As for Nicolas, he had vanished like the mist before the sun.
"Ha-ho-hum!" yawned Pedro Gato, audibly.
Tom raised his head, studying their immediate surroundings.

He soon fancied he saw a safe way of slipping off to the southward and finding the road again below where Gato stood.
Signing to Hazelton, Reade rose softly and started off.

Two or three minutes later the young engineers were a hundred yards away from Gato, though in a rock-littered field where a single incautious step might betray them.
"Come on, now," whispered Tom.

"Toward the mine." "And run into Gato ?" grimaced Harry.

"Great!" "If we meet him we ought to get away with him between us," Tom retorted.