“Thet’s the ticket, Charlie!” complimented another. “We’ll make ’em walk the plank, an’ the buzzards’ll do the rest.” The ruffians roared. It would be great sport and it would make disposal of their captives a most simple matter.
Stacy Brown did not laugh. Instead, he swallowed hard, and a heavy frown wrinkled his forehead.
“That’s what I call a low-down trick,” he muttered. “Going to get all the money they can for me and the other fellow and then send us out to walk on air. Wow! Stacy Brown, I reckon it’s time for you to leave.” He gazed out through the open door of the lean-to and contemplated the possibility of rolling out and trying to escape. That did not seem to be feasible, so he pondered, strained cautiously at the ropes with which he was tied, and decided that he must think of something else.
“If I could get hold of a hunting knife I might manage it,” he thought, but did not recall having seen any such thing among the assortment of equipment in the lean-to. Then an idea occurred to him.
“The axe!” exclaimed the fat boy, and instantly began rolling towards the door, just outside of which he had seen an axe that very day. He found the axe and after several failures Stacy succeeded in getting it between his knees blade up, and began sawing at the rope that bound his wrists. The rope soon fell apart. Stacy could scarcely repress a howl of delight. It was now the work of only a moment to free his legs, and the Overland boy, still clinging to the axe as a weapon in case of discovery, began considering his next move. He knew about where the ruffians’ ponies were tethered, because he had heard them stamping many times.
“Now, if I had a gun I’d be—Sure I have!” He felt along the rear wall of the lean-to, where among saddles and bridles hung holsters with weapons in them, and ammunition belts, and rifles of quite modern pattern hanging from nails in the wall.
The fat boy quickly helped himself to two revolvers and a rifle, each of which he found loaded. That gave him fresh courage. He might be surprised, but it was his idea that the other fellow might be more so. Stacy, armed and eager, crept from the lean-to and picked his way cautiously towards the spot at the base of the granite slope where he hoped to find the rustlers’ horses tethered. They were not there, but he found them about a hundred yards to the left, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use in case of need.
There appeared to be no one on guard, but, though he did not know it, two men were stationed a short distance from the cabin on the Coso Valley side of the mountain hiding place. Fortunately for him, the fat boy was on the other side.
Stacy selected a mount, and, finding a rifle in the saddle boot, he threw away the one he had taken from the lean-to.
“I wish I dared to shoot up that place,” he muttered, gazing off towards the cabin which he could not now see. “I’ll come back and do it.”