THE BANDITS
When Jo saw the gulch ahead, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor as he did not know his mount well enough to risk the leap, so he galloped a few hundred feet below, where the gulch narrowed and then he took the jump nicely, and scampered after the other two riders who were quite a way ahead.
Jim purposely held Caliente in check, keeping a hundred yards in the rear of the Spaniard. Ahead a few miles, there was a perfect sea of yellow where the tall mustard covered the plain for a great distance. Into this they charged full tilt, the mustard reaching as high as their heads.
There was a swish of its blossoms in their faces as the powerful horses charged into it and in spite of their strength they began to tire after going some distance.
"Where is Jo?" inquired Jim suddenly after they had slowed down, "I don't see a sign of him." And he rose in his stirrups looking over the level lake of mustard.
"Hello, Jo," he yelled at the top of his voice. No answer came. Could he be drowned in this lake? There was not a motion to indicate his whereabouts, no waving of the yellow tops.
"It is very strange," said the Spaniard. "Did he cross the gully all right?"
"Yes, I saw him take the jump below us a ways." Then Jim raised his revolver above his head and fired.
"That ought to fetch him," he said. Then they listened intently. Suddenly about a quarter of a mile ahead of them they saw a sombrero rise like a gray mushroom above the yellow surface of the mustard, and Jo's voice came back to them.
They both gave their horses the rein, this time Jim did nothing to hold Caliente back, and with their powerful speed the two great horses tore forward, on even terms until in the last hundred yards Caliente forged ahead by half a length.[[1]]
"Hold on boys," yelled Jo in warning. There was Jo sitting quietly on his horse.
"That's how you beat us," exclaimed Jim, pointing to a cow trail running diagonally through the growth of mustard.
"Yes," laughed Jo, "I struck it further down after I jumped the gully. Otherwise you fellows would have lost me."
"Good work, Jo," said Jim. "Now we will have it easier going."
So in single file they galloped along the path, until they found themselves by noon, at the foot of a spur of mountains that extended from the main coast range to the ocean. Jim regarded this barrier in their way with a practised eye.
"This will slow us down, Senor," he said. "It looks like a pass below there, about two miles."
"Yes," said the Senor, "we can get through there all right, but it is pretty rough going."
They had to advance more slowly now, as the ground was broken into stony ravines, and there was a good deal of brush. In this kind of country Jo's horse more than held its own with the bigger animals, for he was as nimble as a goat.
"I hope we will find water, Senor," remarked Jim. "Our horses are pretty dry now."
"Yes," replied the Spaniard, "there is a good spring at the foot of the Pass."
They found it all right, in the entrance to the Pass, where there was a small green cove, surrounded with bushes, and on one side was a sheep herder's shanty. Jo investigated this immediately and found nothing in it but the charred remnants of a fire and a pair of discarded overalls.
Jim, who had himself been looking around, made a more important find.
"There has been somebody here recently," he announced. "Here are some tracks around the spring and not over twelve hours old."
"Yes, I have no doubt," said the Spaniard carelessly puffing at his cigarette. "This Pass is used occasionally by ranchmen and herders."
"There have been five or six horses here," said Jim, whose experiences had made him suspicious.
"There are no Indians," said Jo, "in this section, at least none who are on the warpath."
"I suppose you do have cattle rustlers, Senor?" inquired Jim.
"Yes, there is a band of outlaws," replied the Spaniard, "that raids from as far north as our ranch, south to San Diego, but we have seen no trace of them for many months."
"Then, Senor," remarked Jim, "it is about time that they paid you another visit."
"Ah, Senor Darlington," exclaimed the Spaniard. "We Castilians do not reason so. We say that there is no trouble today, why worry about tomorrow. Perhaps these bandits may have starved to death, or been hung, or the good Padres may have persuaded them by the fear of Hell, to become quiet, sheep raising citizens. God knows."
"I fear that they are raising sheep in their old style," grinned Jo. The pun glanced off the Spaniard harmlessly.
"The theory that they may be hung, sounds plausible, Senor," admitted Jim. "But before we advance into the Pass, I will scout a little."
"If the Senor pleases," responded the Spaniard courteously.
"Do you chance to know of a small, hunchbacked Mexican who is more or less in this section of the country, Senor?" Jim suddenly inquired.
The Spaniard flushed with red anger and spit emphatically on the ground.
"You give him into my hands and I will reward you well," cried the Spaniard.
Jim made no immediate reply but gazed thoughtfully at the ground. He was considering the case. This was not the time to turn aside in a chase for even so desperate a criminal as the hunchbacked greaser. So he made no definite reply to the Spaniard.
After the horses were fed, and watered, and while Jo was looking after the coffee, Jim started off, to do a little scouting up the Pass. The first thing that he did was to slip off his heavy riding boots, which the stylish Jo had forced him to buy, and to put on his noiseless footed moccasins.
Then with his revolver loaded and ready to his hand, he went swiftly and silently up the trail that followed through thick brush, gradually working up the side of the mountain. It was no difficult task to follow the tracks of the horses. In a half hour's swift climbing he came to the top of a stony ridge, over which the trail curved, and dipped down the other side.
Jim now saw that the Pass was an irregular one with recurrent spurs, thrusting out from the mountains on either side, at quite frequent intervals. There were innumerable chances for ambuscades. Jim did not stand in the trail but to one side partially hidden in a thicket.
All the time his keen eyes were taking in the canyon below, not however admiring the scenery. In fact there was nothing particularly beautiful, or interesting in the view. In the Rockies and further South too he had seen canyons incomparable to the rather ordinary ones that he had seen in California.
Jim was watching for some slight movement of a living creature in the canyon. Finally he gave it up, and was about to turn away, then he gave a start, he saw one, two, three, men crouch across the trail, a quarter of a mile below, and disappear into the thick brush. He was almost certain that the first one was the hunchback.
That was all that Jim wanted to see. He noiselessly took the back trail, thinking over the best course to pursue. He would have liked nothing better under ordinary circumstances than to fight it out with the outlaws and to capture the hunchback. But their first object must be the rescue of Tom and Juarez.
Was there not some way by which they could get to the South without going through this bandit infested Pass?
"Well brother, what didst thou find?" inquired Jo, who was at times pleased to be dramatic.
"Very few specimens in the way of bandits," replied Jim.
"As I said, Senor," remarked the Spaniard, "they have become good citizens."
"Not yet, I am sure, because they are alive."
"That is a good one, Jim," remarked Jo, appreciatively, but the Spaniard was politely mystified. "Same as Indians."
"I found one thing out," said the diplomatic Jim, "and that is, that the Pass is a hard one on horses. Are you sure, Senor, that there is no easier way than this to get through?"
"Positive," briefly responded the Spaniard.
Jim who was seated on a rock digging his heel into the soft earth, looked up as a sudden idea struck him,—but without knocking him out.
"How far is it from here to the sea, Senor?" he asked.
"Not over five miles."
"Can we not get around that way?" Jim inquired eagerly.
"Why, yes," replied the Spaniard slowly, "if the tide is not coming in. In that case we should be drowned." Jim glanced hastily at his watch.
"We can try for it and make it, if we do not waste any time," he said. "The horses have had a good rest."
"Very well, Senor," said the Spaniard resignedly. He regarded Jim as an amiable hurricane whom it was not worth while battering to resist. Jim hastily swallowed his coffee and a hunk of bread and in five minutes the three musketeers were in the saddle again.