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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 “I guess so, son,” said Pete, rising rather weakly to his feet, for
the blow the tree had struck him, while it had not broken the skin,
had been a stunning one.
“You see,” he went on, “they got a good start of us and should
have reached the high ground afore the water hit.”
“That’s so,” agreed Jack, “and I can see now that the water did
not rise so very high. It was its speed and anger that made it
terrible.”
“Wonder how far that blamed old tree carried us,” said Pete,
rather anxiously. “It’s just curred to me that if we don’t connect with
the stock and some grub pretty quick, we’ll be in a bad fix.”
He gazed about him as he spoke. On every side stretched
monotonous plains covered with the same gray-green brush as the
savannah amidst which they had camped the night before. But the
question in Pete’s mind was whether or not it was the same plain or
another altogether on which they stood.
But fortunately for them, for they were not in the mood or
condition to stand hardship long, they were not destined to remain
long in doubt as to the whereabouts of their companions. While they
were gazing anxiously into the distance Jack’s keen eye suddenly
detected a sharp flash off to the eastward. It was as if the sun had
glinted for an instant on a bit of sharply cut diamond. The flash was
as bright as a sudden ray of fire. The next instant it was seen no
more. But a second later it flashed up again. This time the glitter
was to be seen for a longer interval.
“What on airth is it?” gasped Pete, to whom Jack had indicated
the phenomenon.
“Wait one moment and maybe I can tell you if it is what I hope,”
cried Jack in an excited tone. With burning eyes he watched the
distant point of light flashing and twinkling like a vanishing and
reappearing star.
“Hooray!” he cried suddenly, “it’s all right! It’s Ralph and the rest
and they are all safe. But they don’t know yet where we are.”
 Pete gazed at the boy as if he suspected that the stress of the
night might have turned his mind.
“Anything else you kin see off thar?” he asked sardonically.
“Nothing but that they say the horses are all right, and that if we
see their signals we are to send up a smoke column,” replied Jack
calmly, his countenance all aglow.
“Look hyar, Jack Merrill, I promised your father ter take care of
yer,” said Pete sternly, “an’ I don’t want ter take back a raving
loonertick to him. What’s all this mean?”
“That Ralph is signalling with a bit of mirror,—heliographing, they
call it in the army,” cried Jack, with a merry laugh, which rather
discomfited Pete.
“Wall, that may be, too,” he admitted grudgingly, “thar sun would
catch it and make it flash. But how under ther etarnal stars kin you
tell what he’s saying?”
“Simple enough,” rejoined Jack; “he was making the flashes long
and short,—using the Morse telegraph code, in fact. You know we
had a cadet corps at Stonefell to which we both belonged. Field
signalling and heliographing was part of our camping instruction, but
I guess neither of us ever dreamed it would come in handy in such a
way as this. That certainly was a bully idea of Ralph’s. He knew if we
were any place around we would see the flashes and be able to read
them, whereas we couldn’t have sighted them in the tall brush so
easily and might have missed them altogether.”
“Wall, what air we goin’ ter do now?” asked Pete, rather
apathetically.
“Do? Why, light a fire, of course. Then they’ll see the smoke
column and come over to us with grub and the ponies.”
“Hum,” snorted Pete. “Got any matches?”
“Why, no. Haven’t you?”
“Nary a one.”
“Phew!” whistled Jack. “Now we are in a fix for certain. What can
we do?”
 “Keep your shirt—or what’s left of it—on, son, you’ll need it,” said
Pete slowly, a smile overspreading his sun-bronzed features, “thar’s
more ways of killing cats than choking ’em ter death with superfine
cream. Likewise thar’s more ways of lighting a fire than by using
parlor matches.”
Jack watched Pete wonderingly as he took out his knife in silence
and strode off to the tree. He found a dead branch and whittling off
the wet outside bark soon reached the dry interior. This done, he cut
the wood down to a stick about two feet long and a little thicker
than a stout lead pencil. Then he hacked away at some more of the
dry wood till he had a small flat bit of thoroughly dry timber. In this
he excavated a small hole to fit the point of the pencil-like stick.
“Now git me some dry twigs from that brush yonder,” he directed
Jack, who had been gazing on these preparations with much interest
and a dawning perception of what the old plainsman was going to
do.
By the time Jack was back with the twigs,—the dryest he could
find,—Pete had scraped off a lot of sawdust-like whittlings and piled
them about the hole he had dug out. Then taking the pencil-like
stick between his palms, he inserted its lower end in the hole,
carefully heaped the sawdust stuff about it, and began rotating it
slowly at first and then fast.
All at once a smell of burning wood permeated the air. From the
sawdust a tiny puff of blue smoke rolled up. Suddenly it broke into
flame.
“Now the twigs! Quick!” cried Pete, and as Jack gave him the dry
bits of stick he piled them on the blazing punk-wood, blowing
cautiously at the flame. In ten minutes he had a roaring fire. But the
old plainsman’s work wasn’t finished yet. He began hacking green
branches from the tree and piling them on top of his blaze.
Instantly a pillar of dun-colored, smoke, thick and greasy, rolled
upward into the still air.
Pete took off his leather coat and threw it over the smoking pyre,
smothering the column of vapor.
 “Now then, son,” he said, with the faintest trace of triumph in his
voice, “yer see that this here hell-io-what-you-may-call ’em, ain’t
ther only trick in the plainsman’s bag. By raising and lowering that
coat you kin talk in your Remorse thing as long as you like.”
“Pete, I take off my hat to you,” exclaimed Jack, feeling ashamed
of the rather superior manner he had assumed when talking of the
heliograph a while before.
“That’s all right, son. But take it frum yer Uncle Dudley that we
none of us know everything. Thar’s things you kin larn from an
Injun, jus’ as I larned how ter git that fire a-goin’.”
Kneeling by the smoldering smoke-pile, Jack raised and lowered
the coat at long and short intervals, forming a species of smoke
telegraphy easily readable by anyone who understood the Morse
code.
An hour of anxious waiting followed and then upon the scene
galloped at top speed the rest of the adventurers bearing with them
some food, scanty but welcome, and best of all, the ponies and one
rifle.
 CHAPTER IX.

THE LONE RANCHO.

Well, that was an odd meal, that refection of water-soaked

biscuit and canned corned beef, with flood water as a beverage.
Perhaps in all the adventures of the Border Boys, when in after years
they came to recall them, no scene stood out quite so strikingly.
For one thing, Coyote Pete alone, of the party, possessed any
sort of wardrobe. The professor was clad in his “barber pole”
pajamas. Ralph boasted a shirt and Walt Phelps possessed the same
with the addition of a pair of socks, which latter hardly fulfilled
requirements so far as a covering for his nether limbs was
concerned.
From time to time the Border Boys had to look at each other and
burst out laughing. Only the professor viewed the matter in a serious
light.
“Suppose we should meet some ladies,” he asked indignantly.
“Reckon thar ain’t many of ’em hereabouts,” ventured Coyote,
spreading a big slice of beef on a bit of soggy bread. “The burros is
ther only representatives of the gentle sex fer a good many miles, I
opinion.”
The burros, relieved of their packs, which had been swept away,
wagged their ears appreciatively at this, and continued browsing on
the short, coarse grass which grew in patches here and there, and
which the boys were delighted to see seemed also to be palatable to
the horses.
Ralph and the others had already related how the terrified
animals had been recaptured without difficulty early that day. In
fact, a circumstance which has often been noted was their good
fortune, namely, that panic-stricken horses in lonely, wild countries,
will actually seek human companionship,—provided, of course, that
they have already been domesticated. As for the burros, their loud
“hee-haws” had resounded all night.
Ralph also explained how the idea of the mirror heliograph came
to him. The lad who, as has been explained, was a bit of a dandy,
was horrified to discover the abbreviated state of his wardrobe. But
a search of his shirt pocket revealed his pocket-mirror with its folding
brush and comb fittings. The railroad king’s son had at once set to
work to make himself presentable about the head at least, and was
combing his hair neatly and wondering how Jack and Pete had fared,
when the sun caught the mirror and it flashed blindingly into his
eyes. This gave him the idea of flashing it in all directions in the
hope that the others, if within sight, would catch its glint. Then
came the happy thought of telegraphing with the bit of glass by
alternately covering and uncovering it. The idea had met with the
warm approval of the professor and Walt Phelps, although, perhaps,
even they had not been over sanguine of results.
“Well,” said Jack at length, after the events of the night and the
following incidents had been discussed and re-discussed, “what are
we going to do now?”
“Get clothes,” cried Ralph, without an instant’s hesitation,
regarding his bare legs disparagingly.
“By all means, yes,” agreed the professor.
Coyote Pete grinned.
“Jack,” said he, “will you be so kind as ter step ter the telephone
and tell the Blue Front Store to send up a few samples of men’s
furnishings?”
All but the professor burst into a roar of laughter at this sally.
 “At any rate,” suggested Walt Phelps, “we’re not likely to get held
up.”
“Not so sure about that,” said the professor, “I have the money
belt containing most of our finances around my waist. I always sleep
with it there.”
“Hooray!” shouted the boys, who, up to that moment had not
once thought of the important question of finances. It struck them
now with sobering force.
“By George!” cried Jack, “if it hadn’t been for your foresight,
professor, we might have been penniless as well as wardrobeless.”
“That’s right,” agreed Coyote Pete, “and ther chance that you’d
stand of being helped out by the greasers would be about ther same
as a snowflake ’ud have on a red-hot cook stove.”
“My idea is to lose no time in striking out for a town or village
where we can get some clothes, even if they are only Mexican
garments,” announced Jack.
“And food, too,” put in Walt Phelps, who liked to get his three
meals a day, “we’ll be on starvation diet if we don’t stock up on
that.”
After more discussion it was agreed to follow up the dry bed of
the river, as the professor’s map showed a small village some
distance up a stream which, though unnamed on the map, seemed
to be the one on whose banks they now were. This decision
reached, no time was lost in mounting. There was no saddling to be
done, for the saddles had been swept off with most of the rest of
their outfit.
“If you ever catch me camping in the dry bed of a river again you
are welcome to hang me to a sour apple tree,” grumbled Walt
Phelps, as he mounted.
“I reckon I’m ter blame fer it all,” volunteered Coyote Pete, “but I
never thought as how that far-off storm would affect us in the
plains. That must have bin a jim-dandy of a cloudburst.”
“I’d hate to have been any closer to it than we were,” laughed
Jack. “If we had been, we’d have been going yet, I imagine.”
 “I heard of a cloudburst once that did some good, though,”
struck in Pete; “ther thing happened to a friend of mine in Californy.
He wuz a miner, Jefferson Blunt by name.
“Wall, sir, Jeff had struck such all-fired bad luck up on the
Stanislaus River that he’d about concluded to pull out for other
regions when, all of a sudden, one night up came a storm, and in
the middle of it there come the all-firedest cloudburst that Jeff had
ever heard of. It picked up his cabin and floated Jeff off down the
river, a-going like a blue streak. He thought every minute that he’d
hear Gabriel’s trumpet and see ther golden stairs, but that little old
cabin was well built and watertight, and it floated like a boat.
“It must hev been hours, Jeff says, afore he felt ther thing give a
bump and stop. As soon as he dared he opened ther door and
peeked out. He wuz in a part uv ther country he’d never seen. It
was all cliffs and big trees and very imposing, and ther like of that,—
that ‘imposing’ is Jeff’s word.
“Wall, Jeff he steps out of his sea-going shack and looks about
him, and ther first thing he sees is a big streak of ore just a-glitter
with gold and stuck, like a band of yaller ribbon along ther cliff face
above his head.
“Jeff had bin so unlucky that first he thinks it’s jes’ fool’s gold and
not the real article. But he soon convinces himself thet he’s struck it
rich at last. Wall, ter make a long story short, Jeff files a claim and in
a few y’ars is a rich man, and what d’ye s’pose he called ther mine?”
“‘The Cloud Burst,’ of course!” cried Jack.
“How’d yer guess it?” asked Pete. “But yer right, and thet’s ther
only cloudburst I ever hearn’ of, thet brought anybody any luck.”
“Personally, if I could find a pair of trousers,” wailed the
professor, “I should esteem their possession almost above even such
a lucky discovery as you have related.”
“I think I’d trade it right now for a porter-house steak and
trimmings, brown gravy and green corn, and——”
“See here,” put in Ralph, with assumed indignation, “if you don’t
shut up I’ll, I’ll——”
 “Go right home,” chuckled Walt teasingly; “you’d be a fine sight
in that rig. I’ll bet the folks back east would have you put in the
calaboose.”
But by noon the gay spirits of the boys were considerably toned
down. No sign of a town had yet come in sight and they were all
hot, hungry and tired. The odd procession, with the burros tagging
along behind, looked disconsolate enough as it followed the
windings of the river. The shallow aftermath of the flood steamed
and simmered under the hot sun, sending up unpleasant odors,—yet
they had to drink it or go without.
By way of cheering the party up, Coyote Pete began to sing—or
rather wail—in the high-pitched voice affected by cow-punchers
singing to their cattle:
“O-ho-wa-hay da-own upon the Su-wahanee River,
Fa-har, fa-har a-way——”

But before he could begin the next line Ralph struck in with:
“There’s where our pants are floating ever;
There’s where they’re gone to stay!”

In the general roar of laughter which followed, the “grouch”

which had settled down on the tired wayfarers vanished like the
spring snow under a burst of sunlight.
With a shout the boys, their troubles forgotten in an outburst of
that good nature that makes the whole world kin, plunged forward,
their shirt tails flying.
“Yip-yip-ye-ee!”
The joyous yell filled the air. And then it broke off into a real
cheer, for, on surmounting the summit of a small eminence, they saw
below them, not more than a mile off, a small adobe house of
unusual type, for it had two stories. It was surrounded by a grove of
green willows which delighted the eye tired by the endless gray-
green stretches of grease-wood savannahs.
 Even the dignified professor joined in the enthusiasm, and in a
minute a cavalcade was bearing down on the place at breakneck
speed. As they neared it in a thunder of hoofs and a cloud of yellow
dust, a door opened and the figure of a gaunt Mexican, with long,
shaggy, black hair hanging straight and lank to his shoulders,
stepped out. His next move halted the leaders of the party abruptly.
He jerked a long-barreled rifle to his shoulder and pointed it
threateningly.
“Mira rurales!” he yelled to some one within the house.
“No rurales! Americanos!” cried Coyote Pete.
The effect was magical. The man’s startled air changed, and with
a sheepish smile he stepped forward as Jack and Ralph, who were in
advance, drew rein.
“What did he mean by rurales, I wonder?” asked Ralph of Jack in
a low tone as the others loped up.
“Why, rurales are a species of police. Rangers, they are called
sometimes. They are wild chaps, mostly recruited from the ranks of
brigands and highwaymen. The government pays them a high figure
to be good and keep law and order.”
“But this man seemed to fear them.”
“Maybe he has reason to. But we can’t be particular. At any rate,
we are a strong enough party to look after our own hands. But see,
here comes his wife. I guess, after all, he is nothing more unlawful
than a cattle rancher in a small way, who perhaps, once-in-a-while
takes an unbranded calf or two from his neighbor’s estates.”
The woman who joined the man, who by this time had set down
the rifle, was a stout, slatternly-looking creature in a greasy cotton
wrapper. She shot out a few rapid words in a low voice to the other,
who replied in equally low tones. So far as Jack, who was closest,
could judge, the woman seemed to be protesting against something,
and the man stilling her objections.
Coyote Pete as spokesman now advanced, and in Spanish asked
if they could obtain lodging and refreshment for themselves and
their stock.
 CHAPTER X.

AFTER MIDNIGHT.

To their astonishment, the man seemed to hesitate. They had

judged from the poverty-stricken look of his place and belongings
that he would jump at the chance to make some money easily. But it
seemed that this was not the case.
While the fellow still hesitated, glancing covertly at the
newcomers, the professor did a foolish thing. He exhibited his
money belt and tapping it made it give forth the suggestive jingle of
coins. Coyote Pete’s expression grew angry for a moment, but he
checked his chagrin at the professor’s foolish move.
But the exhibition of the party’s financial solidity seemed to have
decided the ill-favored Mexican and his wife, for after some more
parley, which somehow appeared to Jack to be merely for form’s
sake, they agreed to shelter the party and their stock at two dollars
each, Mexican, which is equivalent to one dollar of our money.
“Cheap enough,” said Jack, as ten minutes later they turned their
stock loose in the corral and watched them attack with wholesome
appetites the hay stack in the center of the enclosure.
“May be dear enough before we get through,” thought Coyote
Pete to himself.
He refrained from mentioning his mistrustful feeling to the
others, however, as, after all, the Mexicans might be honest enough
folks even if his impressions were otherwise.
After a wash-up in a small creek which flowed at the back of the
place, the adventurers were quite ready to sit down to a smoking
meal of frijoles (beans fried with red peppers) and eggs cooked in
the Mexican style. Some thin red wine was served with the meal, but
as none of the party had any use for alcoholic beverages in any
form, they were content to wash it down with water from the great
stone olla,—or water cooler which hung under the broad eaves of
the veranda.
Jack had an uneasy sense that they were being scrutinized as
they ate, by some unseen pair of eyes, and once looking up quickly
he caught, or thought he did, a glimpse of the woman’s print gown
slipping from a shuttered window. Jack was not a boy to make a
mountain out of a mole hill, though, and concluded that, in all
probability, the woman, if she had been looking at them, had been
merely curious at the advent of so many strangers.
The rest of the afternoon, for it was late when they concluded
their meal, was passed in chatting and lounging about under the
trees. Nobody felt inclined for more strenuous occupations. The
professor, however, having obtained some old canvas, succeeded in
fashioning a rough pair of trousers. They were short and shapeless,
and his legs stuck out oddly from them like the drumsticks of a fowl,
but they were better than nothing, he thought. As for the boys, they
had bought some baggy garments of the Mexican type from the lone
rancher, which would have to last them till they reached the nearest
town. This, they were informed, was Santa Anita, and was not more
than ten miles distant.
An early start being determined on, they sought their beds soon
after supper, which consisted of the same fare as the other meal
with the addition of some greasy pancakes. Jack ate some of these,
not caring for a second dose of the peppery beans and a short time
after felt, as he expressed it to himself, “as if a cannon ball were in
his midst.”
Perhaps this accounts for his wakefulness, for he found it
impossible to sleep after they had all turned in, in one large room,—
or, rather, garret,—which formed the second floor. The others flung
themselves on the straw, which served for beds, with the lassitude
of complete exhaustion, but Jack lay awake, with the pancakes on
his chest like a leaden weight. At length he fell into an uneasy
slumber, from which he awakened a short time later with a start and
a queer feeling that something in which they were vitally interested
was going forward.
His first vague feelings rapidly crystallized into more definite
shape as, from the yard outside, he could now distinctly hear the
trampling of horses’ hoofs. There seemed to be several of them, to
judge by the noise.
Moonlight was streaming into the garret through an unglazed
opening in the adobe wall, and holding his watch in the rays, Jack
saw that it was half an hour after midnight.
“Queer time to receive visitors,” he thought to himself.
At the same time he was conscious of an overwhelming curiosity
to ascertain who and what the midnight arrivals could be. The boy
had noticed a door in the wall of the garret when they first entered it
that evening, and from his previous inspection of the exterior of the
house he had formed an idea that it opened upon the top landing of
an outside stairway. They had been conducted to the garret,
however, by a ladder leading from the room below.
As well as he could judge, the noise came from the opposite side
of the house to that on which the door was situated, so there did
not seem to be much chance of detection in slipping out of the door,
down the outside stairway and, from some point of vantage, seeing
what all the racket might portend. There was one possible difficulty
in the way, and that was that the door might be locked. But it
proved to be unlatched, and Jack, swinging it open, after he had
partially dressed, found himself, as he had surmised he would, on a
landing or platform at the top of an outside flight of stairs.
In his bare feet, for he had not paused to put on shoes, he
slipped as noiselessly as possible down the stairway and presently
found himself in the yard. The moonlight cast black and white
patterns of the overhanging willows on the ground, but a brief
inspection convinced Jack that there was no human being astir but
himself on that side of the house.
As he reached the ground he could distinctly hear the voice of
the slatternly woman crying out:—
“Hush!” to the new arrivals.
The voices which had been loud at first were instantly lowered,
and he could hear the riders, whoever they were, addressing
quieting remarks to their horses.
“Well, I’m going to see what all this means, if it’s the last thing I
do,” said Jack to himself, and suiting the action to the word he glided
rapidly along in the shadow of the wall till he reached the corner of
the house. There was a low outbuilding there, which might at one
time have been used as a pigstye. This was just what Jack wanted.
He placed both hands on the top bar of the little enclosure outside
the pen-like erection, and the next instant had vaulted lightly over
and was inside the little shack. The boards of which it was composed
were interspersed by wide cracks, and applying his eye to one of
these the Border Boy commanded a fine view of the moonlit yard at
the end of the house.
As he had expected, it was full of riders, one of whom was
mounted on an animal which somehow seemed familiar to the boy.
He with difficulty suppressed a cry of astonishment, as the next
instant the rider emerged into the moonlight, and Jack saw that he
was none other than Black Ramon. The others, he now recognized
as men he had seen in the camp on that adventurous morning
following the delivery of the warning letter.
But Jack had not much time to meditate on all this, for he
suddenly became aware that Ramon was riding behind the cantle of
his saddle, and that lying across the saddle itself was a human
figure. A second later the boy made out that it was the senseless
form of a woman that the outlaw chief was carrying before him.
Hardly had he made this discovery before the woman and the
man of the lone ranch came forward and lifted the inanimate form
from the back of the black horse of the Border scourge. As they did
so a mantilla of elaborate workmanship which covered her face, fell
from it, disclosing her marble-like features, as pale as death. Jack
then saw that she was young and very beautiful. As the girl was
lifted by the lone rancheros, her consciousness returned, and
opening her eyes she began to pour out a flood of Spanish. Jack,
like most boys bred along the border, had a working knowledge of
the language, and it didn’t take him long to gather that she was
promising rich rewards, estates, anything to her captors if they
would release her and restore her to her parents.
But Ramon’s rejoinder was a hoarse laugh. He informed the girl
that he meant to exact a heavy ransom from her father for her
freedom, and that if it were not forthcoming he would make her his
own wife.
An astonishing change came over the girl at these words. From a
pleading, terror-stricken maiden, she became a fine figure of scorn.
Drawing herself up proudly, she exclaimed with blazing eyes:—
“I would die before such a thing happened. My father will find
you out and punish you like the wicked men you are.”
“Colonel Don Alverado will never find Black Ramon or see his
daughter again if a hundred thousand pesos are not forthcoming
before the end of the week,” was the rejoinder.
In speaking these last words Ramon had unconsciously raised his
voice, and the rancheros, with faces full of alarm, stepped forward.
“Hush! for heaven’s sake not so loud!” the woman exclaimed,
“there are several Gringoes in the house!”
Ramon’s face grew black.
“Gringoes!” he snarled, “what do you mean by admitting the
Yankee pigs when I have paid you well for the use of your house?”
“But they are here only for the night and are sound asleep,”
protested the male ranchero. “Depend on it, they will not interfere.
They are pressing on toward Santa Anita to-morrow at dawn.”
“And then, too, they have a belt full of money, Senor Ramon,”
whined the woman, “there is no reason why your excellent self
should not have it. We had that idea in our head when we consented
to let them stop here.”
“Oh, so that’s the reason you suddenly became willing to let us
stop,” thought Jack in his hiding place.
But Ramon was now leaning forward with a sudden expression of
keen interest.
“These Gringoes, old woman,” he asked, “tell me, are they three
boys, a tough-looking, long-legged man with a yellow moustache,
and a spectacled old man?”
“Si, senor,” was the rejoinder.
“Santa Maria,” exclaimed Ramon, “here is good fortune. It is
those Border Boys and their companions delivered into our hands for
the plucking. You did well to let them stop here, senora. They are all
asleep, you say?”
“Si. It is but a few minutes ago that my man crept up the ladder
and peered into the garret in which they are sleeping. They are all
snoring like the Yankee pigs they are.”
“Bueno. We will attend to them shortly,” was the rejoinder; “but
now to dispose of the girl. Have you a room in which we can confine
her?”
“Yes, in the small room at the other end of the house. It was
formerly used as a wine room and is without windows, except a
small one at the top for ventilation. It has a strong door, too, for
when we grew vines and made wine, thieves used to visit us, ill
fortune light upon them.”
“That’s a queer sort of morality,” thought Jack, “for if I ever saw
or heard of a precious band of rascals, these are surely they. That
poor senorita! We must devise some way of aiding her to escape,
but what can we do? I guess I’ll sneak back now while they are busy
elsewhere and wake up the others, for if I’m not mistaken we are
going to have a tough fight on our hands before very many
minutes.”
As Jack cautiously slipped back by the way he had come, he saw
the senorita being led away into the house, proudly disdaining to
parley further with her captors.
“There’s a girl in a thousand,” thought Jack to himself, “no
hysterics or uproar about her. We’ve just got to help her out of the
clutches of those ruffians.”
 CHAPTER XI.

TRAPPED!

Cautiously awakening his companions one by one, Jack told them

of his adventures while in the pig pen.
“The scoundrels!” exclaimed the professor, “we must act at once.”
“Now hold your horses,” drawled Coyote Pete in the easy tone he
always adopted when danger was near, “it ain’t our move yet. If I
ain’t very much mistaken we’ll have all the action we want in a very
short time, too. As a first step I’d suggest we bar that door yonder,—
the one that Jack sneaked out of—I see it’s got a good big latch on
the inside. In that way we’ll head off an attack frum thar, an’ we’ll
only have the trap door from below to look after.”
The heavy bar being noiselessly placed in its hasps, Pete outlined
his further plans.
“They’ll figger we are asleep,” he said, “but it ain’t likely they’ll
jump us till they’ve sent someone up to make sure. It’s our play then
ter git back on the straw and all snore as natural as possible.”
“What then?” asked Walt Phelps in rather an alarmed tone.
“We’ve only got one rifle.”
“That’s so, consarn it,” grunted Pete, “wall, we’ll hev ter do ther
best we can an’—hush, hyar comes the advance guard now!”
In the room below they could hear cautious footsteps. Evidently
Ramon had lost no time in hatching out his plans.
 “Lie down, everybody, and sham sleep as hard as yer can,”
ordered Pete in a low, tense whisper, “our lives may depend on it.”
The order was obeyed none too soon, for before many seconds
had passed they could hear the creaking of the ladder as someone
mounted it. Presently, from one half-closed eye, Jack perceived a
head poked upward through the trap in the floor. By the light which
streamed up from below he saw that it was the cranium of the red-
headed man whom he was pretty sure was the author of the
warning message which had been carried into their camp.
The man stood still as a statue for perhaps five minutes. During
the tense moments Jack’s heart beat as if it would break through his
ribs. It was not fear, but intense excitement that thrilled him. The
moment was at hand when they would be engaged in a desperate
game against terrible odds. What would be the result?
Having apparently satisfied himself that they all slept soundly, the
scout of the outlaws descended once more, the ladder creaking
under his weight.
“It’s goin’ ter come in a few minutes, now,” whispered Pete,
rousing himself, “gimme the rifle, Walt. How many cartridges is in
it?”
“Five,” was the disheartening reply.
“An’ we ain’t got another one between us,” moaned Pete. “Wall, it
can’t be helped, as the hawk said to ther chicken when he carried
her of, leavin’ her numerous family behind. Now, I’m going ter git
right by this here opening and the first head that pokes through it
gits a crack. We’ll save the cartridges for an emergency.”
“An emergency!” exclaimed Ralph, thinking that if ever there was
an emergency the present situation had already arrived at that
stage.
They could now hear whispers below, and worse still, the
ominous click and slide of repeating rifles being got in readiness for
use.
“There’s some old furniture piled in that corner,” exclaimed Jack
suddenly, “couldn’t we use it to block the trap with?”
 “A good idea when the worst of it comes,” assented Pete, “but
we’ve got ter keep ther trap open so as to disable as many as
possible before we have to come to close quarters.”
The next ten minutes,—for though it seemed like the same
number of hours, it was not in reality any more,—was the most
painful period the boys ever recalled having put in. From the room
below came furtive sounds, but they were so soft and infrequent
that it looked as if the main body must have withdrawn further to
discuss the attack.
“Say, let’s rush them. I can’t stand this any longer.”
It was Ralph who spoke, but Coyote laid a restraining hand on
his arm.
“Easy, lad, easy,” he admonished in a low breath, almost in the
lad’s ear, “it won’t be long before they start tuning up for the
performance, and it ain’t goin’ ter be a funeral march for us neither.”
As he spoke, Pete “clubbed” their solitary rifle, holding it by the
barrel. At the same instant a door beneath quietly opened and
closed, and the next minute the ladder creaked as a foot was placed
upon it.
“Up with you, Miguel,” they heard Ramon whisper, “here’s the
knife. Remember the money belt is on the old man. Jose, you follow
him closely, and Migullo, you come after. That is all it is safe to trust
on the ladder at one time. I myself will come later.”
“The cowardly greaser,” breathed Coyote, with one of his
increasingly frequent lapses into plain English, “I guess he’ll feel less
like climbing than ever when he sees what’s going to happen to the
first arrival. It’s a good thing for us they can’t come but one at a
time. In that way they’ll have no chance of rushing us.”
As he finished speaking the boys felt the peculiar thrill that
comes before the enactment of some exciting deed. A black head
poked itself cautiously through the trap and as it did so Coyote
raised his rifle stock, swung it, and brought it down with crushing
force on the head of the intruding wretch. He fell backward with a
crash, and landed in a heap in the room below. Under ordinary
circumstances, not one of the Border Boys would have stood for
such drastic measures. But they knew that now it was their life or
the Mexican’s. Nevertheless they felt relieved as they heard the
fellow stagger to his feet and begin cursing in picturesque Mexican.
“Diablo! The fiend himself is in those Gringoes,” he raved, “I
think they have broken every bone in my body.”
“More fool you, for not being more cautious,” growled Ramon,
and then, raising his voice, he shouted up in English:
“It will be of no use to you to resist. I have a superior force and
if you injure another of my men when I do get you it will go hard
with you. Surrender and give me the money and no harm will come
to you with the exception of Jack Merrill. I mean to deal with him as
I choose.”
“When you get him, you dog,” shouted Coyote Pete, “which won’t
be yet or for a long time to come,—ah! you would, would you!”
As he spoke, the cow-puncher had projected his head
thoughtlessly over the edge of the trap door. A bullet aimed to kill,
which, however, whizzed harmlessly by his ear, was the result. The
missile sang through the air and buried itself in one of the rafters.
“We’ll give you all you want of that directly,” hailed Coyote Pete,
essaying what is sometimes called “a bluff,” “we have plenty of rifles
and ammunition, and we can use them, too, so bring on your next
man.”
“You shall smart for this, you Gringo pig,” cried Ramon from
below. Evidently the complete failure of his first attack and Coyote’s
bantering tone had driven him beside himself with fury.
“Oh, I’m a smart fellow, anyhow,” chuckled Coyote Pete, “come
on. One cigar for every head I crack. That’s the way they do it at the
county fair with the Jolly Nigger Dodger, and I don’t know as you
greasers have anything on him.”
“Rush up and bring them down out of that!” screamed Ramon
furiously. But the sharp lesson they had just had seemed to hold the
Mexicans in check. Evidently the Gringoes above were not to be
trifled with. Ramon strode up and down the room stamping and
raging and biting his nails. Altogether he was in a fit of black Latin
rage which is not so very different from the tantrums we
occasionally find in our own nurseries.
“Why not come up yourself, Ramon?” was Coyote’s next thrust.
“If your head is burning with such blazing thoughts it must need
ventilating.”
But the Mexican, wisely enough perhaps, did not reply. Instead,
he called down the men from the ladder, seeing, in spite of his rage,
that it was useless to waste his followers in that fashion.
“We’d better bottle up the trap door now,” said Pete, as the
voices below became more inaudible. “Get that old furniture, boys,
and we’ll make things snug.”
“Here’s an old table top that might fit over the hole,” said Jack,
bringing the article in question, “it’ll just fit too, and it’s solid
mahogany.”
“Just the thing, boy. Now quickly bring all the stuff you can to
pile on it.”
“Say, there’s a pile of big stones over here where the chimney
goes through,” reported Ralph presently, “how would those do for
weights?”
“Fine. Bring them right along. Your Uncle Dudley will pile them.”
One would have said from the cow-puncher’s boisterous spirits
that he was in perfect security instead of a situation the danger of
which he, perhaps, more fully realized than any of his companions,
comparatively inexperienced as they were.
One by one the lads carried the big stones over and they were
piled on the table top.
“That will do,” said Coyote at length, “they’ll never get that up
unless they use dynamite.”
“What do you suppose they’ll do now?” wondered Jack as, the
work over, they sat down about the newly covered hole.
“Try rushing that back door, most likely. Suppose you take a peek
out of the window. It gives a view of the steps and it’s too small for
the varmint ter git through.”
 The small aperture, mentioned before, was quite high up in the
wall, but, hoisted up by Ralph and Walt, Jack was able to rest his
elbows on the sill and peer out. He did so cautiously, which was just
as well, for, as the astute cow-puncher had surmised, the next attack
must come from the back door. So much was evidenced by a view of
the steps which were covered with dark forms advancing stealthily.
“We’ll give ’em another surprise party,” announced Pete when he
had heard his young lieutenant’s report. “Jack, take the rifle while I
guard the trap. There’s a chance they may try to rush the two places
at once. Aim through the keyhole, and when you think it time to, let
’em have it. Don’t be scared of hurting them. Remember it’s our lives
or theirs.”
Feeling a bit squeamish, but far too good a soldier to attempt to
disobey orders, or even question them, Jack did as he was directed.
Placing the muzzle of the rifle to the keyhole he waited with beating
heart the first signal that their enemies had ascended the stairway
and were actually on the balcony outside the door.
He had not long to wait. Presently there came a scuffling,
scratching sound without, as the Mexicans fumbled about the door,
evidently feeling for a latch of some sort. With a hasty prayer that he
might not inflict a mortal wound, Jack awaited the right moment, as
he judged it, and fired.
There was instantly a loud yell of pain from without.
“Good for you, boy,” grunted old Pete grimly “you brung him
down.”
 CHAPTER XII.

THE GRINGOES MOVE.

From without the door there now came shouts of baffled rage.
The Mexicans were finding out, as their kind has done before, that a
party of brave Americans is more than a match for twice their
number in a fight. Moreover, thanks mainly to Jack’s presence of
mind in slipping out of the house and performing scout work, our
party was strongly entrenched. The door was stout, and the iron bar
within solid. There was no apparent way of forcing an entrance by
battering it down, for the landing was too small to use a “ram”
effectually.
“Hooray, we’ve got ’em beaten!” cried Ralph thoughtlessly.
Coyote flashed a scornful eye on him.
“Beaten!” he scoffed, “we ain’t got ’em beaten till we’re out of
this place and miles on our way. Why, if they kain’t do anything else
they kin starve us out if they want to.”
“That’s so,” assented Ralph sorrowfully, and then with a violent
twist of spirits, “I guess we’re goners.”
“There, go galloping off the reservation agin,” struck in Pete; “we
ain’t goners yit by a long shot, but we’ve got a powerful lot of work
afore us, as the government said when they tackled digging that
Panama Canal.”
 All now became silent once more, or at least the boys could hear
nothing. Evidently the Mexicans had withdrawn for a council of war.
“This time they’ll be in dead earnest,” opined the cow-puncher,
“so keep a smart eye open for ’em everywhere.”
Hanging breathlessly on the least sound, the besieged party
waited for the first sign of the coming attack. It was a long time in
making itself manifest, and when it did, it was for a moment
puzzling enough. It came in the form of a noise from above.
“Somebody’s on the roof!” exclaimed Pete. “The foxy varmints! I
wonder they didn’t think of that before.”
The roof of the lonely rancho was flat, and soon they could hear
several footsteps on it as their besiegers paced about.
“What are they going to do?” asked Ralph in a puzzled tone.
“Not hard to guess,” rejoined the professor, “cut a hole in it, I
guess, and then they’ll have us completely at their mercy.”
“If we let them,” said Jack, “but why not try to escape by the
trap, while they are busy on the roof?”
“That might be a good idea if it warn’t likely that they have the
foot of the ladder guarded, or most probably have taken it down,”
said Coyote Pete; “no, you’ll have to guess agin, Jack. Think uv
something new and original.”
“I might say try that door, but I guess that’s guarded, too.”
“Not a doubt of it,” was the reply.
“Tell you what we’ll do,” exclaimed Jack suddenly, struck with an
inspiration, “we’ll try the walls. There may be a secret passage or a
concealed window in them some place.”
The cow-puncher laughed.
“This ain’t a story book, son, and I never heard of such things
outside of one. Lady Gwendolens in real life come out by the fire
escape more often than by the old secret passage or the haunted
wing.”
Undismayed, however, Jack set about his task. He was in the
midst of it, and had met with no success,—not that he had seriously
hoped for any,—when a sudden sound pierced the darkened garret.
The noise was that of axes cutting into the roof.
As Jack listened a slight shudder ran through him. From that
point of vantage the outlaws could shoot them down as they wished,
and there would not be much chance of using their four remaining
shots in return. By this time Jack had reached the spot by the big
stone chimney from which they had taken the stone used to weight
the table above the trap door.
With a rather vague idea of using some more of the stones as
weapons, he started pulling down the remaining loose ones. He had
been at this work but a few minutes when he gave a sudden cry of
triumph.
“Look! Boys! Look here!” he cried, amazedly.
They scurried to his side to find him pointing into a black,
yawning mouth, evidently intended originally for a fireplace but left
unfinished, as the stones they had used now testified.
“It’s big enough to swallow a horse almost,” cried Ralph.
“It’s big enough to save our lives, maybe,” grunted Pete, “but
maybe it’s only a blind lead, and may come out nowhere. In that
case a fellow at the bottom of a well would be better off than the
chap in there, for ther’d be no way of gitting out uv that chimney
once you got in, and—Jumping Jupiter! Come back, boy!”
But it was too late. While Coyote Pete had been talking, Jack had
slipped into the fireplace, and clutching the rough sides of the
chimney had taken the daring drop.
The others listened above in breathless anxiety, and then, to
their infinite relief, a voice trickled up to them from the depths.
“It’s all right, boys! Come on, but take it easy, for I knocked all
the skin off my shins in my hurry.”
The blows on the roof were by this time becoming louder, and
they could distinctly hear the sound of splintering wood as the axe
blades cut into it.
“They’ll hev pecked through that in ten minutes, now,” said Pete,
getting over to one side of the fireplace, “come on, boys. Be on your
way.”
But the boys insisted on the professor going first, now that they
knew the drop was safe enough. Not without misgivings, to which he
was too brave to give utterance. Professor Wintergreen, scientist and
writer, cast himself into that black hole in the garret of the lonely
rancho. An instant later, after a prodigious scraping and bumping,
word came up that he, too, was safe. Ralph and Walt came next, the
former softly humming:—
“I don’t know where I’m goin’, but I’m on my way.”
Coyote Pete came last; and now we shall follow the party, leaving
the Mexicans still hacking away at the roof. It is a trip worth taking,
too, for at the bottom of the chimney an astonishing condition of
things prevailed.
The smoke duct led not into a cellar or into a blind hole, but
instead, Jack, on alighting, had found himself, soot covered and
scratched and torn, in a large open fireplace in a small room. As he
made his sensational entrance there was a sudden sharp scream
from a corner of the room and a female figure clad in white sprang
up.
For an instant a dreadful fear that he had alighted in some sort
of a trap flashed into Jack’s mind. But the next instant he realized
that the alarmed girl was none other than the senorita, and that the
room into which he had fallen was the one selected as her prison.
“Hush, senorita!” exclaimed the boy, as soon as he had given the
signal to his comrades above that all was well, “do not fear me. I am
not one of your enemies but a friend, an American. My companions
are with me,—er—er—that is, they will be.”
“Oh, senor!” cried the girl in English, “what a dreadful fright you
gave me. You—you, if you will excuse me, you are so black. I
suppose it’s the soot in the chimney.”
Jack could hardly refrain from smiling, as, for the first time, he
bethought himself of the alarming figure he must present.
“I’m not as black as I’m painted, senorita, really, I’m not. Nor are
these two new arrivals chimney sweeps, but young American
gentlemen,” he added with a sweeping bow, as Walt Phelps and
Ralph popped out of the chimney. “Allow me to present myself. I am
Jack Merrill, and these are my friends, Walt Phelps, of New Mexico,
and Ralph Stetson, of New York. Not forgetting,” he added merrily,
as the professor straightened up from an instinctive brushing of his
clothes, “our instructor and—er—er—chaperone, Professor
Wintergreen, of Stonefell College, and,” as the other member of the
party appeared, “Mister Peter de Peyster, of the Merrill Ranch.”
“At your service, miss,” said Coyote Pete with a low, sweeping
bow and a deep flourish of his sombrero, to which even in his fall he
had clung.
“Oh, I feel safer now,” cried the girl delightedly, “but,” and she
clasped her hands, “Madre de Dios, what I have passed through! I
was summoned to my garden this evening by a decoy message, that
one of the good sisters at the convent wished to see me. I had
hardly set foot on the path when I was seized and carried off!”
“The rest of your story we know, senorita,” said Jack earnestly.
“You know it?” repeated the girl in an amazed tone, “but, senor, I
do not understand.”
“I will explain later,” said Jack, “at least, we all hope to have the
pleasure of doing so. I may add that I overheard the ruffians, your
captors, discussing the matter while I was hiding in a pig pen.”
The senorita’s large dark eyes grew larger than ever at this. She
began to think Jack a very peculiar young person to come sliding
down chimneys into rooms and to choose to eavesdrop on brigands
from pig pens. But she made no comment, and the talk at once
turned to the subject of escape.
The door of the room was of oak, barred and bolted on the
outside, and impregnable. But the window, high up in the wall
though it was, appeared to be just about large enough to squeeze
through, ample enough even for Coyote Pete, who was the largest of
the party.
“Reckon we can reach it by putting this chair on that table
yonder,” declared Pete, “but we’ll have ter look slippy, for those
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