The Border Boys with the Mexican Rangers

by John Henry Goldfrap

The uproar awakened the other captives, who realized as soon as they saw that Coyote had gone, what must have occurred. Their hearts beat fast with apprehension for the brave plainsman, as Ramon, coming out of his swoon, ordered the now aroused camp to saddle at once and scatter in pursuit of the refugee. The outlaw chief himself took part in the search, leaving only three men in the camp to guard the captives. As the sound of the pursuing hoofs grew faint and far the boys interchanged gloomy looks. If Coyote had not seized a horse the chances were all against his making good his escape, however he had managed it.

“I fear we are worse off than ever, now,” moaned the professor, shaking his head gloomily.

Coyote, meanwhile, who had familiarized himself with the nature of the country as they rode through it in the afternoon, made at once for the tall scrub and brush at the lower end of the valley. Through this he glided like a snake, and had put half a mile between himself and the outlaws’ camp before he heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs. He listened a minute and then shook his head grimly.

“Bad!” he muttered, “they’re doing just what I thought they would, spreading out in fan-shaped formation. The only chance fer me ter escape that human fine comb is to outflank ’em and double back.”

Crouching low he darted along once more, heading this time, however, in a direction sideways from his former course. If he could reach the end of that line of horsemen before they encroached on his line of progress he might escape them yet. He found himself hoping that they were riding in open formation. If that were the case,—although the starlight was pretty bright,—he might be able to slip in between two of the riders.

On and on he dashed and was just deeming that success had come to him when he was brought to an abrupt halt. Before him yawned blackly a chasm of some sort, and Coyote had seen it only just in time to avoid plunging over its brink into the unknown depths below. The thought chilled him. He shuddered apprehensively.

“One more step and it would have been ‘goodnight, Coyote,’ fer sure,” he soliloquized.

Suddenly there came a loud shout behind him. It was followed by a fusilade of bullets whistling about his ears and pattering against the rocks. In his shock at finding how near he had been to a terrible death, Coyote had thoughtlessly stood erect. Thus he offered a target that could be seen for some distance against the stars. That this had been the case, he could not doubt as the shouts grew closer.

For one of the very few times in his life that such had been the case, the old plainsman was at a loss. In front was the chasm. Behind, the Mexicans. But suddenly he saw something that he thought might serve at a pinch.

It was a log, decayed and hollow, that lay near the edge of the gulf into which he had so nearly fallen. The instant he perceived it, Pete dived into it. Not that he did not feel some repugnance to such a thing, for it was punky and rotten and might, for all he knew, have sheltered snakes. But there was nothing else for it. Hardly had he crawled inside it, carefully drawing in his legs, before Ramon and the advance guard of the pursuers rode up.