Frank ran out and dropped on one knee. The professor followed him, and Hans came from the hut.
Just as Frank lifted the rifle to his shoulder and was on the point of shooting, the voice of Jack Burk sounded from the doorway, to which he had dragged himself:
"It is Bushnell, my partner! Al! Al! Al Bushnell!"
His voice was faint and weak, and it did not reach the ears of the man out on the plain.
Then Frank began shooting, and his first bullet brought down one of the ponies of the pursuers, sending a bandit rolling over and over in the dust, to leap up like a cat, and spring behind a comrade on the back of another pony.
"Dot peen britty goot, Vrankie," complimented Hans Dunnerwust.
Again and again Frank fired, and the bandits quickly swerved away from the hut, feeling their ponies sway or fall beneath them.
In an astonishingly brief space of time the course of pursuit was deflected, giving the fugitive a chance to get away into Mendoza, which lay at a distance of about three miles from the hut.
The man in flight heard the shots, saw the figures in front of the hut, and waved his hand to them.
The professor excitedly beckoned for Bushnell to come to the hut, but the horseman did not seem to understand, and he kept straight on toward the town.