“You know it?” repeated the girl in an amazed tone, “but, senor, I do not understand.”
“I will explain later,” said Jack, “at least, we all hope to have the pleasure of doing so. I may add that I overheard the ruffians, your captors, discussing the matter while I was hiding in a pig pen.”
The senorita’s large dark eyes grew larger than ever at this. She began to think Jack a very peculiar young person to come sliding down chimneys into rooms and to choose to eavesdrop on brigands from pig pens. But she made no comment, and the talk at once turned to the subject of escape.
The door of the room was of oak, barred and bolted on the outside, and impregnable. But the window, high up in the wall though it was, appeared to be just about large enough to squeeze through, ample enough even for Coyote Pete, who was the largest of the party.
“Reckon we can reach it by putting this chair on that table yonder,” declared Pete, “but we’ll have ter look slippy, for those chaps will be through the roof before long, and when they discover we’re gone and see the hole in the chimney, they’ll guess the route we’ve taken.”
When the table had been dragged over under the window and the chair placed upon it, Pete clambered up and found that he could easily reach the aperture.
“It’s all clear outside, too, and the corral isn’t more than a few rods away,” he announced. “Boys, if we have any sort of luck we may get out of this and save the young lady. I’ll go first, for it’s a longish drop to the ground. Those that foller kin land on my shoulders.”
The next instant he raised his lithe, ranch-toughened form and wriggled through the hole. In a flash he was gone.
“Your turn next, senorita,” said Jack; “allow me to assist you.”