Ramson nodded and said nothing. In the meantime one of the Mexicans had been busy dishing out the contents of the pot and handing portions about. The smell reminded Jack that he was excessively hungry and concluding that he had heard about all he wanted to, he prepared to depart as silently as he had come. But as he moved his legs an alarming thing happened. The rock upon which he had been resting gave way without the slightest warning. Jack made a desperate effort to avoid crashing down with it, but he was unsuccessful. With a roar and crash, amid a flying cloud of dust, stones and twigs, the rock and the Border Boy slid together into the midst of the camp of the man whom Jack had every reason on earth both to fear and detest.
But even as he was making his avalanche-like slide down the steep bank. Jack’s active mind was at work.
The instant his feet touched solid ground he sprang upright with a terrific yell:—
“Yee-ow-ow-ow!”
“Todos Santos! It is El Diablo,” shrilled some of the Mexicans. But Ramon, superstitious as he was, was not to be thus easily alarmed.
“It’s a man!” he shouted, and then the next instant:—
“Santa Maria! It’s one of the Border Boys!”
But so quickly had Jack moved that by the time Ramon, the first to regain his wits, had recovered from his surprise, the lad was already among the Mexicans’ horses which were tethered at some little distance. Jack’s quick eye had noted that one of them was saddled and bridled. Like a flash he was in the saddle, and plying the quirt with might and main. Behind him came a fusilade of shots, and he could feel the bullets whistle as he crouched low on his stolen steed’s neck. But he had assumed, and the event proved correctly, that the Mexicans would not risk killing one of their horses.
“Don’t hit the horse!” the fleeing boy heard Ramon shout, as he dashed off. He really had no idea in what direction he was going, but flogging his mount with unmerciful ferocity for the kind-hearted Jack, the lad made all speed from the vicinity of the Mexican camp.