THE STRUGGLE ON THE CLIFF.
As we have before remarked, the place in which the Rancheros had made their camp was a natural recess in the mountains. It was surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, the tops of which seemed to pierce the clouds, and whose sides were so steep that a goat could scarcely have found footing thereon. In front of the glade was the gorge, the sight of which had so terrified Arthur Vane, and which was so deep that the roar of the mountain torrent, that ran through it, could be but faintly heard by one standing on the cliffs above.
There were three ways to get out of the glade: one was by the narrow ledge of rocks by which the Rancheros and their captives had entered it in the morning; another was by a path on the opposite side of the glade, which also ran along the very brink of the precipice; the third was by climbing up the cliffs to the dizzy heights above. These avenues of escape were all more or less dangerous, and one unaccustomed to traveling in the mountains would have been at a loss to decide which to take. Indeed, a very timid boy would have preferred to remain a prisoner among the Rancheros, as long as he was sure of kind treatment and plenty to eat, rather than risk any of them. If he took either of the paths that ran along the chasm, he would require the skill of a rope-dancer to cross it in safety; for they were both narrow and slippery, and a single misstep in the darkness would launch him into eternity. If he tried to scale the mountains, which, in some places, overhung the glade, he would be in equal danger; for he might, at any moment, lose his balance, and come tumbling back again.
Frank and his two friends had thought of all these things during the day, and they knew just what perils they were likely to encounter; but they were not formidable enough to turn them from their purpose. While they were crawling cautiously through the grass, they had been allowed ample time to make up their minds what they would do, if their flight should be discovered before they got out of the glade; and, consequently, when the yells of the sentinel, and the reports of his pistol, told them that the pursuit was about to begin, they did not hesitate, but proceeded at once to carry out the plans they had formed. Archie, the moment he jumped to his feet, darted toward the cliffs, while Frank and Johnny ran for the ledge by which they had entered the pass in the morning; and, by the time the Rancheros were fairly awake, their prisoners had disappeared as completely as though they had never been in the glade at all.
Archie had chosen the most difficult way of escape, and he had done so with an object. He believed that, as soon as Pierre and his band became aroused, they would rush in a body for the path that led toward the settlement; and Archie did not like the idea of running a race through the darkness along the brink of that precipice. He might make a misstep, and fall into the gorge, and that would be infinitely worse than remaining a prisoner. His enemies, he thought, would not be likely to follow him up the cliffs; but if they did, and he found that he could not distance them, there were plenty of excellent hiding-places among the bushes and rocks, where he could remain in perfect security, with an army searching for him. Johnny and Frank did not look at the matter in that way. They thought not of concealment; they took the nearest and easiest way home, and trusted entirely to their heels.
"Help! help!" shouted the sentinel, discharging the barrels of his revolver in quick succession. "The boys have gone!"
For a moment, great confusion reigned in the camp. The Rancheros sprang to their feet, and hurried hither and thither, each one asking questions, and giving orders, to which nobody paid the least attention, and the babel of English and Spanish that arose awoke the echoes far and near. The chief was the only one who seemed to know what ought to be done. He examined the beds to satisfy himself that the prisoners had really gone, and then his voice was heard above the tumult, commanding silence.
The first thing he did, when quiet had been restored, was to swear lustily at the sentinel, for allowing the prisoners to escape, and then he set about making preparations for pursuit. He sent two of the band on foot down the path that led toward the settlement, another he ordered to saddle the horses, and the rest he commanded to search every nook and corner of the glade.
As long as the noise continued, Archie worked industriously; and, being a very active fellow, he got up the mountain at an astonishing rate. But as soon as the chief had succeeded in restoring order, he sat down to recover his breath, and to wait until the Rancheros left the glade: for he was fearful that the noise he necessarily made, in working his way through the thick bushes, might direct his enemies in their search.
Although it was pitch dark on the mountainside, Archie could tell exactly what was going on below him. He knew when the two men left the glade, chuckled to himself when he heard the Ranchero, who had been ordered to saddle the horses, growl at the restive animals, and noted the movements of the party who were searching the bushes. He distinctly heard their voices, and he knew that Arthur Vane was with them.
"Do you think they will get away, Joaquin?" he heard the traitor ask.
"That's hard to tell," was the reply. "It depends a good deal upon how long they have been gone. If they get back to the settlement, you had better keep away from there."
"That's so," said Archie, to himself.
"They'll never reach the settlement if I can help it," declared Arthur. "If I get my eyes on one of them, I bet he don't escape. I'll take him prisoner."
Perhaps we shall find that Arthur did "get his eyes on one of them," and we shall see how he kept his promise.
The party went entirely around the glade, passing directly beneath Archie, who held himself in readiness to continue his flight, should they begin to ascend the cliff, and finally one of them called out:
"They're not here, Pierre."
"Mount, then, every one of you," exclaimed the chief. "When you reach the end of the pass, scatter out and search the mountains, thoroughly. Antoine, we have to thank you for the loss of a fortune, you idiot."
Archie heard the Ranchero mutter an angry reply, and then came the tramping of horses as the band rode from the glade. In a few seconds the sound died away in the pass, and the fugitive was left alone. His first impulse was to descend into the glade, mount Sleepy Sam, and follow the robbers. Archie could ride the animal without saddle or bridle as well as he could with them; and he was sure that if he could get but a few feet the start of the Rancheros, his favorite could easily distance them. But he remembered the chief's order for the band to "scatter out," and knowing that every path that led toward the settlement would be closely guarded, and fearing that he might run against some of his enemies in the dark, he decided that the safest plan was to remain upon the cliffs, where he could not be followed by mounted men. It cost him a struggle to abandon his horse, which was galloping about the glade, and neighing disconsolately, but he wisely concluded that twenty thousand dollars were worth more to his uncle than Sleepy Sam was to him; and drawing in a long breath, he tightened his sash about his waist, and again began the ascent.
His progress was necessarily slow and laborious, for, in some places, the cliff was quite perpendicular, and the only way he could advance at all, was by drawing himself up by the grass and bushes that grew out of the crevices of the rocks. Sometimes these gave way beneath his weight, and then Archie would descend the mountain for a short distance much more rapidly than he had gone up. He was often badly bruised by these falls. The bushes and the sharp points of the rocks tore his clothing, and it was not long before he was as ragged as any beggar he had ever seen in the streets of his native city.
"By gracious!" exclaimed Archie, stopping for the hundredth time to rest, and feeling of a severe bruise on his cheek which he had received in his last fall, "I am completely tired out. And this is all the work of that Benedict Arnold! Didn't I say that we should see trouble with that fellow? If I were out on clear ground, and had my horse and gun, I'd be willing to forgive him for what he has done to me, but I'll always remember that he struck Johnny over the head, when he was tied, and could not defend himself."
Wiping the big drops of perspiration from his forehead, and panting loudly after his violent exertions, Archie again toiled up the mountain, so weary that he could scarcely drag one foot after the other. He stumbled over logs, fell upon the rocks, and dragged himself through bushes that cut into his tattered garments like a knife. Hour after hour passed in this way, and, finally, just as the sun was rising, Archie, faint with thirst, aching in every joint, and bleeding from numerous wounds, stepped upon a broad, flat bowlder, which formed the summit of the cliff.
On his right, between him and a huge rock that rose for fifty feet without a single break or crevice, was a narrow but deep chasm which ran down the cliff he had just ascended, and into which he had more than once been in imminent danger of falling as he stumbled about in the darkness. Far below him was the glade, a thin wreath of smoke rising from the smouldering camp-fire, and on his left was the gorge, a hundred times more frightful in his eyes now than it had ever seemed before. In front of him the mountain sloped gently down to the valley below, its base clothed with a thick wood, which at that height looked like an unbroken mass of green sward, and beyond that, so far away that it could be but dimly seen, was a broad expanse of prairie, from which arose the whitewashed walls of his uncle's rancho. It was a view that would have put an artist into ecstasies, but the fugitive was in no mood to appreciate it. He had no eye for the beauties of nature then—he had other things to think of; and he regarded the picturesque mountains and rocks, and the luxuriant woods, as so many grim monsters that stood between him and his home.
But Archie could not remain long inactive. After all the dangers he had incurred, and the bruises and scratches he had received, he had accomplished but little. He was still thirty miles from home, hungry and thirsty, and pursued by crafty enemies, who might even then be watching him from some secret covert.
"Oh, if I were only there!" said he, casting a longing glance toward the rancho, whose inmates, just then sitting down to a dainty breakfast, little dreamed how much good a small portion of their bounty would have done the fugitive on the mountain-top. "But, as the rancho can't come to me, I must go to it."
Archie found the descent of the mountain comparatively easy. There were not so many bushes and logs to impede his progress, the slope was more gradual, and he had not gone more than half a mile when he found a cool spring bubbling out from under the rocks. He bathed his hands and face, drank a little of the water, and when he set out again he felt much refreshed. He followed the course of the stream, which ran from the spring down the mountain, keeping a bright lookout for enemies all the while, and stopping now and then to listen for sounds of pursuit, when suddenly, as he came around the base of a rock, he found himself on the brink of the gorge, and confronted by a figure in buckskin, who stood leaning on a long, double-barrel shot-gun. Archie started back in dismay, and so did the boy in buckskin, who turned pale, and gazed at the fugitive as if he were hardly prepared to believe that he was a human being. He speedily recovered himself, however, and after he had let down the hammer of his gun, which he had cocked when the ragged apparition first came in sight, he dropped the butt of the weapon to the ground, exclaiming:
"Archie Winters!"
"Benedict Arnold!"
For a moment the two boys stood looking at each other without moving or speaking. Archie was wondering if it were possible for him to effect the capture of the traitor, and Arthur, while he gazed in astonishment at the fugitive's tattered garments and bloody face, was chuckling to himself, and enjoying beforehand the punishment he had resolved to inflict upon Archie. The opportunity he had wished for so long had arrived at last.
"I have found you, have I?" said Arthur, resting his elbows on the muzzle of his gun, and looking at Archie with a triumphant smile.
"Well, suppose you have; what do you propose to do about it?"
"It is my intention to teach you to respect a gentleman the next time you meet one."
"How are you going to do it?"
"In the first place, by giving you a good beating."
"Humph!" said Archie, contemptuously, looking at Arthur from head to foot, as if he were taking his exact measure. "It requires a boy with considerable 'get up' about him to do that."
"None of your impudence, you little Yankee," exclaimed Arthur, angrily. "I'm going to take some of it out of you before you are two minutes older."
When the traitor selected Archie as the one upon whom he could wreak his vengeance without danger to himself, he had made a great mistake. Archie was smaller than most boys of his age, but, after all, he was an antagonist not to be despised. He was courageous, active, and as wiry as an eel; and his body, hardened by all sorts of violent exercise, was as tough as hickory. He trembled a little when he looked over into the gorge, and thought of the possible consequences of an encounter on that cliff, but he was not the one to save himself by taking to his heels, nor did it come natural to him to stand still and take a whipping as long as he possessed the strength to defend himself. A single glance was enough to convince him that the traitor was in earnest, and Archie watched the opportunity to begin the struggle himself.
"Yes, sir," continued Arthur, "I've got you now just where I want you. I am going to settle this little difference between us, and then I shall take you back to Pierre. If you have any apologies to make, I am willing to listen to them."
The effect of these words not a little astonished the traitor. He had been sure that Archie would be terribly frightened, and that he would either seek safety in flight, or beg hard for mercy; consequently, he was not prepared for what really happened. Scarcely had Arthur ceased speaking, when the place where Archie was standing became suddenly vacant, and, before the traitor could move a finger, his gun was torn from his grasp and pitched over the cliff into the gorge. As the weapon fell whirling through the air, both barrels were discharged, and the reports awoke a thousand echoes, which reverberated among the mountains like peals of thunder.
"Now we are on equal terms," exclaimed Archie, as he clasped the traitor around the body and attempted to throw him to the ground. "You remember that you struck Johnny last night, when he was bound, hand and foot, and couldn't defend himself, don't you?"
"Yes; and now I am going to serve you worse than that," replied Arthur, who, although surprised and taken at great disadvantage by the suddenness of the attack, struggled furiously, and to such good purpose that he very soon broke Archie's hold; "I am going to fling you over the cliff after that gun."
The contest that followed was carried on on the very edge of the precipice, and was long and desperate. Archie, bruised and battered in a hundred places, and weary with a night's travel, was scarcely a match for the fresh and vigorous Arthur, who, in his blind rage, seemed determined to fulfill his threat of throwing him over the cliff after the gun. Fortune favored first one and then the other; but Archie's indomitable courage and long wind carried the day, and he finally succeeded in bearing his antagonist to the ground and holding him there.
"You are not going to throw me over, are you?" gasped Arthur, who was humble enough, now that he had been worsted.
"Do you take me for a savage?" panted Archie, in reply. "I simply wanted to save myself from a whipping that I did not deserve, and I've done it. Now you must go to the settlement with me, to"—
"Here you are!" exclaimed a familiar voice. "Let us see if you will escape me again."
Archie looked up, and saw Antoine Mercedes advancing upon him.