“No doubt we shall know all about it some day,” said Frank—“that is, if we succeed in making our escape. I wonder if the coast is clear now?”
“No, it isn’t,” answered Archie. “See there!”
Frank looked over the parapet, and saw a Mexican standing in the shadow of the wall beneath them. He had doubtless been stationed there to see if the horsemen were pursued. The boys wished him a thousand miles away, for he was sadly interfering with their arrangements. They waited impatiently for him to follow the robbers into the rancho, but he seemed to have no such intention. He stood there as upright as a post, and as silent and motionless.
“Are we not having miserable luck?” asked Archie, impatiently. “Let’s jump down on him, before he knows it. We can both manage him.”
“But we would alarm the rest of the band,” replied Frank. “Let’s drop down on the other side, and go around the rancho.”
The attention of the boys had been so fully occupied with what had just transpired, that they had not thought of looking for enemies in their rear. While they were watching the Mexican beneath them, the door in the wall of the main building, of which we have before spoken, was noiselessly opened, and several Rancheros, headed by Don Carlos, came out and approached the boys on tip-toe. As the latter arose to their feet to carry out the plan Frank had suggested, Archie’s collar was seized in a strong grasp, and his cousin looked up just in time to see a long, bony hand stretching out toward him. It was the robber chief’s hand; but it was much too slow in its movements to make a prisoner of Frank Nelson. The boy lingered just long enough to see that the Don was backed up by a force too strong to be successfully resisted, and then, striking up the threatening hand, he jumped to the parapet and swung himself over. He did not immediately let go his hold, but looked down to take a survey of the ground beneath him. He wanted to strike squarely on his feet, in order to be on equal terms with the sentinel who would doubtless pounce upon him at once. He hung suspended in the air but a moment, but that was long enough for the Don to reach the parapet, and bend over and seize him by the collar.
“Hold on, leetle poys,” exclaimed the chief. “It’s petter you comes back here. Ach! Dis ish von grand shwindle,” he yelled, changing his tone very suddenly. “Vat you making here, leetle poys?”
The Don was greatly alarmed now, for he was being dragged over the parapet. When he seized Frank, he did not attempt to pull him back upon the roof, but braced himself, intending to hold fast to his prisoner until some of his men could come to his assistance. Frank understood his plans; and knowing that the loss of a single instant might be fatal to him, he quickly loosened his grasp upon the wall, and seized the Don by the hair. He hoped by this move to compel his enemy to let go his hold; but it had a very different result. The chief, not being equal to the task of sustaining a dead weight of one hundred and fifty pounds by the hair of his head, suddenly lost his balance, and he and Frank fell whirling through the air.