These new friends had so little of that that he chose not to ask for a loan.

After all, he could sell the cloak! The day was fine, the country mounting as it were by stairs toward the mountains.

Before him climbed a string of pack-mules.

The merchant owning them and their lading traveled with a guard of stout young men.
For some hours Ian had the merchant for companion and heard much of the woes of the region and the times, the miseries of travel, the cursed inns, bandits licensed and unlicensed, craft, violence, and robbery! The merchant bewailed all life and kept a hawk eye upon his treasure on the Spanish road.

At last he and his guard, his mules and muleteers, turned aside into a skirting way that would bring him to a town visible at no great distance.