"Can't you run on a flat wheel?" asked Ralph anxiously.
"Not over these roads, son. We wouldn't last ten minutes. Hey you, chaffer! Get out an' fix it, willyer?"
"I'll try, sir," said the man, bringing the bumping, jolting car to a stop.
"Try, sir?" echoed Buck indignantly. "Didn't you tell me, when I hired you, thet you was a first-class, A number one chaffer?"
"Sure I did," was the indignant reply, as the driver knelt in the dust and began examining the tire carefully. "But you can't fix a puncture in a jiffy."
"This one is a-goin' ter be fixed in a jiffy," rejoined Buck ominously, "or there'll be a punctured chaffer 'round here."
As he spoke, the proprietor of the Wild West Show moved his great bulk in the forward seat, and produced a heavy-calibred revolver, that glistened in the starlight.
"Get busy!" he ordered.
"Y-y-y-y-yes, sir," stuttered the chauffeur, who had been hired in San Antonio, before the show crossed the border, and found itself in the country of the insurrectos.
"Maybe I can give him a hand—I know something about cars," volunteered Ralph.