"What did he do that for?" inquired Pete, anxiously, preparing to dismount.
"Stay on, you old Barnacle," roared the Captain from the head of the procession, for though he could not see anything in the rear, still he seemed able to keep an instinctive tab on his old comrade Pete.
"That horse is all right, Pop," said Jo, "and I ought to know. I've ridden him a good many hundred miles. Don't tickle him with your heels, that's all."
"I guess that's what I've done," admitted Pete.
Then the procession resumed its march with Pete as rear guard, riding with due caution and circumspection as though his craft was loaded with dynamite and liable to explode at any time. Jack Cales tried to quiz the prisoners on the mule in a friendly way, but they would not relax in their attitude of grim, if not sullen, defiance towards their captors.
Captain Broom need not think that his prisoners would ever accept any conditions from him. Doubtless, he thought that these boys might be trained to help him in his business for he appreciated their courage and fighting ability, but he did not fully understand what stuff the frontier boys were made of.
The procession of pirates and their prisoners had now reached the foot of the range and were in close proximity to the ranch, but everything favored the plans of the Skipper of the Sea Eagle. The fog became denser when they reached the level plain so that it was scarcely possible for the rider to see the ears of his horse.
Every sound was deadened, so that they could have gone directly past the ranch houses and not even the dogs would have heard them. But the Captain was determined to take no chances, and as soon as the party were free of the canyon, he bore off toward the south, making quite a circuit.
Anybody but an experienced navigator would have been lost in the fog upon the plain, but you could not lose Captain Broom either on the high seas or the low plains. They passed between two wooded hills, which the reader will have to take on faith as he cannot see them. Then across a gully, on the other side of which they came to a barb wire fence.
This did not stop them long, as the Captain cut it and they rode through. From the footing which was about all that could be observed, they appeared to be in a pasture land with a gentle slope towards the sea. The fog did not diminish in thickness and the boys determined to escape. Here was their chance, if they could be said to have one.