“Now!” whispered Pete suddenly, “and the more hoorendously you yell, the better it will be!”
With a series of the most unearthly screeches, the Border Boys and their companions dashed from the cave mouth. Truly they must have been a terrifying spectacle with their glaring green faces and hands, emerging as they did from a cave which the superstitious Mexicans firmly believed to be haunted.
As the first shrill cries rang out, the sentries gave an answering series of yells. Only their cries, instead of being menacing and uncanny like our adventurers’, were shrill screams of terror.
“Caramba! The ghosts of the caves!” they shrieked.
“Santa Maria! They are after us!”
“Run for your lives, hombres!”
Without stopping to collect their rifles, which they had carelessly piled against the trees, the Mexicans dashed off at top speed, stumbling and then struggling to their feet again and dashing on in their wild panic.
The adventurers at once possessed themselves of the rifles and then came to a halt. But Pete addressed them:
“We must foller up our advantage. We have ’em on the run. Foller ’em while we’ve got ’em going!” he cried.