After burning another match to determine the exact position of the scuttle, Frank took his stand directly beneath it, and in a moment more, Archie was balanced on his shoulders, and panting loudly, as he strove with nervous haste to unfasten the hooks. Every thing bothers when one is in a hurry, and one’s fingers are all thumbs. It was awkward working in that intense darkness, and, besides, the hooks had been driven into the staples so tightly, that it required the outlay of all Archie’s strength to start them. But patience and perseverance conquered at last, and in an excited voice he informed his cousin that he had unfastened the scuttle, and asked him if he should open it.
“Of course,” replied Frank.
“But how do we know what we shall find on the other side? Perhaps it leads into a room full of Mexicans.”
“We must run that risk. Venture nothing, gain nothing, you know.”
Frank awaited the issue of events with a good deal of anxiety. He heard the heavy scuttle lifted slowly and cautiously from its place, then a smothered cry of exultation, and the weight was suddenly lifted from his shoulders. Upon looking up, he saw the stars shining down upon him through the scuttle-hole, and his cousin’s heels disappearing over the combings.
“We are safe now,” whispered Archie, thrusting his head into the opening, and extending his hand down into the darkness. “I am on the roof of the rancho. Give us your fist.”
“I can’t reach you,” replied Frank.
Archie hesitated a moment, and then pulled off his jacket, and firmly grasping one of the sleeves, threw the other down to his cousin. One hundred and fifty pounds was no light weight for a boy of his size to sustain, but he clung manfully to the jacket, while Frank went up, hand-over-hand, as a sailor goes up a rope. He soon ascended high enough to seize the combings of the scuttle, and in a moment more stood safe upon the roof.
The cousins did not stop to congratulate themselves upon their good fortune. Time was much too precious for that, and, besides, they did not yet regard their escape as a settled thing. There was the creek to be crossed; a belt of timber to be passed; and five miles of lonely prairie to be traversed, before they reached their uncle’s rancho; and there was no knowing what might happen to them while they were making this journey. Their first care was to put the scuttle back in its place, so that the Don, when he returned to the dungeon, should not immediately discover the manner of their escape, and the next to reconnoiter the ground before them. They found themselves on the roof of a wing of the rancho—a space about twenty feet square. On three sides was a stone parapet, two feet high, and on the fourth loomed up the walls of the main building. In this wall was a door, which opened upon the wing. The boys merely glanced at it, and scarcely thought of it again; but they afterward had good cause to remember it. They looked all around them, but there was no one in sight; they listened intently, but could hear nothing.