The one ahead was following the horse tracks.
He looked down as he rode.
The other three came behind him, fanned out through the timber.
They were all watching carefully.
Robert Jordan felt his heart beating against the snowy ground as he lay, his elbows spread wide and watched them over the sights of the automatic rifle.
The man who was leading rode along the trail to where Pablo had circled and stopped.
The others rode up to him and they all stopped.
Robert Jordan saw them clearly over the blued steel barrel of the automatic rifle.
He saw the faces of the men, the sabers hanging, the sweat-darkened flanks of the horses, and the cone-like slope of the khaki capes, and the Navarrese slant of the khaki berets.
The leader turned his horse directly toward the opening in the rocks where the gun was placed and Robert Jordan saw his young, sunand wind-darkened face, his close-set eyes, hawk nose and the overlong wedge-shaped chin.
Sitting his horse there, the horse's chest toward Robert Jordan, the horse's head high, the butt of the light automatic rifle projecting forward from the scabbard at the right of the saddle, the leader pointed toward the opening where the gun was.
Robert Jordan sunk his elbows into the ground and looked along the barrel at the four riders stopped there in the snow.
Three of them had their automatic rifles out.
Two carried them across the pommels of their saddles.
The other sat his horse with the rifle swung out to the right, the butt resting against his hip.
You hardly ever see them at such range, he thought. Not along the barrel of one of these do you see them like this.
Usually the rear sight is raised and they seem miniatures of men and you have hell to make it carry up there; or they come running, flopping, running, and you beat a slope with fire or bar a certain street, or keep it on the windows; or far away you see them marching on a road.
Only at the trains do you see them like this.
Only then are they like now, and with four of these you can make them scatter.
Over the gun sights, at this range, it makes them twice the size of men.
Thou, he thought, looking at the wedge of the front sight placed now firm in the slot of the rear sight, the top of the wedge against the center of the leader's chest, a little to the right of the scarlet device that showed bright in the morning sun against the khaki cape.
Though, he thought, thinking in Spanish now and pressing his fingers forward against the trigger guard to keep it away from where it would bring the quick, shocking, hurtling rush from the automatic rifle.
Thou, he thought again, thou art dead now in thy youth.
And thou, he thought, and thou, and thou.
But let it not happen.
Do not let it happen.
He felt Agustin beside him start to cough, felt him hold it, choke and swallow.
Then as he looked along the oiled blue of the barrel out through the opening between the branches, his finger still pressed forward against the trigger guard, he saw the leader turn his horse and point into the timber where Pablo's trail led.
The four of them trotted into the timber and Agustin said softly, "_Cabrones!_"
Robert Jordan looked behind him at the rocks where Anselmo had dropped the tree.
The gypsy, Rafael, was coming toward them through the rocks, carrying a pair of cloth saddlebags, his rifle slung on his back.
Robert Jordan waved him down and the gypsy ducked out of sight.
"We could have killed all four," Agustin said quietly.
He was still wet with sweat.
"Yes," Robert Jordan whispered.
"But with the firing who knows what might have come?"
Just then he heard the noise of another rock falling and he looked around quickly.
But both the gypsy and Anselmo were out of sight.
He looked at his wrist watch and then up to where Primitivo was raising and lowering his rifle in what seemed an infinity of short jerks.
Pablo has forty-five minutes' start, Robert Jordan thought, and then he heard the noise of a body of cavalry coming.
"_No te apures_," he whispered to Agustin.
"Do not worry.
They will pass as the others."
They came into sight trotting along the edge of the timber in column of twos, twenty mounted men, armed and uniformed as the others had been, their sabers swinging, their carbines in their holsters; and then they went down into the timber as the others had.
"_Tu ves?_" Robert Jordan said to Agustin.
"Thou seest?"
"There were many," Agustin said.
"These would we have had to deal with if we had destroyed the others," Robert Jordan said very softly.
His heart had quieted now and his shirt felt wet on his chest from the melting snow.
There was a hollow feeling in his chest.