“What’s the difference, boys,” questioned Jim, “between rain and a hen?”
“Give it up,” said the chorus.
“The one lays the dust and the other dost lay.”
Then Jim leaped out of the tent to get away from the boys, who would have combined and given him a good licking in token of their appreciation of his brilliant wit. It was his turn to keep watch, anyway, and so he stayed out under a tree, while the boys went peacefully to sleep, with the hail beating on the canvas roof of their tent, confident that with Jim on deck they would be safe enough.
How about the vanished Mexican? He had made his escape as Jim had said. Though stiff from being tightly bound and suffering from the blow he had got from the stone that Jo had thrown at him, he made quick time to the pine-clad slope of the mountain. He seemed to know the way even through the darkness of the forest of pine. After going half a mile he saw the outline of his horse hitched to a sapling.
As soon as he was mounted he turned his animal’s head down the slope until he came to the edge of the meadow. There he stopped for a moment and looked towards the star of the boys’ campfire upon the hill, then he shook his fist in their direction, with an imprecation and a threat of what was going to happen to them in a short time. Finally he turned his mustang’s head up the valley and rode at a slow dog trot through the darkness, groaning considerably with the pain that the jolting gave him.
In a short time the storm overtook him and the falling hail made his pony hump himself threateningly, but his rider gave him a dig with his long and cruel spurs in the flank and that furnished the broncho with something else to think about. After several miles of hard travel, the two began going up steadily, along a narrow and steep trail, with the brawling stream below. The valley had narrowed into a deep canyon with great walls of pale granite, and uncountable black pines growing everywhere.
The hail made the trail slippery and once the horse came near slipping into the depths of the gorge below, but with a tremendous straining effort the plucky animal scrambled back to safety. It was evident that his rider was born to be hanged, for he seemed able to escape every other form of death. Having regained the trail, he rode on for some distance, then he turned into a side canyon, and his knowing horse took him through the labyrinth of trees, until there appeared a light of a campfire at the end of the trail. The gaunt forms of some men could be seen moving around it.
One of the men heard the approach of the Mexican and gave the alarm. In an instant no one was in sight, but there were a number of guns ready to take the number of the stranger whoever he might be. But the Mexican was on to their little ways. He reined in his horse, gave a low whistle, and called out something in Spanish and then rode up to the group.
There were eight in the gang, including the stout red-necked man who had given the boys a chase early in the morning. The evident leader of the crowd was a lanky young fellow whose unusual length of limb did not indicate any frailty of physique. He was a man to be dreaded in any encounter. Gus Gols had a rather shock head of light hair, one bunch always sticking up; high cheek bones, a skin of dully burnished red, and rather small blue eyes, both keen and insolent in their gaze. He had a queer, aggressive way of hooking his head forward when speaking that was very noticeable.