“I’ll watch by the fire in case of another visit. I don’t think there’ll be one, but you cain’t most gen’ally always tell. Gimme my gun back, Jack; I might need it.”
There was no dissuading Coyote from his plan, so the others turned in once more, and, despite the startling interruption to their slumbers, were soon wrapped in sleep.
As for Coyote, he sat by the fire till the stars began to pale and the eastern sky grew gray and wan with the dawn. Except for an occasional swift glance about him the old plainsman’s eyes were riveted on the glowing coals, seemingly searching the innermost glowing caverns for some solution of the situation that confronted them.
CHAPTER II.
RUGGLES—THE DERELICT.
But you lads who are not already acquainted with the adventurous Border Boys, must be wishing, by this time, to know something about them and of the quest which brought them into this wild and rugged part of the great Mexican Republic. In the first volume of this series “The Border Boys on The Trail,” it was related how Ralph Stetson, a somewhat delicate young easterner,—the son of “King Pin” Stetson, the railroad magnate,—came out west to visit his school chum Jack Merrill, the only son of a ranch owner.
The lads’ adventures in pursuit of a band of cattle rustlers,—headed by Black Ramon de Barros,—were related in full in that volume. There also, it was told how they escaped from the mysterious old mission and found a rich treasure in a secret passage of the mouldering structure. Jack’s bravery in preventing Black Ramon from destroying a dam and flooding the country was also an incident of that book. But although the boys had succeeded in routing Black Ramon for the nonce, that scourge of the border was destined to be re-encountered by them.