Since he had refused Olsen’s offer, caution was advisable, because Kit felt sure the fellow had expected him to agree, and it was obvious that he knew enough to make him dangerous.  He distrusted Olsen, who was not a native American, and probably not a Norwegian, as he pretended.  There was a mystery about his employers, but Kit suspected that they were Germans, and as a rule the latters’ commercial intrigues were marked by an unscrupulous cunning of which few of their rivals seemed capable.  This was admitting much, since the foreign adventurers did not claim high principles.

On the surface, it was obviously prudent to take the shortest line to the presidio, but Kit reflected that Olsen would expect him to do so.  It might be better to put him off the track by going another way and Kit was anxious to know if he had left the cafe.  Stepping back into the shadow, he made for another path and a few minutes afterwards returned to the street.  He glanced at the cafe as he walked past and saw that Olsen was not there.  He thought this ominous, since it indicated that the fellow had gone to consult his revolutionary friends and Kit imagined they would try to prevent his reaching the presidio.  He seldom carried a pistol, which was difficult to hide when one wore thin white clothes.  On the whole, he had found a suspicious bulge in one’s pocket rather apt to provoke than to save one from attack; but he was sorry he had not a pistol now.

Kit went back across the alameda, hoping he had put Olsen’s friends off the track.  If so, he would be safe until he got near the presidio, when he must be cautious.  He passed two or three groups of people, and now and then heard steps behind, but the steps were followed by voices that relieved his anxiety.  For all that, he was glad to leave the alameda and turn up a street.

The street was narrow, hot, and dirty.  There was a smell of decaying rubbish and the rancid oil used in cooking.  One side was in shadow, and almost unbroken walls rose from the rough pavement.  For the most part, the outside windows were narrow slits, since the houses got light from the central patio.  Here and there an oil-lamp marked a corner, but that was all, and Kit kept in the moonlight and looked about keenly when he passed a shadowy door.  Perspiration trickled down his face and he felt an unpleasant nervous tension.  Yet nobody came near him and when he cautiously glanced round nobody was lurking in the gloom.  He began to think he had cheated Olsen, but admitted that it was too soon to slacken his watchfulness.

At one corner, he saw two figures in shabby white uniform, and hesitated.  In Spanish-American countries, the government generally maintains a force of carefully picked men, entrusted with powers that are seldom given to ordinary police.  They patrol in couples, carry arms, and are sometimes called guardias civiles and sometimes rurales.  Kit knew he could trust the men, but doubted if they could leave their post; besides he did not want Olsen to know he thought it needful to ask for protection.  Now he came to think of it, he had seen the rurales outside the cafe and at another corner.  Perhaps this was why he had been left alone.