The two guards on duty carried their guns carelessly on their shoulders. Suddenly, Jesse James called out,
"Let's go, boys!"
There was a sharp report of pistols. The two armed guards sank quivering to the earth. The outlaws rushed to the tree where the guards had left their arms, and placed themselves with presented revolvers between the guardians of the treasure and their weapons. The two Mexican merchants were ordered to throw up their hands, and with the forcible argument of leveled dragoon pistols, presented as an alternative, they yielded, and one of the gang went and disarmed them. The muleteers were paralyzed with fear, and remained sprawled upon the grass carpet. The place has been well named La Temido (the place of fear.)
It had been but a minute since the first act in the drama was presented, and in that time the whole tragic play had been completed. What a revolution in the circumstances of the actors had taken place? Two were dead, and sixteen survivors were prisoners, and at the mercy of five of the most desperate men who ever played the part of freebooters on this continent.
They took the horses of the merchants and guards, broke their guns, forced the muleteers to place the treasure pouches upon the best and fleetest of the horses; shot the mules and other horses not required, and threatened the frightened men who were in their power with death, and finally left them a long way from any human habitation, without horses and without food, and proceeded to the Rio Grande at an unfrequented part of its course, many miles above Fort Quitman, where they had provided a boat before they ventured on their expedition, ferried the captured treasure and swam their horses across, and in less than twenty-four hours after their surprise and capture of the treasures of the caravan, they had disappeared in the rugged region which lies between the Rio Grande and the Pecos, in the Territory of Bexar, Texas. They had so completely hidden their trail that all attempts to follow them were futile.
In a few days after this successful foray into Mexico, Jesse and Frank were at their ranche enjoying much-needed repose. How the members of the wealthy party, with which they travelled from Carmen, managed to get once more into the haunts of civilized men, we have received no information. The great heap of silver which they had taken was brought by the outlaws into their retreat in the mountains, and there divided among the five daring brigands.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE ROBBERS AND THEIR FRIENDS.
"Wherefore, in the hour of need,
Shall a people house them?