Bert Wilson in the Rockies

by J. W. Duffield

Mr. Melton, the owner of the ranch, was a Western cattleman of the old type, now rapidly disappearing. Bluff, rough and ready, generous and courageous, his sterling qualities had won the admiration and affection of the boys from the date of their first meeting the year before.

That meeting had taken place under extraordinary circumstances. The "Three Guardsmen"—so called in joke, because they were always together—journeying to the opening of the Panama Canal had found themselves on the same train with Melton, as it wound its way through Central Mexico. A broken trestle had made it necessary for the train to halt for an hour or two, and during this enforced stop Dick had carelessly wandered away on a stroll through the woods, tempted by the beauty of the day and the novelty of his surroundings. At a turn in the road he had suddenly found himself in the presence of twenty or more guerillas, headed by the notorious El Tigre, whose name was spoken with a shudder throughout Mexico. They had bound him and carried him off to their mountain retreat. Bert and Tom, an hour later, discovered the cause of his absence and immediately started in pursuit, determined to save their comrade or die with him. But first they had disclosed the situation to Melton, who had sworn in his rage to follow after them and aid them in the rescue. How faithfully he had kept his word, how skillfully and daringly he had led them on and rushed the camp just as Dick was steeling himself to undergo the rattlesnake torture that the bandit chief had planned for him, was engraven indelibly on the memories of the boys. Until the day of their death they could never forget how the old war horse, with everything to lose and nothing to gain, had come to their assistance simply because they were Americans and in dire need of help.

And on Melton's part the feeling was equally warm. He had taken an instantaneous liking to these young countrymen of his who had played their part so gallantly. They recalled to him the days of his own stormy youth, when he had ridden the range and when his life had depended on his iron nerve and his quickness with the trigger. Though older than they by forty years, they were all cut on the same pattern of sturdy, self-reliant American manhood, and it was with the utmost cordiality that he had crushed their hands in his strong grip and urged them to visit him at his ranch in the Rockies. Since then he had been East on a business trip and had been present on that memorable day when Bert, with the ball tucked under his arm, had torn down the field in the great race for the goal that won the game in the last minute of play. Then he had renewed the invitation with redoubled earnestness, and promised them the time of their lives. They needed no urging to do a thing that accorded so well with their own inclinations, and from that time on until the opening of the summer had shaped everything with that end in view. Now they were actually launched upon their journey. That it held for them a new and delightful experience they did not doubt. How much of danger and excitement and hairbreadth escape it also held, they did not even dream.

"Bully old boy, Melton," commented Tom, playing lazily with a heavy paperweight he had bought at a curio shop at their last stopping place.

"A diamond in the rough," assented Dick.

"All wool and a yard wide," declared Bert, emphatically. "I wonder if he——Great Scott, what's that?" as a bullet whizzed through the window of the Pullman.

The question was quickly answered when their eyes fell on the robbers, who, with leveled pistols, dominated the car. And the threat of the weapons themselves was not more sinister than the purpose that glinted in the ferocious eyes above the improvised masks. There was no mere bluff and bluster in that steady gaze. They were ready to shoot and shoot to kill. Their lives were already forfeit to the law, anyway, and in that rough country they would get "a short shrift and a long rope" if their plans went astray. They might as well be hung for murder as robbery, and, while they did not mean to kill unless driven to it, they were perfectly ready to do so at the first hint of resistance.

The paralyzing moment of surprise passed, there was a stir among the passengers. The first instinct was to hide their valuables or drop them on the floor. But this was checked instantly by the outlaws.

"Hands up," shouted one of them with an oath. "I'll kill the first man that makes a move."

His pistol ranged over the car, flickering like the tongue of a snake, seeming to cover every passenger at once. Beneath its deadly insistence, hands were upraised one after the other. Resistance at that moment meant instant death. The unwritten law of the West had to be obeyed. He "had the drop" on them.