“There’s some old furniture piled in that corner,” exclaimed Jack suddenly, “couldn’t we use it to block the trap with?”
“A good idea when the worst of it comes,” assented Pete, “but we’ve got ter keep ther trap open so as to disable as many as possible before we have to come to close quarters.”
The next ten minutes,—for though it seemed like the same number of hours, it was not in reality any more,—was the most painful period the boys ever recalled having put in. From the room below came furtive sounds, but they were so soft and infrequent that it looked as if the main body must have withdrawn further to discuss the attack.
“Say, let’s rush them. I can’t stand this any longer.”
It was Ralph who spoke, but Coyote laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Easy, lad, easy,” he admonished in a low breath, almost in the lad’s ear, “it won’t be long before they start tuning up for the performance, and it ain’t goin’ ter be a funeral march for us neither.”
As he spoke, Pete “clubbed” their solitary rifle, holding it by the barrel. At the same instant a door beneath quietly opened and closed, and the next minute the ladder creaked as a foot was placed upon it.
“Up with you, Miguel,” they heard Ramon whisper, “here’s the knife. Remember the money belt is on the old man. Jose, you follow him closely, and Migullo, you come after. That is all it is safe to trust on the ladder at one time. I myself will come later.”
“The cowardly greaser,” breathed Coyote, with one of his increasingly frequent lapses into plain English, “I guess he’ll feel less like climbing than ever when he sees what’s going to happen to the first arrival. It’s a good thing for us they can’t come but one at a time. In that way they’ll have no chance of rushing us.”
As he finished speaking the boys felt the peculiar thrill that comes before the enactment of some exciting deed. A black head poked itself cautiously through the trap and as it did so Coyote raised his rifle stock, swung it, and brought it down with crushing force on the head of the intruding wretch. He fell backward with a crash, and landed in a heap in the room below. Under ordinary circumstances, not one of the Border Boys would have stood for such drastic measures. But they knew that now it was their life or the Mexican’s. Nevertheless they felt relieved as they heard the fellow stagger to his feet and begin cursing in picturesque Mexican.