CHAPTER IV.
Somehow all our individual positions were altered when, at sunrise, our party left the rich loamy lowlands of the Montagua River and swung off over a bullock trail toward the west. We had hurriedly packed our belongings, bought pack burros and saddle ponies, hired a muleteer, paid our bills, and now blindly followed Ixtual, our Maya guide. He, the despised—no, not despised, but regarded tolerantly as an inferior—had been lifted to a plane equal if not above ours. He rose in front, a man broad shouldered and graceful, with stiffly held head. That he was in laborer’s garb with a straw mushroom of a hat on his head, and bare feet that swung limply beneath stirrups that he scorned did not detract from his dignity. He was leading us by suffrance and not through either compulsion or
