There he stopped and waited, and in a moment a baritone voice on the other side of the wall took up the song:
“Come ope the west port and let us go free
To follow the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!”
Ellhorn went on singing as he threw one of his onions, then another, over the wall. One of them came sailing back and fell beside the peach tree. Then he took a slip of folded paper from his pocket, tied it to another onion and sent it over the cactus-crowned adobe. The Mexican returned with the salt and they sat down together under the tree, chatting sociably. Presently Mead’s voice came floating out from behind the wall in the stirring first lines of the old Scotch ballad:
“To the lords of convention, ’twas Claverhouse spoke:
‘If there are heads to be crowned, there are heads to be broke!’”
Nick chuckled, winked at the old Mexican, and hurried off to find Tuttle.
That evening, soon after the full darkness of night had mantled the earth, Nick Ellhorn and Tommy Tuttle rode toward the jail, leading an extra horse. Ellhorn gave Tuttle a lariat.
“You’d better manage this part,” he said in a low tone. “My arm’s not strong enough yet to be depended on in such ticklish matters. I tried it to-day with my gun, and it’s mighty near as steady as ever for shooting, but I won’t risk it on this.”
They rode into the Mexican’s garden and Ellhorn stood with the extra horse under the drooping branches of the peach tree. They listened and heard the sound of a soft whistling in the patio, as if some one were idly walking to and fro.
“That’s him!” Ellhorn whispered excitedly. “That’s what I told him to be doing at just this time! He’s listening for us!” Ellhorn whistled softly several bars of the same air, which were at once repeated from within. Tuttle rode beside the wall and threw over it the end of his lariat. He waited until the whistling ceased, and then, winding the rope around the pommel, he struck home the spurs and the horse leaped forward, straining to the work. It was a trained cow-pony, Mead’s own favorite “cutting-out” horse, and it answered with perfect will and knowledge the urging of Tuttle’s spurs. With a soft “f-s-s-t” the rope wore over the top of the wall and Mead’s tall form stood dimly outlined behind the battlement of cactus. He untied the rope from his waist, threw it to the ground, and with foot and fist thrust aside the bristling, sharp-spined masses, dropped over the outer edge, hung at full length by his hands for an instant, and landed in the soft earth at the bottom.
They heard his name called inside the patio. It was the guard, who had just missed him. As they quickly mounted there came over the wall the sound of hurrying feet and the rapid conference of excited voices. Mead shot his revolver into the air and Ellhorn, lifting his voice to its loudest and fullest, sang: