“So I’ve got you fast and tight, at last, eh,” sneered Ramon vindictively, gazing down from his great horse at the crestfallen, dust-covered boy.
“Well, my young senor,” he continued, with a vicious intonation, “I can promise you that this time you will not escape so easily. This will be a treat for the boys.”
Jack answered nothing. He struggled to rise but the rope was given a jerk by his captor which brought him to the ground once more. He could almost have cried with humiliation. At the moment this was his overmastering feeling. Of fear he felt little, but he would have given a lot just then to stand up with Black Ramon in a twenty-four-foot ring!
Having “thrown” poor Jack very much as he might have done a refractory calf, the outlaw turned his attention to the injured horse.
“So you have ruined one of our horses, too, you Yankee pig,” he snarled; “well, it only makes one more score to settle up with you.”
He drew one of his big revolvers from its chased leather holster, and carefully aiming it, shot the mortally injured animal between the eyes. The creature gave a convulsive shudder and straightened out,—dead. Without another word Ramon swung his black around, and before he could make a move Jack found himself being dragged over the rough ground at a swift pace. Within a few yards his side was bruised and cut, and the clothing torn from him.
“Great heavens, if this keeps up I shall be unable to move hand or foot,” thought Jack in dismay.
For a moment his heart failed him, and then he suddenly bethought himself of his knife. To reach it in his side pocket—for his arms were partially free,—was the work of an instant, and with one quick slash he cut the rawhide that bound him.
Released of its burden thus suddenly, the sure-footed black lost its footing and almost stumbled.