It was a bullet, which whistled through the air most uncomfortably near his head. Another followed close after, and plowed up the ground in front of him, and then came the crack of two rifles in quick succession. Frank felt the cold chills creeping all over him; and the next time he looked back he discovered several men, whom he had not seen before, hurrying out of the rancho with their weapons in their hands, followed by three on horseback. This was a most discouraging prospect. He did not stand in much fear of the bullets (although it was by no means pleasant to hear them whistling around him), but he was afraid of those mounted men. He could not hope to distance them, and he trembled when he thought of the fate in store for him when they came near enough to reach him with their lassos. If they did not choke him to death, they would take him back to the rancho a prisoner, and that would be almost as bad. Of course he did not intend that they should do either if he could prevent it. He was armed, and if they succeeded in overtaking him, he would show them how he could use a revolver.
Frank had accomplished more than half the distance that lay between him and the woods before the horsemen came out; and he hoped to be able to reach its friendly shelter before they could come up with him. He did it, too, although his escape was a very narrow one. As he dashed into the bushes he heard the lassos whistling through the air behind him, and he even felt the “wind” of one as it flew past his ear. But once fairly in the woods he was safe from those dreaded weapons. The Rancheros could not use their lariats among the trees, and neither did they attempt to follow him farther. They fired their pistols at him, and then began circling around the woods to cut him off from the creek, and place themselves between him and his home.
Frank kept straight on into the woods for at least two miles, without once slackening his speed, and then turned and ran toward the creek. When he came within sight of it, he sat down on a log to recover his breath, and to listen for the sounds of pursuit.
“I thank my lucky stars that they are all Mexicans,” panted he, glancing suspiciously through the bushes on all sides of him. “If there had been a few such rifle-shots among them as Dick Lewis and old Bob Kelly I should not be here now. Fifty thousand dollars! I little dreamed that I should ever have a price set upon my head.”
For ten minutes Frank sat on the log, resting after his long run, and thinking over the incidents that had transpired at the rancho. He believed now that Don Carlos was one of the robbers; the evidence against him was strong enough to satisfy any one of his guilt. The air of mystery with which every thing was conducted; the unusual number of men on the rancho; the magical manner in which they had appeared the instant their services were needed; the Spaniard’s unreasonable alarm at Archie’s absence; and his attempts to detain Frank—all these things were against him. Frank understood now what the Don meant when he said that he knew why the boys had come there. He probably mistrusted that the settlers were suspicious of him, and had sent Frank and Archie to his rancho to spy out something. If that was his idea, Frank thought it a very ridiculous one; for he might have known that two boys would not have been selected to carry out so dangerous an enterprise, while there were such men as Dick and Bob in the country. His guilty conscience made him betray himself—that was the secret of the matter.
Frank was not yet safe by any means. He knew that Don Carlos and his men would leave no stone unturned to effect his capture—it would be dangerous to them to allow him to go home after what had transpired at the rancho—and that they would search every nook and corner of the mountains, and hunt him down as they would a wolf. Still he had no fears for his own safety; but, now that the excitement of the race was over, he was deeply concerned about his cousin. There was a mystery attending his disappearance that he could not fathom. He hoped that Archie had left the room while he was reading, and that he had slipped out of the rancho and gone home. That was not much like his cousin’s way of doing business, but it was the only reasonable way in which he could explain his absence.
“That boy could not long exist without getting into some sort of a scrape,” said Frank; “and if I ever put eyes on him again, I’ll watch him more closely than I have done heretofore.”
“Stand where you are; don’t move hand or foot,” said a gruff voice, breaking in upon his reverie.
Frank sprang up, and found himself face to face with a Ranchero, who stood holding his rifle to his shoulder, with his finger resting on the trigger.