CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | An Imprudent Bear | [5] |
| II. | Ruggles—The Derelict | [15] |
| III. | Jack’s Adventure | [28] |
| IV. | A Battle Royal | [38] |
| V. | Caught in a Trap | [47] |
| VI. | An Exciting Quest | [57] |
| VII. | The Cloudburst | [68] |
| VIII. | Adrift on the Desert | [76] |
| IX. | The Lone Rancho | [91] |
| X. | After Midnight | [103] |
| XI. | Trapped | [116] |
| XII. | The Gringoes Move | [128] |
| XIII. | Senorita Alverado | [140] |
| XIV. | El Fiesta | [152] |
| XV. | By Fair Means or Foul | [164] |
| XVI. | A Border Boy Errant | [176] |
| XVII. | The Trail of the Trembling Mountain | [186] |
| XVIII. | Black Ramon’s Trickery | [197] |
| XIX. | What Coyote Did | [208] |
| XX. | With the Mexican Rangers | [224] |
| XXI. | The Captain Plays a Trick | [234] |
| XXII. | The Dwelling of a Vanished Race | [243] |
| XXIII. | The Heart of the Mystery | [255] |
| XXIV. | The Death Trap | [266] |
The Border Boys with the
Mexican Rangers.
CHAPTER I.
AN IMPRUDENT BEAR.
Professor Wintergreen sat bolt upright amidst his blankets and listened intently. Had it been daylight, the angular figure of the scientist would have made a laughable spectacle. But the canyon in the State of Sonora, in Western Mexico, in which the Border Boys and their preceptor were camped, was pitchy dark with a velvety blackness, relieved only by a few steely-looking stars shining from the open spaces of a fast overclouding sky.
The night wind soughed in melancholy fashion through the trees that clothed the sides of the rugged abyss in which the camp had been pitched that evening, and the tinkle of the tiny stream that threaded its depths was audible. But although these were the only sounds to be heard at the moment, it was neither of them that had startled the professor. No, what he had heard had been something far different.