Hanging breathlessly on the least sound, the besieged party waited for the first sign of the coming attack. It was a long time in making itself manifest, and when it did, it was for a moment puzzling enough. It came in the form of a noise from above.
“Somebody’s on the roof!” exclaimed Pete. “The foxy varmints! I wonder they didn’t think of that before.”
The roof of the lonely rancho was flat, and soon they could hear several footsteps on it as their besiegers paced about.
“What are they going to do?” asked Ralph in a puzzled tone.
“Not hard to guess,” rejoined the professor, “cut a hole in it, I guess, and then they’ll have us completely at their mercy.”
“If we let them,” said Jack, “but why not try to escape by the trap, while they are busy on the roof?”
“That might be a good idea if it warn’t likely that they have the foot of the ladder guarded, or most probably have taken it down,” said Coyote Pete; “no, you’ll have to guess agin, Jack. Think uv something new and original.”
“I might say try that door, but I guess that’s guarded, too.”
“Not a doubt of it,” was the reply.