Jack waited no longer, but giving Perk a kick on the shins to tell him to get busy he rushed headlong toward Slippery Slim, holding his automatic ready for instant service, knowing as he did that such a desperate bad man as Slim was reckoned from all accounts, would not be apt to surrender so long as there remained the slightest chance for a getaway.
Nor was he mistaken in judging the character of the man who had so long defied the shrewdest detectives of the United States Secret Service for when Slim found his way to the open air barred by such a determined looking figure, he snatched out his handy gat and made as if to open fire.
For once he was just a trifle too slow with his service gun, for Jack, clever lad that he was along the line of firing off-hand, managed to send a bullet through Slim’s right shoulder that crippled him, so that his own weapon went rattling to the stone under his feet.
“Put ’em up!” Jack was saying, covering his man as he spoke and having no desire to commit suicide, Slippery Slim obeyed the call; and instantly afterwards suffering the painful ignominy of having his wrists encircled by a pair of nice new steel bracelets.
So far so good, with Jack, his own share of the capture an accomplished fact, able to turn in order to lend Perk a helping hand. It was not needed, for Perk had descended on those two muscular chaps like a thunderbolt, knocking one down with a terrific jolt under the chin and causing the other to look along the short barrel of his blued automatic, he having discarded the repeating rifle for the time being in favor of the easier handled pocket gun.
When the trio of discomfited rogues were all handcuffed, Jack and his reliable partner turned and faced the other way, so as to be ready for a rush, should some of those valorous generals decide to take advantage of the defensive security of the rock cave, and bolt into its gaping mouth.
This being actually attempted they met with a demoralizing surprise when they found themselves the objects of a hot fire, that brought about a complete right-about face movement and presently forced their ignominious surrender to the gallant Colonel Morales and his fierce fighters, who had once before gone through an interesting campaign in that same old extinct volcano vent, with warlike redskins as their opponents.
The end was not long in coming, with many of the would-be revolutionists holding up their hands in complete surrender others escaping by losing themselves along the scraggly sides of the mountains and not a few either slain outright, or seriously wounded.
Jack and his chum had a chance to meet the doughty Colonel Morales, pride of the Mexican army, and be congratulated on their clever work of rounding up such a jack-o’-lantern, fly-by-night as Slim Garrabrant. Of course the two comrades were eager to start back to the other side of the border, since complications might come up over their legal warrant to arrest a criminal so badly wanted by the Washington authorities, but who had made his headquarters south of the international line.
Accordingly they handed over Slim’s two lieutenants, who would have to answer to a charge of being hand-in-glove with those plotting generals, and doubtless find themselves incarcerated in a Mexican dungeon for some years, a fate that made Perk shudder to contemplate.