"Rough going," muttered Pete, "but these little skates are jack rabbits at the work."
"There goes Ramon and his outfit," exclaimed Jack a minute later, when after one of their listening pauses they heard a clattering of hoofs and confused shouts and baying far below them.
"Yep, and I guess he's a worried greaser right now," grinned Pete. "You see he'll be figuring that if we get clear away it won't be long before he has the soldiers after him and his precious bunch."
"The soldiers?" asked Jack, "United States cavalry men? Why it will take a week to get them."
"No, sonny, not United States chaps, more's the pity. A few of our blue breeches would clean out that confabulation in double-quick time. No, the military I refer to are the Mexican troops. If it's a Saint's day or anything, when they get the order to move they won't budge."
"What, they'll refuse duty?"
"Yep. They'll sit around and smoke cigarettes and play dice till they get good and ready to move, that's the kind of soldier men they have over the border."
"Well, why can't some of our fellows get after Ramon?"
"If they could, sonny, the whole question of trouble on the border would be over and done with. But you see there's some sort of law—international law, they call it—that works all right in Washington, and so the big bugs there figure out it must be all right here. We couldn't send troops into Mexico after those greaser cattle-rustlers any more than they could send after the rascals that get from Tamale land into the States."
"Then it works both ways?"