Coyote Pete, as Ramon had prophesied, came out of his swoon before long. His return to consciousness was enlivened by some of the most picturesque language the Mexicans had ever heard. But as Coyote had been tied to the saddle he could not relieve his mind otherwise than by using all the opprobrious names he could select from a copious vocabulary. Now it was a peculiarity of Pete’s that he never swore,—that is, actually used bad language,—but he had invented a language all his own to express his feelings when angry. Set down on paper it would look tame, but as Coyote Pete used it, it was tremendous,—exterminating almost.
But after his first outbreak, Coyote remained unusually calm. He was thinking with all his might, but all his thinking did not bring him any nearer to a solution of their difficulties. They were in the hands of the most bloodthirsty band of rascals in Mexico. Even if they escaped, they would be bound to perish miserably in those rugged wilds without food or the weapons to procure any. The nearest settlement, Pete knew, must be at least two hundred miles away, and probably more.
Truly, it was not a cheerful predicament. In fact, as Ralph had said, it looked very much like the last ditch. But Coyote was not of the kind of human that gives in and throws up its hands just because on the surface of things it seems time to abandon hope. Far otherwise, as the readers of other volumes of this series know. There probably was not a cooler head nor a better one along the border than Coyote Pete, but even he had to own that, for the present anyhow, he was “stumped.”
At noon a halt was made for a few minutes, and frijoles, corn bread and muddy black coffee (cold) was given the prisoners. The professor could not eat, he was in such a state of mind. But the others fell to heartily enough; the boys, because they were boys, with appetites that nothing could upset, and Coyote Pete, with the idea of “firing up” with nourishment in case he might find some way out of it for all of them.
All the afternoon they traveled, reaching higher and higher altitudes. Every now and again Ramon would consult earnestly with the red-haired outlaw of unmistakably American origin, who had, as Jack felt certain, left the warning notes on two occasions,—once at the camp in the canyon, and again at Don Alverado’s fete. But on the latter occasion, unless it was one of the band that hurled the sombrero at Firewater’s head, the outlaw’s plans did not seem to have materialized.
But if this man was friendly to the boys he did not give any sign of it. Instead he glared at them as malevolently as did any of the others.
“You’re the kind of American that looks best decorating a tree,” thought Pete, who was now allowed to sit erect on his pony, although, like the boys and the professor, his feet were tied underneath.
On and on they traveled throughout the afternoon, Ramon urging his followers up to a terrific pace considering, that is, the nature of the country they were traversing. Now they would plunge down into dark and gloomy defiles where perpetual purple twilight reigned, and again on mounting some crest they would see, spread out before them, a panorama of much the same sort as had so delighted Jack on the cliff summit before he fell in with the Mexican Rangers.
“If I don’t miss my guess,” said Pete, when he found a chance to exchange a word with the boys, “we are getting into the Trembling Mountain country. See that big peak over thar? It’s smokin’ away like old man Jones with his corn cob evenin’s.”
This was a fact. The smoking mountains, smoldering volcanoes that the boys had observed in the distance on their trip into this wild country, were in fact getting closer. And splendid sights they were, too. Some of them shot up into the blue sky to a height of fully seventeen thousand feet. The walls of the canyons they began to traverse now were different, too, from those they had left behind them. Instead of being composed of dull gray or slate colored rocks, these great rifts flamed with red and yellow strata, intermingled with gorgeous bands of purple and sometimes wavy strata of green. Evidently the internal fires of the earth had been busy here in the youth of the globe.