
"If I am not mistaken, you are the young American the colonel spoke of in such laudable terms in his last. It seems by what he says now that you have not let your reputation suffer by more recent conduct. It was your friend I sent to have liberated from the penitentiary at San Carlos, was it not?"