"Boy," said Pete, in a tenderer tone than Jack had ever heard the rough cow-puncher use, "as I told you a while back, it's my solemn belief that Mr. Merrill and the rest are alive, and at this minute figuring out some way to get us out of this scrape. But if anything has happened to them, it's going to be the sorriest day in their lives for these Border greasers. There isn't a cow-puncher in New Mexico, or along the border from the Gulf to the Colorado River, that wouldn't take a hand in the trouble that's going to come."
This was an unusually long and an unusually earnest speech for Coyote Pete to make, and as if ashamed of his display of emotion, he at once set to work looking busily about him.
What he saw was not calculated to elevate his spirits. The room, or rather chamber, was so small that its dimensions could not have exceeded six by seven or eight feet. It was, in fact, more a cell than a room.
In the massive oak door was a small peephole, high up, through which every now and then the evil face of one of their guards would peer.
"I wonder what he thinks we are up to?" asked Pete with a quizzical grin. "Not much room in here to do anything but think, and precious little of that."
"Where are we, do you think, Pete?" asked Jack, after another interval of silence.
"Haven't any idee," rejoined Pete. "I reckon we're quite some distance from the mission, though."
"Let's take a peep out of the door," said Jack suddenly. "That fellow hasn't looked in lately; maybe he's gone to dinner, or something."
"Well, there's no harm in trying, anyhow," said Pete, going toward the portal. "I can pull myself up to the hole by my hands, and if he's there the worst that greaser can give me is a crack over the knuckles."
But as he placed his hands on the edge of the peephole Jack suddenly held up his hand.