From the mouth of the dark pit a fetid, foul-smelling air rushed upward.

THE

BORDER BOYS
ON THE TRAIL

BY

FREMONT B. DEERING

NEW YORK

HURST & COMPANY,

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1911,

BY

HURST & COMPANY

MADE IN U. S. A.

CONTENTS

The Border Boys on the Trail.

[CHAPTER I.]

ON THE BORDER.

"Maguez! Maguez!"

The trainmen began hoarsely shouting the curious-sounding name of the small frontier town near the Mexican border, in the southwest part of New Mexico. Slowly the long dust-covered Southern Pacific express rolled imposingly into "Mag-gay," very slowly, in fact, as if it did not wish to tarry in that desolate, sun-bitten portion of the continent.

As the brakes began to grind down, one of two boys of about seventeen, who had been lounging on the shady side of a forward sleeper, awoke from a semi-doze with a start.

"Hullo! somebody wants Maggie!" exclaimed Ralph Stetson, as he gazed out of the open window. He saw nothing more novel before his eyes, however, than the same monotonous stretch of yellow, sandy wastes, sprinkled with sage brush and dotted by a few wandering cattle, which the train had been traversing for hours.

"You'll have to get used to New Mexican pronunciation of Mexican names, Ralph," laughed his companion, as he also opened his eyes and began looking about him in the half-startled manner peculiar to those abruptly awakened from "forty winks." "'Maggie', as you call it, is our station."

"Station!" echoed the other. "Where is it?"

He stuck his head out of the window as the train gradually decreased speed, but his eyes encountered nothing more suggestive of a town than a stock car on a lonely side track, into which some cowboys, with wild yells and much spurring of their wiry little steeds, were herding a few beef cattle.

"That freight car must be in front of the town," muttered the boy, pulling in his head.

"Over this side, you tenderfoot!" laughed Jack Merrill, pointing out of the left-hand window. "Haven't you got used to Western towns yet?"

"One-sided towns, you mean, I guess," said Ralph, rising and looking out in the opposite direction. "Why in the name of the State of New Mexico do they build all the towns out here at one side of the tracks?"

"So that Easterners can have something to wonder about," laughed Jack Merrill, brushing off the accumulation of white desert dust from his dark suit with a big brown hand.

"Or so that they can at least get a few minutes of shade when a train pulls in," retorted Ralph, gazing at the sun-baked collection of wooden structures toward which the train was rolling. A yellow water tank, perched on a steel frame, towered above the town like a sunflower on a stalk. Apparently it took the place of trees, of which there was not a vestige, unless a few cactus plants be excepted.

"Better follow my example and brush some of the desert off," said Jack, still brushing vigorously.

"No, let the porter do it; here he is," said the Eastern Ralph. Sure enough, with his black face expanded in a grin expectant of tips, the presiding genius of the Pullman approached.

"Come on, cheer up, Ralph!" laughed Jack, glancing at his companion's dismal face, which was turned toward the window and its barren view. "Don't be downcast because my home town isn't surrounded by elms, and meadows, and fat Jersey cows, and all that. Haven't we lain awake many a night at Stonefell College, talking over the West, and here you are in the heart of it."

"Well, it's a good warm heart, anyway!" grumbled Ralph, mopping his steaming forehead.

The train came to a stop with an abrupt jerk, and followed by the porter, carrying two new and shiny suitcases, the boys hastened from the car, into the blinding sunlight which lay blisteringly on Maguez and its surroundings. Everything quivered in the heat. The boys were the only passengers to alight.

"Phew, it's like opening an oven door!" exclaimed Ralph, as the heated atmosphere fell full upon him. "We've come more than two thousand miles from an Eastern summer to roast out here."

"And look at the train, will you!" cried Jack. "It looks as if it had been through a snowstorm."

He pointed down the long line of coaches, each of which was powdered thickly with white dust.

"All ab-oa-rd!"

The conductor's sonorous voice echoed down the train, and with a few mighty puffs from the laboring engine, the wheels once more began to revolve. The porter, clutching a tip in his fingers, leaped back on to his car. All the time they had been waiting in the station the locomotive had been impatiently blowing off steam, and emitting great clouds of black smoke, as though in a desperate hurry to get away from inhospitable-looking Maguez. It now lost no time in getting into motion. As the cars began to roll by, Jack gave a sudden shout.

"Ralph! The-the professor! We've forgotten him!"

"Good gracious, yes! What could we have been thinking of! We are getting as absentminded as he is. Here, stop the train! Hey, I say, we——"

But before the shouts had done resounding, a tall, spare man of middle age stepped out on the platform of one of the front coaches, and after gazing about him abstractedly for a few seconds, swung himself off, landing unsteadily on a pair of long, slender legs. So great was the shock of the professor's landing that his huge spectacles were jerked off his prominent nose, and he had all he could do to retain a hold on a large volume which he held tightly clasped under his left arm.

The boys hurried to pick up the professor's spectacles and hand them to him.

"We almost lost you, professor!" exclaimed Ralph.

"Ah, boys, I was immersed in the classics—'The Defense of Socrates,' and——"

"Why, Professor Wintergreen, where is your suitcase?" exclaimed Jack suddenly. "See—the train is moving, and——"

"Shades of Grecian Plato!" shouted the professor, glancing about him wildly. "I've forgotten it! Stop! I must get it back! I——"

He made a sudden dash for the train, which was now moving so swiftly that it was manifestly impossible that he could board it in safety. The boys both pulled him back, despite his struggles.

Just then, the car which the boys had recently vacated began to glide by. A black face appeared at the window. It was the porter, and in his hand he held a large green suitcase. It was the same the professor had left behind him when he vacated the car in which they had traveled from the East, and went forward into the smoking car with his book.

"Look out!" yelled the porter, as he threw the piece of baggage out of the window. It hurtled forth with a vehemence indeed that threatened to take off the scientist's head, which it narrowly missed.

"Fo' de Lawd!" the porter shouted back, as the train gathered way. "Wha' yo all got in dat valise—bricks?"

"No, indeed, sir," retorted the professor seriously, as his suitcase went bounding over the platform, which was formed of sun-baked earth. "I have books. The idea of such a question. Why should I want to carry bricks about with me, although the ancient Egyptians——"

By this time the porter was far out of hearing, and the last car of the train had whizzed by. Before the professor could conclude his speech, the suitcase—as if to prove his contention as to its contents by actual proof—burst open, and out rolled several massive volumes. The few loungers, who had gathered to watch the train come in, set up a roar of laughter as the professor—his coat flaps flying out behind him like the tail of some strange bird—darted after his beloved volumes.

"That's what you might call a circulating library!" grinned Jack, as the books bounded about with the impetus of their fall.

"I thought it was a Carnegie Car, you see——" began Ralph, when a sudden shout checked him. He glanced up in the direction from which it had come. A dust-covered buckboard, in which sat a tall, bronzed man in plainsman's clothes, was dashing toward them. The two buckskin ponies which drew it were being urged to their utmost speed by the driver, to whom Jack Merrill was already waving his hand and shouting:

"Hello, dad!"

In the meantime the professor was groping about on the platform, picking up his scattered treasures, and all the time commenting loudly to himself on his misfortune.

"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed, picking up one bulky volume and examining it with solicitude. "Here's a corner broken off Professor Willikin Williboice's 'The Desert Dwellers of New Mexico, With Some Account of the Horn Toad Eaters of the Region.' And what have we here? Eheu! the monumental work of Professor Simeon Sandburr, on the 'Fur-Bearing Pollywog of the South Polar Regions,' is——"

"Slightly damaged about the back!" broke in a hearty voice behind him. "But never mind, professor; the pollywogs will grow up into frogs yet, never fear. We'll soon have those volumes mended; and now let me introduce myself, as my son Jack seems unable to do so. My name is Jefferson Merrill, the owner of Agua Caliente Ranch."

"Delighted to meet you, sir," said the professor. "Proud to encounter a man whose name is not unknown to science in connection with his efforts to uncover something of the history of the mesa dwellers of this part of the world."

"Whose relics, if my son informed me rightly in his letters from school in the East, you have come to study, professor."

"Yes, sir; thanks to your hospitality," rejoined the professor, imprisoning his recovered volumes with a click of his suitcase clasps; "it was extremely handsome of you to invite me, and——"

"Not at all, my dear sir, not at all," expostulated the rancher, a kindly smile spreading on his bronzed features. "Besides," he continued in his breezy manner, "as Latin professor at Stonefell College you will no doubt be able to give an eye to your two pupils, and keep them out of mischief better than I could." Here the professor looked doubtful. "You see, we're pretty busy now, what with cattle rustlers and——"

"Cattle rustlers, dad!" exclaimed Jack. "Hooray!"

"It's nothing to be enthusiastic over, my boy. Several of the border ranchers have suffered severely recently from their depredations."

"Have you lost any stock, dad?"

"No; so far, I have luckily escaped. But the rascals may come at any time, and it keeps me on the lookout. They are well organized, I believe, and have a stronghold somewhere back across the border. So you boys will have to depend on your own devices for amusement. But now come, don't let's stand baking here any longer. There's a long drive before us, and we had better be getting on."

"But, dad, look at all our baggage!" cried Jack, pointing to the heap of trunks the baggage car had dropped. "There'll never be room for all of us in that buckboard."

"So I guessed," smiled his father. "So I had Bud Wilson bring in two ponies for you boys to ride out on. You told me, I think, that your friend Ralph, here, could ride."

"Good for you, dad!" exclaimed Jack impulsively; "it'll be fine to get in the saddle again—and to see old Bud, too," he added.

"Who is Bud?" asked Ralph.

"You'll soon get to know him yourself," laughed Mr. Merrill. "But you boys go and get your horses. While you are gone the professor and I will try to get some of these independent gentlemen standing about to give us a hand to load the trunks on. Then we'll drive on to the ranch. You can overtake us. Eh, Professor Summerblue?"

"Wintergreen, sir," rejoined the professor in a dignified way.

"Eh—oh, I beg your pardon. I knew it was something to do with the seasons. I hope you will pardon me, Professor Spring——No, I mean Wintergreen."

"Just like dad, he never can remember a name," laughed Jack, as the two boys hastened off to find the ponies and Bud.

"Maybe he is worried about these cattle bustlers——"

"Rustlers, you tenderfoot—you are as bad as dad."

"Well, rustlers, then. They must be desperate characters."

"A lot of sneaking greasers usually. They hustle the cattle or horses off over the border, but occasionally one of them gets caught and strung up, and that's the end of it."

"Then there are no border wars any more, or Indians, or——"

"Adventures left in the West," Jack finished for him, laughing at the other's disappointed tone. Then, more seriously: "Well, Ralph, the West isn't what it's pictured to be in Wild West shows; but we've plenty of excitement here once in a while, and before you go back East, with those lungs of yours in A-one shape, you may experience some of it."

"I hope so," said Ralph, looking up the long dusty street with its sun-blistered board shacks on either side, with a few disconsolate ponies tied in front. The yellow water tower topped above it all like some sort of a misshapen palm tree or sunflower on steel legs. In fact, a more typical border town than Maguez at noon on a June day could not be imagined. Except for the buzzing of flies, and the occasional clatter of a horse's hoofs as some one rode or drove up to the general store—which, together with a blacksmith shop, a disconsolate-looking hotel, and a few miscellaneous buildings made up the town—there was not a sound to disturb the deep, brooding silence of the desert at noonday. Far on the horizon, like great blue clouds, lay the Sierre de la Hacheta, in the foothills of which lay Agua Caliente Ranch.

"So this is the desert?" went on Ralph, as they made their way up the rough wooden sidewalk toward the stable where they expected to find Bud Wilson and the horses.

"This is it," echoed Jack Merrill, "and the longer you know it the better you like it."

"It's peaceful as a graveyard, anyhow," commented Ralph. "Doesn't anything ever happen? I wonder if——"

He broke off suddenly as a startling interruption occurred.

The quiet of Maguez had been rudely shattered by a sudden sound.

Bang!

From a small building to their right, on which was painted in scrawly red letters the words, "Riztorant. Meelz At Awl Howrz," there had come the sharp crack of a pistol shot.

Before its echoes had died away, several doors opened along the street, and a motley crowd of cowboys, Mexicans and blanketed Indians poured out to ascertain the cause of the excitement.

They had not long to wait. From the door of the restaurant a pig-tailed Mongolian suddenly shot with the speed of a flying jackrabbit. The Chinaman cleared the hitching rail in front of the place at one bound, his progress being hastened from behind by a perfect avalanche of cups and other dishes.

Bang!

A second shot came, as the Oriental sprinted up the street. All at once he stopped dead in his tracks as the bullet sang by his ear.

"Well, Ralph, I guess something's happened, after all!" remarked Jack Merrill, as the crowd began to thicken and the restaurant door once more opened. This time a strange figure, to Ralph's Eastern eyes, emerged from the portal. A sinister suggestion was lent to the newcomer's appearance by the fact that in his right hand there glistened an exceedingly business-like looking revolver.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE BOYS FIND TROUBLE.

"No shootee! No shootee!"

The blue-overalled Chinaman plumped down on his knees in the thick dust, with his hands clasped in entreaty. Above him, threatening the cowering wretch with his pistol, stood the figure of the man who had emerged so suddenly from the restaurant door. The crowd doing nothing stood stoically looking on.

The tormentor of the Mongolian was a tall, swarthy figure of a man, crowned with a high-peaked, silver-braided sombrero, the huge brim of which almost obscured the repulsive details of his swarthy face. The remainder of his garb was a short jacket, beneath which a broad red sash upheld the most peculiar nether garments Ralph had ever seen. They were tight about their wearer's thin legs as far as the knees, when the black velvet of which they were made suddenly became as full and baggy as the trousers of a sailor. High-heeled boots and a pair of jingling silver spurs completed his fantastic costume—the typical holiday garb of a Mexican, including the revolver.

"By Sam Hooker, I know that chink!" cried Jack, as the boys ran up and joined the crowd. "It's Hop Lee. He used to cook on my father's ranch. I remember hearing now that he had started some kind of a restaurant in town. Here, Hop Lee, what's the matter?"

"Oh, Misser Mellill, you helpee me! No let Misser De Ballios shootee me! I do no halm. Me catch um——"

"What are you boys interfering here for?" demanded the Mexican suddenly, wheeling angrily. He spoke in good English, but with a trace of accent. Jack, despite his brown face and the keen, resourceful look which comes from a plainsman's life, wore Eastern-cut clothes. The Mexican had promptly sized him up for a tenderfoot. "You just run along, or you'll get hurt," he continued menacingly.

He leveled his gun, and brusquely ordered the Chinaman, who had by this time arisen, to kneel once more in the dust.

"Don't do it, Hop Lee. Get back to your cook stove," cried Jack.

"He will kneel!" declared the Mexican, facing about, "or——"

"Well, or what?" demanded Jack, looking the silver-braided bravado straight in the eyes.

"Or you will!"

Question and answer came sharp as pistol shots.

The Mexican raised his pistol menacingly. But at the same instant a foot suddenly projected between the Spanish-American's slender legs and twisted about one limb. The next instant the gaudily garbed bully lay prostrate in the dust, the pungent stuff filling his eyes, mouth and nose.

It was Ralph Stetson's foot which had tripped the man. The boy had acted in a sudden excess of fear that the Mexican was about to shoot his chum. As a matter of fact, the fellow had had no such intention. But now he had shared the fate of many another man who has made a bluff, only to have it promptly taken at its full value.

A sort of murmur of alarm went through the crowd as the Mexican measured his length in the dust.

"Say, pard," said a short, chunky little cowboy behind Ralph, "you've done it now; that's Black Ramon De Barrios."

"Well, he's white now!" laughed the boy, as the Mexican rose to his feet with his features smothered with white dust.

"Looks as if he'd been taking a dive in the flour barrel!" laughed Jack. He turned to Ralph with a quick, "Thanks, old fellow. I see that you're as much on the job here as on the football field. But I don't think he meant to shoot——"

"No, he did not, but he does now!"

De Barrios approached the boys, his pistol leveled and his black, serpent-like eyes glinting wickedly. "I'll show you what Black Ramon can do! He never forgets an insult nor forgives an injury!"

Aghast at the threatened tragedy, the crowd did nothing, and the boys stood rooted to one spot. Closer and closer, like a snake, the Mexican crept, determined, it seemed, to get the full measure of anticipation out of his revenge for his tumble. Jack never flinched, but his heart beat unpleasantly fast.

The Mexican's brown, cigarette-stained forefinger trembled on the trigger. He was quite close now.

The fat little cowboy gave a yell of alarm, and sprang suddenly forward.

"Look out! The varmint's going to shoot!"

But at the same instant a strange thing happened A snaky loop whizzed through the air and settled about the bully's neck. The vengeful Mexican was suddenly jerked off his feet as it tightened, his long legs threshing the air like those of a swimming frog.

"Roped, by ginger!" yelled some one in the crowd, as De Barrios, at the end of a lariat, went ploughing through the dust on his face for the second time.

And roped, Ramon De Barrios was. So absorbed had the crowd been in watching the tense scene before them that few of them had noticed a cowboy mounted on a small calico pony who had ridden slowly up from a point behind the boys. This cow-puncher, a long-legged, rangy, sun-burned fellow, in typical stockman's garb, had watched everything attentively till the critical moment. Then, with a quick twist, he had roped the Mexican as neatly as he would have tied a calf on branding day.

"Well done, and thank you, Bud!" shouted Jack, running up and shaking the cowboy's hand.

The latter had halted his pony a short distance from them. But the distance had been quite far enough for De Barrios, whose method of traveling had been far from comfortable.

"Where did you spring from, old fellow?" Jack went on.

"From the corral up the street," said Bud, displaying no more emotion than if he and the boys had had an appointment to meet at that spot under quite ordinary circumstances. "Just wait till I get this here sidewinder of a greaser cut loose, and I'll talk to you."

All this time De Barrios had lain prone in the dust, with the rope stretched tight, just as the trained cow pony had kept it. Bud now cast loose the end which he had wound about his saddle horn, and the Mexican, with a sulky look, rose to his feet and threw off the rawhide loop.

"Here's your gun," said Bud Wilson, leaning from his saddle and picking up the fallen weapon from the dust.

"Hold on, though," he said suddenly. Breaking the weapon open, he "sprung" the shells out of it. This done, he handed it to the Mexican, who took it with a sinister look.

"To our next meeting!" he grated, as he turned away.

"Well, stay on your feet next time!" rejoined Bud composedly, amid a roar from the crowd.

"Now, Hop Lee," demanded Jack Merrill of the Chinaman, as De Barrios strode off without a word, but with a black look on his swarthy face, "what was the trouble in there?"

"Why, the Chink spilled a spot of grease on the brim of the Mexican's sombrero," volunteered somebody, "and when he wouldn't wipe it off again, De Barrios got mad."

"Well, I don't know as I blame the greaser so very much, those being the circumstances," remarked Bud dryly. "These Chinks has got to be kep' in order some way. Now get back to your chuck wagon, Hop, and don't give no more dissatisfaction to your customers."

Ralph now learned who Bud Wilson was—a cow-puncher who had worked for Jack's father for many years, and had practically brought Jack up on the range. Bud had two strong dislikes, Mexicans and Apaches, and his services against the latter had given him his nickname of Apache Bud. For tenderfeet, Bud had merely pity.

"Poor critters," he would say, when at his ease in the bunkhouse, or when sweeping across the range on his favorite calico pony, "I s'pose it ain't their fault—being raised unnatural—but the most of 'em is dumb as a locoed coyote."

"What ponies have you brought for us, Bud?" asked Jack, as, with the two boys walking beside him, the cowboy rode slowly back to the stable, from the door of which he had first espied their difficulty.

"Waal, I brought Firewater fer you," said Bud, "and Petticoats, the buckskin, for your tenderfoot friend here."

"Petticoats!" said Jack in a tone of vexation. "Why, Petticoats is the tamest old plug on the ranch."

"That's all right, Jack," said Ralph, bravely choking back a feeling of mortification. "I guess, when I've shown I can ride, I'll get a chance at a better animal."

Bud Wilson gazed at him with a kindlier expression than he had yet bestowed on the rather pale-faced young Easterner. Although an athlete and a boxer, Ralph had had some slight bronchial trouble of late, and had been recommended to spend his vacation in New Mexico as a means of effecting a complete cure.

"So you kin ride?" Bud asked.

"A little," said Ralph modestly.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Stetson, the railroad magnate, owned several good horses, and had always encouraged his son Ralph in using them. In this way Ralph had had plenty of experience with one or two of the Eastern "drag hunts," and had played polo a little. Jack Merrill knew this. It mortified him, therefore, to think that old Petticoats had been brought for his guest.

"I tell you, Ralph," he said generously, "you take Firewater and see how you like him."

"Not much, Jack," exclaimed Ralph. "He's your own pet particular pony. I've often heard you speak of him. No; I'll take old Petticoats. I guess we'll get on all right together."

Both ponies were saddled and ready for them when the party reached the stable. De Barrios, who had had his heavy black horse in the corral, was riding out as they came up. The Mexican gave them a black look, to which they paid no attention. The Mexican, whatever he may have looked like on foot, presented an impressive sight on his black horse—a superb, long-tailed animal with a glossy coat and great, restless eyes. De Barrios's saddle and bridle and martingale were covered with silver, and both horse and rider were typical productions of the border.

"Even you will admit that that's a good horse," said Jack to Bud, as the Mexican loped off at an easy, swinging gait, and the boys started into the barn.

"Oh, yes. He's all right; but give me my calico here for a traveler," said Bud, patting the neck of his beloved Chappo.

Poor Petticoats was certainly not an imposing-looking pony. She was a small buckskin, and appeared to be a good enough traveler; but she had an ewe neck, and a straggly tail, and a lack-lustre eye, very unlike Jack's glossy-coated, bright bay pony.

"I thought you said she was a quiet old plug," said Ralph, as his eyes fell on the mare for the first time.

"So she is, why?" asked Jack, who had been too busy tightening Firewater's cinch to notice the really remarkable antics of Petticoat.

"Well, look at that!" exclaimed Ralph, as Petticoats lashed out at him.

For a quiet steed, Petticoats certainly was jumping about a good deal. There was a restless look in her eyes. She rolled them back till only the white showed. Her ears were pressed wickedly close to the side of her not very shapely head.

"Say, she's acting queerly, for fact," said Jack. "Maybe she's been eating loco weed. Shall I ask Bud to look her over before you mount?"

"No, don't. He'd only josh me about her. I guess she's only restless. Just come off pasture, maybe."

So without a word to Bud, who had remained outside the barn while the boys were getting their ponies, Ralph swung himself easily into the saddle.

His body had hardly touched the leather before the placid—or, rather, supposedly placid—Petticoats leaped into the air with a spring which would have unseated a less-experienced rider, and then came down with all four feet stiffly braced together in a wicked buck.

If Ralph had been a less plucky rider, he would have been unseated, and almost to a certainty seriously hurt. As it was, however, he stuck to the saddle.

"Whoa, Petticoats, whoa!" shouted Jack, steadying his own pony, which was getting excited and prancing about as it saw the other's antics.

"W-w-w-what's the m-m-matter with her?"

The words were jerked out of Ralph's mouth, as Petticoats plunged and reared and gave a succession of stiff-legged bucks.

Jack had no time to reply before the buckskin, with a squeal and a series of running leaps, was out of the stable door.

"What in the name of the great horn spoon!" yelled the startled Bud, as a buff-colored streak flashed past him. The next instant, with a rattle of hoofs and an alarming crackling and flapping of saddle leathers, the little pony was off in a cloud of dust, headed for the desert.

"Locoed?" shouted Jack, as he and Bud Wilson dug their big, blunt-rowelled spurs into their mounts and started in pursuit.

"I dunno," muttered Bud, shaking a big loop out of his "rope," as they tore along at break-neck speed, "but we've got to catch him."

"Why? If he doesn't fall off he'll be all right. She'll soon run herself out."

"No, she won't, either. Since you've been East they've put through a big irrigation canal out yonder. That cayuse is headed right for it, and if the kid can't stop her, they'll go sky-whooping over the edge."

"Wow! We've got to get him."

"That's what. Spur up now, and get your rope ready. Now's your chance to show me you haven't forgot all I ever taught you about roping."

Jack unslung the thirty feet of plaited rawhide from the right hand of his saddle horn, and shook out a similar loop to Bud's. Both ponies were now going at the limit of their speed, and the distance between them and the runaway seemed to be diminishing.

"Will we get him in time?" gasped Jack.

"Dunno. There's the canal yonder. It's a twenty-foot drop."

The cowboy pointed dead ahead to where a dark, purplish streak cut across the dun expanse of desert.

"We've got to beat him to it!" said Jack, gritting his teeth.

[CHAPTER III.]

A RACE FOR LIFE.

Fast as they raced on, Jack and the cow-puncher seemed to gain on the flying Petticoats with aggravating slowness.

"Consarn that mare, she's plumb locoed, I reckon!" growled Bud, as they rocketed along, flogging their ponies to renewed efforts with their heavy quirts.

"She runs like a quarter horse!" gasped Jack, his mouth full of alkali dust; for he had no neck handkerchief to pull up over his mouth, vaquero style.

But with their splendid mounts they were bound to gain on the suddenly crazed Petticoats, and gradually they drew so close that all three riders were blanketed by the same cloud of dust.

Behind them came a second great cloud, in which rode a score or more of riders from Maguez who had hastily mounted and galloped out to see the fun as soon as they heard there was a runaway.

"The canal!" shouted Jack suddenly.

A wandering breeze for a second swept aside the dust cloud before them, and showed the fresh, raw wound gaping in the level surface of the desert. It was fully thirty feet wide, and as the canal was a new ditch, its sides were almost as steep as a wall.

Bud Wilson said nothing, but set his lips grimly. With an imperceptible movement of his wrist, he gathered his trailing loop into the air and began to whirl it above his head, first slowly and then faster and faster. The rawhide loop opened out till it was ten feet or more in circumference.

"Now!" he yelled, and at the same instant the released loop went swirling through the air.

"Yip-yip!" yelled Jack.

Bud had won proudly many a prize for roping, and was the most expert man with the lariat in his part of the West. Had he wished, he could have roped the flying Petticoats by the heels. But to have done so would have been to have brought the crazed pony down with a crash, and probably have seriously injured, if not killed, her rider.

Swish!

The great loop settled as accurately as if hands had guided it about the maddened pony's neck. Bud took a twist of his end round the saddle horn and checked the calico.

"Got her!" screamed Jack. "Yi-hi!"

But there came a sudden shout of dismay from Bud.

The calico's foot had caught in a gopher hole, and over he went, turning almost a complete somersault.

Jack gave a shout of horror as he saw the catastrophe. He feared Bud had been killed, but the lithe bronco buster was up in a second, stumbling toward his fallen horse.

But the rope did not prove equal to the sudden strain put upon it by the collapse of the calico. The instant the pony had fallen, of course its full weight had come on the rawhide, instead of there being, as Bud had planned, a gradual strangling down of the runaway. It had been, in effect, a tug of war between the flying Petticoats and the suddenly checked calico.

Crack!

The rope twanged taut as a stretched fiddle string and parted with a snap just as Bud reached back into the hip of his leathern chaperaros for his Colt.

He had determined to shoot the runaway and risk disabling Ralph, rather than have the pony take the twenty-foot plunge over the brim of the canal. But at the moment his finger pressed the trigger there came a shout from Jack, who was now only a few paces behind Petticoats. The boy's hastily thrown lariat had missed altogether.

Before their horrified eyes, the runaway buck-skin and her rider the next instant plunged in one confused heap over the bank of the canal and vanished from sight.

Jack was within a breath of following them over the brink, but in the nick of time he wheeled the carefully trained Firewater round on his haunches and averted a second calamity.

Controlling his half-maddened steed, the boy pressed to the edge of the canal. The bank was new and smooth, and as steep as the roof of a house. Ralph and his pony had rolled over and over down this place in one inextricable heap. But by the time Jack reached the edge of the steep bank, Ralph had kicked free of the big, clumsy Mexican stirrups and was struggling in the water.

The flood was rushing along in a yellow, turbid swirl. There had been a freshet in the mountains a few days before, and to relieve the pressure on the land company's dam up there, the spillways had been opened to their capacity. The canal was carrying the great overflow. It tore along between the high, steep banks like a mill race.

"The flood gates!" came a frenzied shout from Bud. He pointed westward.

In a flash Jack realized that the flood gates below must be open, and at the instant of this realization came another thought.

If he did not act and act quickly, Ralph would be carried through the gates to probably certain death.

"Ralph! Ralph!" he shouted, as he gazed down at the brave struggle his chum was making to reach the bank; but the current swept the Eastern boy away from it every time. His pony had gained the bank, and was pawing pitifully at the steep, sandy slope.

It did not need more than a glance to see that Ralph's strength was giving out. He turned up a white, despairing face to Jack, by whose side there now stood Bud Wilson.

"Quick, Jack! Chuck him the rope!" shouted Bud in a tense voice.

Inwardly angry at himself for not having thought of this before, Jack sent his rawhide snaking down the bank. Ralph, his face white and strained above the tearing yellow current, reached out in a desperate effort to clutch the rawhide. Even as his fingers gripped it, however, the current proved too much for him. He was swept away on its white-flecked surface like a bit of drift.

"Ride, boy, ride! We've got to beat him to the sluice and close the gates! It's his only chance!"

It was Bud's voice once more.

Somehow, Jack found himself in the saddle, with Firewater racing under him as that brave little bay had never raced before. Close alongside came Bud, rowelling his bleeding-kneed calico cruelly to keep alongside. Far behind came shouts and yells from the crowd. The buckskin, the cause of all the trouble, managed to clamber to the edge of the stream, where the water was slightly shallower, and was dragged out by ropes. While the race for life swept onward, she stood dripping and shivering on the summit of the bank.

From his flying pony Jack caught occasional glimpses of Ralph in the stream below. The boy was a good swimmer, and now that he was being carried along with the current, instead of fighting it, he was able to keep his head above water most of the time.

"Stick it out, Ralph, old boy!" yelled Jack, as he dashed past the half-drowned lad whom the rapid current was carrying almost as swiftly as the over-run ponies could gallop.

"We'll be in time!" exclaimed Jack, through his clinched teeth. Right ahead of him he saw some grim, gallows-like looking timbers reared up against the sky line, which he knew must mark the sluice.

Hardly had the thought flashed through his mind, when Firewater seemed to glide from beneath him. An instant later Jack found himself rolling over and over on the level plain.

The same accident as had befallen Bud had happened to him. A gopher hole—one of those pests of desert riders—had tripped Firewater and sent his rider sprawling headlong.

"Hurt?"

Bud Wilson, on the calico, drew up alongside Jack, who had struggled to his feet and was looking about in a dazed sort of way.

"No, I'll be all right in a second. But Firewater!"

The bay had risen to his feet, but stood, sweating and trembling, with his head down almost between his knees. He could not have expressed "dead beat" better if he had said it in so many words.

"Blown up!" exclaimed Bud disgustedly.

"What shall we do?" choked out Jack.

"Here, quick! Up behind me!"

Bud reached down a hand, kicked a foot out of his left stirrup, and in a second Jack was swung up behind him and they were off.

"I hope to goodness we strike no more gopher holes," thought the boy, as they raced along, scarcely more slowly than when the plucky little calico had only a single burden to carry. Never had the brave little beast been used more unmercifully. Bud Wilson plied his heavy quirt on the pony's flanks as if he meant to lay the flesh open. To every lash of the rawhide the calico responded bravely, leaping forward convulsively.

"We'll beat him to it!" cried Jack triumphantly, as both riders fairly fell off the spent calico's back at the sluice gates.

"Yep, maybe; but we've got to get 'em closed first!" was Bud's laconic response.

Paying no further attention to the calico—which was too spent, anyhow, to attempt to get away—the two, the man and the boy, ran at top speed across the narrow wooden runway which led to the big wheels by which the gateways of the sluice were raised and lowered.

"If Ralph can only hold out!" gasped Jack, who, far up the stream had espied a small black object coming rapidly toward him, which he knew must be the head of his chum. Ralph was swimming easily, taking care not to wind himself, and looking out for any opportunity which might present itself to reach the bank. No sooner did he attempt to cross the current, however, than the water broke over him as if he had been a broached-to canoe. He confined his efforts, therefore, to keeping his head above water. Of the deadly peril that lay ahead of him he had, of course, no knowledge.

"Hurry, Bud!" cried Jack, in an agony of fear that they would be too late.

"All right now, take it easy, Jack. No use hurrying over this job," replied Bud easily, though his drawn face and the sweat on his forehead showed the agitation under which he was laboring.

"Consarn this thing! How's it work!" he muttered angrily, fiddling with the machinery, which was complicated and fitted with elaborate gears and levers to enable the terrific pressure of the water to be handled more easily.

Beneath their feet the stream—a mad torrent above—developed into a screaming, furious flood at the sluiceway. It shot through the narrow confines at tremendous velocity, shaking and tearing at the masonry buttresses as if it would rip them away.

To Jack's excited imagination, it seemed as if the swollen canal was instinct with life and malevolence, and determined to have human life or property in revenge for its confinement.

Suddenly the boy's eyes fell on something he had not noticed before. Beyond the floodgate the engineers of the irrigation canal, finding that the confinement of the water at the sluiceway tended to make the current too savage for mere sandy walls to hold it, had constructed a tunnel. This expedient had been resorted to only after numerous experimental cement retaining walls had been swept away.

Just beyond the buttresses on the other side of the sluice, the entrance of the tunnel yawned blackly. Like a great mouth it swallowed the raging flood as it swept through the sluice.

"Bud! Bud! Look!" cried Jack, pointing.

"Great jumping side-winders! I forgot the tunnel!" groaned Bud, his usually emotionless face working in his agitation. He had been handling the sluice desperately, but without result.

"We must close the gates within a second, or it will be too late!" shouted Jack, above the roar of the water. Ralph's despairing face was very close now.

"My poor kid, we can't!" wailed Bud.

"Why not?"

"The double-doggoned, dash beblinkered fool as looks after 'em has padlocked 'em, and we can't git 'em closed without a key!"

There was not a second to think.

Even as the discovery that it would be impossible to close the gates was made, Ralph's white face flashed into view almost beneath them.

Bud made a quick snatch at Jack's lariat, which the boy still retained, and snaked it down over the racing water.

"Missed!" he groaned, as Ralph's upturned face was hurried by.

At the same instant there came a splash that the cow puncher heard even above the roar of the water as it tore through its confines.

Bud glanced quickly round.

Where Jack Merrill had stood a moment before were a pair of shoes, the boy's coat and his shirt.

But Jack had gone—he had jumped to Ralph's rescue. As Bud, with a sharp exclamation of dismay, switched sharply round, he was just in time to see the forms of the two boys swallowed in the darkness of the irrigation tunnel.

[CHAPTER IV.]

THROUGH THE GREAT DARKNESS.

Little given to emotion as he was, Bud Wilson reeled backward as if about to fall, and gripped the woodwork of the sluice till the blood came beneath his nails. His eyes were still riveted on the yawning black mouth of the tunnel, and the white-flecked, yellow water racing into it, when the followers of the chase for life came galloping up, leading the ponies of the two boys who had vanished. Blank looks were exchanged as they learned what had happened.

"Not a chance for them." was the consensus of opinion.

Jack Merrill was not a boy who does things without due thought, however. When he had jumped into what seemed certain death he had done so with a definite plan in his head.

In moments of intense mental strain the mind sometimes acts with lightning-like rapidity, and Jack had reasoned like a flash that the irrigation tunnel, being built to convey water to the lands of the Maguez Land and Development Company, probably emerged on their lands, which lay not more than a mile away. Of course, he was not certain of this, but the life of his friend was at stake.

Spent as his chum was, Jack thought Ralph could hardly last throughout the passage of the tunnel, while he, Jack, was fresh, and also a stronger swimmer. These thoughts had all raced through his mind while he kicked off his boots and tugged his shirt over his head.

Then had come the swift flash below him of Ralph's white, imploring face—and the leap.

For a second the current, as he struck it, seemed to be tearing Jack limb from limb. The undertow at the sluice caught him and dragged him down, down, and held him under the turbid water till it seemed that his head must burst open. At last, however, he was shot to the surface like a cork out of a bottle. Joyously he filled his lungs and began swimming.

As his hands struck out they encountered something.

To his intense joy, the next instant Jack found that the current had thrown its two victims, himself and Ralph Stetson, together, and none too soon.

Ralph's eyes were closed, and though he still floated, he seemed incapable of further effort.

Hardly had Jack time to note this, when the light was suddenly blotted out, as if a great curtain had been drawn across the sun. There was a mighty roaring, like that of a thousand huge cataracts in his ears, and he knew that they had entered the water tunnel.

Where would it lead them?

Fortunately, to Jack, fresh as he was, it was not hard to support Ralph, who was almost exhausted, and keep his own head above water at the same time. All that the Western boy now feared was that he would give out before they reached the mouth of the tunnel, or a still more alarming possibility which he hardly dared to dwell on.

What if the tunnel narrowed?

In that case they would be completely submerged, and if the water were enclosed in an iron tube for any great distance, they would inevitably be miserably drowned. The roaring in the tunnel was terrific, but at least it meant one thing, and that was that there was space for sound to reverberate.

On and on they shot, borne like straws on the surface of the mad torrent.

"Does this thing never end, or have they run it clear through to the Pacific?" Jack began to wonder.

It seemed to him they had been traveling for hours. In reality it was only a few minutes.

All at once the boy was hurled against the side of the tunnel, and his feet touched bottom. If it had not been for the velocity of the current, he could have stopped his mad course right there. But the smooth sides of the tube afforded no hand hold, and the rapidity of the stream precluded all idea of attempting to stem the torrent.

But this incident meant to Jack that what he had dreaded most was actually happening.

The subterranean watercourse was narrowing.

Hardly had the thought flashed through his mind before he felt himself sucked by what seemed an invisible arm below the surface. At the same instant Ralph was torn from his arms, and both boys, submerged in a narrow part of the tunnel, were drawn through the dark tube at the speed of an express train.

"The end!" was the thought that flashed through Jack's mind as he felt that his worst apprehension had come true.

But it was not the end, for an instant later he was shot out of the terrible restriction of the narrow irrigation tube into brilliant, blinding sunlight.

"Why, this is a sort of scenic railway!" was the whimsical idea that sped across the boy's mind as he gazed about him. The current had ceased dashing him about, and he was floating in a large pool from which ramifications of sluiceways led in every direction. It was the main retaining basin of the irrigation works. Weakened though he was, Jack found no difficulty in swimming here, and, to his delight, not many feet from him Ralph was still struggling feebly for life. A few strokes brought the boy to his chum's side, and a few strokes more brought them both ashore.

They reached the shallow bank, and Jack laid Ralph down. As he did so, the other boy fainted in good earnest. As Jack bent over his chum he was startled to hear a voice above, and looking up, saw a man in irrigation boots, with a big shovel in his hand, gazing at them curiously.

"Say, are you real, or just what the ground grew?" demanded the stranger. "The advertisements of this land company say their land'll grow anything, but dear land of Goshen! I didn't know it grew boys. That's a crop I've no use for. I've four of my own, and——"

"We're real boys, have nothing to do with any land company, and don't want to, either, after our experience in their water tunnel; and if you can help me get my chum up on the bank and help me revive him, I'll be much obliged," rejoined Jack, all in one breath.

"Well, if you came through that tube, it hasn't hurt your wind any," said the rancher admiringly, dropping his irrigation tool and clambering down the bank. Together he and Jack soon had Ralph stretched out on the warm sandy soil in a big peach orchard, and it was not long before the Eastern boy opened his eyes and looked about him. It was longer, though, before he recollected what had happened. When he did, he knew that it was Jack who must have held him above water at the most critical stage of their wild trip through the tube.

"Thank you, Jack," he said simply.

"Oh, pshaw!" said Jack, reddening. "Didn't you trip up that Mexican and save me getting a bullet through my head?"

At this moment a great shout caused them both to look up. Riding toward them among the trees were a hundred or more mounted men, who broke into cheers as they saw the boys. They were the men who had found Bud Wilson at the sluice gate, and who had at once insisted on his mounting and riding on to the end of the tube to ascertain if by some marvelous chance the boys had survived. When Jack and Ralph stood up—for they had been sitting on the ground, relating to their interested host their adventures—the cheers broke out afresh.

Bud Wilson did not say much. He was not a man of words, but his face expressed what he felt when he exclaimed in a voice that trembled a little in spite of his efforts to keep it steady.

"Waal, I knowed you'd come out of it all right, Jack Merrill."

"I wasn't so sure of it myself, I can tell you!" laughed Jack.

"Say," said Ralph, after the first outburst of questions and answers had subsided, and the boys had had to tell over and over again every detail of their perilous trip, "what I can't understand is why you call that plug," pointing to the now downcast Petticoats, who had been led along with the party, "why you call that animal 'quiet.' What do wild horses do out here, eat you alive or breathe fire?"

"There was a blamed good reason fer Petticoats' ructions," said Bud slowly; and while the eyes of all were fixed intently on him, he held up a red-stained spur.

"A Mexican tickler!" cried Jack.

"That's what, and some one placed it under Petticoats' saddle blanket before the boy mounted," rejoined Bud solemnly.

"Poor beast! No wonder she cut up didoes," said Ralph.

"I should say not. Look at this."

The cowboy lifted the hind flap of Petticoats' saddle, and raising the blankets, showed her back raw and bleeding from the cruel roweling she had received.

"But however did that spur get there?" gasped Ralph.

"Not hard to guess. Can't you imagine?" asked Jack Merrill.

"No, unless——"

"It was that greaser you knocked out," Jack finished for him.

"Consarn the heathenish rattlesnake!" exclaimed the livery stable keeper, who had been among those to follow the wild chase of the canal-carried boys. "I seen him monkeying around your ponies just before he rode out of the barn. If I ever get my hands on him——"

A low growl running through the crowd finished his threat for him. It would have fared badly with Black Ramon had he been there then. But he was far away, riding for the mountains, where he would be safe from the ranchmen's vengeance.

"Waal, we'll run acrost his tracks some day," growled Bud Wilson, "and when we do——Waal, let's talk about the weather."

The boys said nothing, but their faces spoke volumes. By this time, such was the heat of the sun, Ralph's clothes had almost dried out, and he was assured that he would suffer no ill effects from his immersion. As Jack was also almost dry, the rancher, who, it turned out, was a friend of Mr. Merrill's, invited the Agua Caliente party in to have something to eat while their houses were rubbed down and fed. After more congratulations and expressions of wonderment, the horsemen from Maguez rode back to town, and when they had spread the story, the atmosphere of that part of the country would have proved very unhealthful for Black Ramon. Indeed, there was talk of fitting up an expedition to go out and get him, but it was surmised that the Mexican had probably ridden over the border and taken sanctuary in one of his retreats.

"Speaking of irrigation, I'm afraid we are going to have serious trouble with the water some day," Mr. Hungerford, the rancher, remarked as they sat at their meal.

"You mean your orchards will be overflowed?" inquired Jack.

"Oh, no. I'm not afraid of that. That pool in which you landed from the tunnel is drained by a score of small ditches which ought to be capable of handling any overflow. No, the ranches I mean are the ones back under the hills—the cattle ranges. The dam back near Grizzly Pass is none too strong, I am told, and if at any time following a cloudburst the sluiceways should not be opened in time, the retaining wall might burst, and the whole country be swept by a disastrous flood. Damage to thousands of dollars' worth of property and the death of scores of men and cattle might also be a consequence."

"But surely the dam is well guarded?" asked Ralph.

"That's just the trouble," said Mr. Hungerford seriously. "At night, I understand, only one old man is on watch there, and if he should meet with an accident there would be no one to watch for the safety of the ranchers in the foothills."

"Yep, if she'd carry away, she sure would raise Cain!" agreed Bud Wilson.

"Engineers are figuring on some means of strengthening the retaining wall now, I understand," rejoined Mr. Hungerford. "I hope they will complete their work before any storm breaks."

Soon after, the subject was changed, and at the conclusion of their meal, after thanking their hospitable host, the little party set out for Agua Caliente.

"What does Agua Caliente mean, anyhow?" asked Ralph, as they rode out of Mr. Hungerford's place.

"Hot water," rejoined Bud; "and it looks to me as if we didn't have to go as far as the range to get in it."

"There are some hot springs on one part of the ranch," explained Jack.

As the sun grew low they were still in the saddle. The desert had now been passed and they were traversing foothills—rough, broken ground, covered with scrub oak and split and riven by dried water courses. Behind were the dark slopes of the Sierra de la Hacheta. They appeared black and menacing in the dying light.

"They look like regular robbers' roosts," said Ralph, regarding them as the horses picked their way over the rough road, which was scarcely better than a track.

"Robbers' roosts, I guess so," laughed Bud; "and there are some robber roosters among 'em, too," he went on. "Those mountains are on the border, and some place over beyond them is the most pestiferous band of cattle rustlers and horse thieves that ever bothered a nice, peaceable community. Why, before Sam Hickey shot Walter Dodge at——"

But the boys had broken into a roar of laughter at Bud Wilson's idea of a peaceable community.

Their merriment was brought to a sudden halt, however.

From the road ahead had come the sudden clatter of a horse's hoofs. The animal was evidently being urged ahead at full speed.

Bud's hand slipped swiftly back to his hip pocket. The boys realized by this almost automatic action that they were in a country where men are apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward.

Presently a little rise brought the galloper into view.

At the sight of the advancing party, he too slackened speed, and his hand made the same curiously suggestive movement as had Bud Wilson's.

"Howdy!" called Bud tentatively to the dark form outlined against the sombre background of brown, scrub-grown foothill and purple mountain.

"Howdy, Bud Wilson!" came back the hail. "I'll be switched if I didn't think it was Black Ramon and some of his gang, for a minute!"

"Why, hello, Walt Phelps!" hailed Bud cheerfully, as the other advanced. "I didn't know but you was some sort of varmint. How be yer?"

"First class, 'Frisco to Portland, Oregon. Hello, Jack Merrill! Well, you're looking natural. Welcome to our city!"

The stranger spurred his horse nearer, and Ralph saw that he was a boy about their own age, on a big, raw-boned gray horse that seemed capable of great efforts. Fast as the other had been advancing, the gray's flanks hardly heaved.

"Ralph, this is Walt Phelps. He and I used to play ball together when we weren't off on the range some place," said Jack, turning in his saddle to make the introduction. "He's a neighbor of ours. Lives on the next ranch. What are you hurrying so for, Walt?"

The other shoved back his broad sombrero, and the evening light shone on a freckled, good-natured face and the reddest hair Ralph had ever seen.

"Guess you ain't heard the news?" he asked curiously.

"No, what?"

"Why, those cattle rustlers have broken out again. Raided Perkin's last night and got away with fifty head."

"Phew!"

"And that's not all. They know who's at the head of the gang now."

"Who?"

"Why, that bullying greaser—what's his name? That Mexican who's been in trouble a dozen times——"

"Black Ramon De Barrios?"

"That's the rooster! We heard he had the nerve to show up in town, and I'm riding in to see if I can't pick up some fellows and head him off."

"I guess you're too late, Walt."

"How do you know? You only just got in to-day from the East. I met your father a while back, and he told me."

"I know, but we've had time to meet Black Ramon and put something on our side of the book against him."

"Say—tell me." The other's tone held amazement.

"Come on and ride back with us, and I'll tell you as we go along. Black Ramon's on Mexican soil by this time or soon will be."

Their adventures were soon related, and by the time Jack's narrative was concluded, the lights and welcoming voices of Agua Caliente were before them.

[CHAPTER V.]

THE RUSTLERS AT WORK.

"Jack!"

"Um-um-um-huh!" from Jack Merrill, as he turned over in his cot.

"Listen! There it is again—— What is it?"

Ralph Stetson sat bolt upright in bed, listening with all his might to the strange and shivery sound which had awakened him. It was shortly after midnight, following the evening of the boys' arrival, and both were sleeping—or rather had been sleeping—in a room set aside for them in one wing of the low, straggly ranch house in the foothills of the Sierra de la Hacheta.

"Wow-wow-wow!" came the cry once more from somewhere among the dreary, moonlit hills outside.

"Oh, that!" said the ranch-raised boy, with a laugh. "That's coyotes!"

"Oh," rejoined Ralph wisely. "Coyotes, eh?" But he did not lie down again. Instead, he listened more intently than before. Presently came another howl from some distance off.

"They're conversational beasts, aren't they?" inquired Ralph.

"What do you mean?" sleepily muttered Jack.

"Why, some friend of the one I just heard is answering him. Hark!"

Jack Merrill became suddenly interested as he heard the second howl. His eyes grew round as he listened intently, and he, too, sat up in his bed.

"Say," he remarked, "that is funny. And hark! there's another one—off there to the south."

"What do you suppose they are up to?"

"I've no idea, but I tell you what—if you like, we'll take the rifle and sneak out and see. What do you say?"

"Um—well, it's a bit chilly to go coyote hunting, but I should like to get one. Professor Wintergreen said at supper last night that he would like to have the hide of one of the beasts for his collection. Let's go!"

"All right. Just slip on a few clothes. The magazine of my rifle's full. Don't make a racket getting out of the house, though. I don't just know how dad would take it."

"But he'll hear the rifle if we shoot one."

"That's so; but it will be too late then."

Silently as cats, the two boys got out of bed and dressed, an operation which was performed by slipping on trousers, shirts and boots over their pajamas. Then, with their sombrero hats on, they were ready to creep outside. The moon had been up for an hour, and was shining down in a radiant flood, illuminating the heaving surface of the foothills as if they had been a silver sea.

"Which way will we go?" whispered Ralph, as they stole along in the dark shadow of the low timber house like two culprits.

"Over there. Down toward the corral. The chicken house is down there, and those four-footed thieves are fond of chicken au naturel."

Taking advantage of every bit of shadow that offered, the two lads crept toward the corral, a big inclosure about half an acre in extent, in the center of which stood a fenced haystack. The horses of the ranch were generally turned loose in it to browse about at their will. Usually not more than enough for the use of the ranch-house family were kept there, the rest being driven in from the "remuda" as required.

"Say, it's silent, isn't it?" whispered Ralph, as they crawled along behind a big stack of wild-oat hay.

"Well, you didn't expect to find a roaring city in the heart of the foothills of the Hachetas, did you?" inquired Jack, with vast sarcasm. "Hush! Now I think I saw something!"

"Where?"

"Off there to the south. It was slipping along among the hills. There, there it is again!"

Ralph strained his eyes into the darkness, but could see nothing of the object Jack had indicated. It had gone as utterly as if it had not been there.

Suddenly the wild howls that had awakened Ralph broke out once more. This time they came quite close at hand, and neither boy could repress a start at the sound. It gave an impression of an outburst of demoniac mirth.

"Wow! ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"

The cry was immediately echoed from the direction in which Jack had declared he had seen a gray shadow flitting in and out. The next instant both boys gave an involuntary shout of surprise, which they hastily checked, realizing that they were face to face with a stern necessity for silence.

Outlined as clearly against the moonlight as if it had been cut from black paper, the figure of a horseman had momentarily appeared, and then as abruptly vanished.

At the same instant there came a wild disturbance of hoofs in the corral, and before the boys' astonished eyes four more horsemen dashed from it and swept off toward the south. Behind them there trailed half a dozen of the animals which had been feeding or sleeping in the corral. To the neck of each was attached a lariat, and they followed their captors at breakneck speed.

"Horse thieves!" shouted Jack, springing to his feet and giving the alarm by firing a volley of bullets after the retreating rustlers.

Instantly the sleeping ranch galvanized into active life. Lights flashed here and there, and from the bunkhouse on a hillside below the main house there poured a strangely assorted score of hastily aroused cowboys. Some of them were trouserless, but all carried their revolvers.

"What's the matter? What is it?" shouted Mr. Merrill's voice.

"Dad, it's horse thieves!" shouted Jack.

"Some of Black Ramon's bunch, for a bet!" roared Bud Wilson, emerging with a lantern and vaulting into the corral.

"Oh, the dirty scoundrels!" he broke out the next instant.

"What is it? What have they done, Bud?" cried Jack, who realized from the usually impassive vaquero's tone that something very much was amiss.

"Why, they've taken the pick of the bunch! Look here, Firewater's gone, my calico, and——"

"But they've left some horses. Quick! Let's get after them. We can overtake them!" urged Mr. Merrill, who had hastily thrown on some clothes, and, followed by the professor, was now down at the corral.

"We can't," wailed Bud; "the precious rascals have hamstrung all the horses they didn't want."

A chorus of furious voices broke out at this. Black Ramon, if it were he or his band that had made the midnight raid, had planned it cleverly. It would be hours before fresh horses could be rounded up from the "remuda," and the poor animals remaining had been crippled fatally. Few minds but that of a Mexican could have conceived of such a fiendish act. The unfortunate animals, uncomplainingly, as is the manner of horses, were lying about the corral, looking up at the men about with mute agony in their large eyes.

"Oh, blazes! if I could get my hands on that greaser!" roared Bud Wilson.

"Steady now, Bud, steady!" said Mr. Merrill, though his own frame trembled with rage at the needless brutality of the raiders. "Hard words will do no good now."

"Let's keep quiet a minute. Maybe we can hear the clatter of their hoofs," said one of the cowboys, a young chap who had come to the ranch from a peaceful California range not long before.

"Not much chance of that," said Bud Wilson bitterly. "Those chaps had the hoofs of their own mounts and the ones they stole all muffled—you can bet your Sunday sombrero on that."

"That's why they made so little noise when they led them off," said Ralph. But in the general agitation no one paid any attention to him.

Everybody was rushing about asking questions, giving orders, hastening this way and that with lanterns. Even the Chinese cook was out with a frying pan in his hand, seemingly under the impression that it was up to him to cook something.

It was Mr. Merrill who first found his head.

"Silence!" he cried in a stern, ringing voice. "You, Bud, select two men and put these poor brutes here out of their pain."

"If it's all the same to you, boss, will you give that job to some one else?" said Bud, with a queer little break in his voice. "I've rode some of them plugs."

"All right, then. Your job will be to round up a dozen of the best nags you can find from the Escadillo pasture. Get a bite to eat, take two men with you, and start right now. Don't lose a minute."

Bud Wilson hastened off. He didn't want to be near the corral when the shots that told that the ham-strung beasts were being put out of their misery were heard.

"What are they going to do?" whispered Ralph, as two cowboys finally climbed into the corral with their revolvers drawn.

"Kill those poor brutes. It's the only thing to do with a hamstrung horse," said Jack bitterly, turning away.

Ralph, having no more wish than his friend to see the final chapter of the raiders' visit, followed him. As they turned they almost ran into the professor.

The estimable scientist, in his agitation, had just thrown aside a valuable book, and held tightly to a piece of straw, under the impression that he had thrown away the straw and kept the book. Jack picked up the volume and handed it to the professor. To his surprise, however, the man of science waved the book aside, and the boys could see in the moonlight that a new light, foreign entirely to their usual mild radiance, beamed in his eyes.

"No, no!" he said in a sharp voice, one which the boys had never heard him use before. "No books now. What I want is a rifle and a horse. I never knew I was a man of blood till this moment, but—but I'm hanged if I wouldn't like a shot at those—ahem—I believe they are called greasers, and a good name for the rascals!"

"Good for you, professor!" exclaimed Jack; "and if we have our way, you'll get your chance before long. We're going to take the trail after those rascals as soon as Bud and the others get the horses."

"Oh, Jack, are we to go?" gasped Ralph.

"Well, if we don't, something's going to drop!" said Jack in a determined tone. "They've taken my little Firewater, and I've got something to say to them on my own account."

"Say," exclaimed Ralph suddenly, as the professor and the boys hastened toward the house, "I want to take back something I said yesterday."

"What's that?"

"That there are no adventures left in the modern West."

Jack, even in the midst of his agitation, could not help laughing at Ralph's earnest tone.

"I wonder what they'd think at Stonefell if they could see us now," he mused. Suddenly he pointed toward the professor, who was angrily shaking a fist at the Southern sky, where the saw-like outline of the Hachetas cut the moonlit horizon.

"And what would his Latin class say if they could see him?"

"That he was all right!" rejoined Ralph, with deep conviction.

Inside the great living room of the ranch house, with its brightly colored rugs on the dark wood floor and walls, and a blaze leaping in its big open hearth, for the night was chilly, the Chinese cook was already setting out a meal, when the boys entered. Mr. Merrill, his brow furrowed with deep thought, was walking up and down. He looked up as his son and Ralph entered, and spoke quickly.

"You boys had better remain at the ranch," he said. "We are not likely to be gone long and——"

He stopped short. The blank faces of the two lads had caused him to break into a broad smile despite the seriousness of his mood.

"Why, why," he said amusedly, "surely you didn't expect to come along?"

"Why, dad, of course. They've taken my Firewater, the rascals, and I've got a personal interest in the thing."

"And I, sir," began Ralph, "I am out here for experience, you know."

"Well, you certainly seem to be getting it. I am half inclined to allow you to come. I must attach one condition to it, however, and that is that you obey orders implicitly, and if any danger arises that you will do your best to conceal yourselves from it."

"What, run away—oh, dad!" began Jack, but his father cut him short.

"Accept my conditions or stay here, Jack."

"Very well, then, dad, we accept—eh, Ralph?"

The Eastern boy nodded. Not for the world would he have missed what was to come. And now the professor spoke up.

"Mr. Merrill, sir, I shall take it as a favor if you will provide a horse for me. In my young days I was not unaccustomed to equine pursuits, and I feel that I should make one of your party. I could wish, sir, to be in at the—the finish—if I may say so—of those ruffians."

"There is small likelihood of our catching them, professor," said Mr. Merrill, smiling at the other's excitement. "They have a long start. I am afraid you would only have a long, tiring ride for your pains."

"I am willing to chance it," said the professor simply. "I feel, in fact, that such a dash across the er—er, Rubicon would be classic, sir, classic, if nothing else."

"That being the case," said Mr. Merrill, checking his amusement, in view of the professor's evident earnestness, "you shall certainly come. But now breakfast, or supper, or whatever one may call the meal, seems to be ready. Let us sit down and eat, for we have a long ride ahead of us."

During the meal Mr. Merrill was plied with questions by the eager boys. In fact, so numerous did the queries become, that he was relieved at last when a diversion offered in the shape of a clattering of hoofs outside the door.

"Rap!" came at the portal.

"Ah, the horses at last!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill, eagerly rising to his feet, and betraying by his haste how anxious he was to be off, despite his assumed indifference.

"Come in!" he called in answer to the rap.

The boys looked expectantly confident of seeing the familiar features of Bud Wilson.

To their astonishment, however, the newcomer was a total stranger. A small, swarthy Mexican. He wore bear-skin chapareros, and seemed to have ridden far and hard. At the sight of him they all sprang to their feet, so complete was their surprise at the unexpected nationality of their visitor.

[CHAPTER VI.]

TAKING UP THE TRAIL.

The new arrival replied to Mr. Merrill's look of inquiry by a voluble flood of Spanish. When he paused for breath, the rancher, who understood the language perfectly, turned to the professor and his young companions.

"This man, if he is to be relied upon, has furnished us with a valuable clue," he said. "According to him the rustlers passed him headed for Grizzly Pass not more than an hour ago. If this is so, then we stand a good chance of overtaking them. The ground there is rough, and, not expecting pursuit, they will take it easy. In fact, this fellow says that when he saw them they were camping."

"You think he is to be relied on?" asked the professor.

"Well, that remains to be seen. He tells a straight enough story. He says he is a sheepman who has a few hundred head in the highlands near the cañon. While camped in a small pass leading off the main cañon, he overheard these fellows talking about the trick they played, and decided to inform me at once. He sneaked quietly out of his camp, saddled a horse he had there, and rode hard till he arrived here."

At this moment a fresh trampling of hoofs announced that Bud and his companion had returned with the "remuda" horses, and soon after Bud himself entered the room.

In leather chapareros, high-heeled riding-boots and jingling spurs, he looked every inch the cow-puncher as he handled his revolver grimly.

"We're about ready when you are, boss," he said.

"Oh, yes—all right, Wilson. But I've got something I want to tell you."

Rapidly Mr. Merrill ran over the story of the Mexican sheep-herder.

"What do you think of it?" he asked, as he concluded.

"Wa'al, it sounds all right," admitted Bud reluctantly, "but this yer feller's a greaser, boss, and——"

"Oh, I know, Wilson, but after all, what can happen to us? We will be a strong party, and we'll take him along with us. He says he's willing to go."

"Of course, that makes it different," admitted Bud; "but my advice would be to make him ride with a lariat round his neck, so that at the first sign of treachery we can string him up with neatness and dispatch."

"We can't do that," smiled Mr. Merrill, while Bud glared at the Mexican, "but we can have him ride right with us, and then there will be no danger of his playing us false."

"You understand what will happen to you if you ain't on the level with us?" demanded Bud of the Mexican, placing his hands about his own throat with a ferocious and significant expression.

"Si, señor," nodded the Mexican.

"All right, then. That being the case, you can't blame us if anything comes off that don't happen to be on your future schedule of events."

Soon after this conversation the expedition started. Dawn was just breaking as they clattered out from under the cottonwoods that surrounded the ranch house. They were a grim, determined-looking band. On each man's saddle he carried slung before him his rifle, and with the exception of Ralph and the professor, every one of those ten riders was a crack shot. Behind each cow-puncher's cantle was tied a roll of blankets, and besides their lariats each saddle horn held suspended a quart canteen full of water. Two pack animals, selected for their speed, carried a camping outfit and cooking utensils. Complete as was the organization, it had taken little more than half an hour to get it ready for the start.

"Hi-yi!" yelled Jack, bringing down his quirt over his pony's flanks. "It's good to hit the trail and get some action."

"Same here," rejoined Ralph, pressing up alongside of him.

The two boys urged their ponies to an easy lope. As for some miles to come there was no necessity for them to travel with the main body of the men, they kept it up till they were some distance ahead. Mr. Merrill had decided that there was no danger to be apprehended till the mountains were actually reached, and his consent had been gained before the boys loped off alone.

Suddenly another rider spurred into view, coming from the opposite direction to the boys and the Merrill party.

"Walt Phelps!" cried Jack with a glad shout.

The other returned the greeting and soon learned the news from Agua Caliente.

Soon the three boys were riding forward together. Walter Phelps, it appeared, had heard rumors that the rustlers had been abroad in the night, and had risen early and saddled for a ride to the Merrill ranch. He was much concerned when he learned of the rancher's loss, and volunteered to join the party.

To this Mr. Merrill entered no objection, and the three boys rode side by side all the morning. The noonday camp was made in a small arroyo immediately below a frowning spur of the Hachetas. The foothills had been growing more and more rugged as the advance was made, and now the party might fairly be said to be in the mountains themselves. By skirting two more spurs they would be in Grizzly Pass in less than an hour. The character of the scenery was gloomy and grand in the extreme. The rugged and mysterious mountains, clothed darkly, almost to their summits, with scrub-oak, fir and piñon trees, seemed to Ralph to promise all kinds of adventure.

The noonday meal was a hasty one. As soon as it was dispatched the party pressed on without pausing for further rest. The road now grew so rough that the trail of the stolen horses, which had at first been plain and clear, could no longer be seen. The Mexican guide, closely guarded by Bud Wilson and a cowboy named Coyote Pete, rode in front. Close behind came Mr. Merrill, the three boys and the professor, and in their rear followed the half-dozen cowboys who formed the remainder of the expedition.

"Are we getting near the place now, Jose?" asked Mr. Merrill, addressing their guide by the name he had given, about the middle of the afternoon.

"Si, señor," rejoined the guide, who soon after directed the cavalcade toward the mouth of the pass through which he said the stolen horses had been driven.

If the mountains had been gloomy and sinister to the view while riding along the base of them, the northern entrance to Grizzly Pass itself threw a damper over the spirit of even Coyote Pete, who had hitherto larked about and displayed a great fund of high spirits. The dark wall of the cañon rose perpendicularly to a height of more than a hundred feet on the right side of the rough trail. At the other hand was a deep and dark abyss at the bottom of which a hidden river roared. Beyond the formidable pit reared another frowning rampart of sheer rock. Deep down could be heard the murmuring of water.

"That's the overflow from the big dam," explained Walter Phelps, pointing over into the sonorous depths.

"The dam is up in this direction, then?" inquired Ralph.

"Yes, it is located in a small cañon, off to the right of the pass. I'll show you the place when we reach it."

For some time they rode on without a word. The deep gloom and oppressive silence was not encouraging to conversation. The sound of a stone dislodged by a pony's hoof in that dismal place caused several of the party to give a nervous start more than once.

Suddenly the right-hand wall of the cañon opened out—as they rounded a sharp promontory of rock—and another deep chasm cut abruptly into Grizzly Pass almost at right angles. The deep rift which this caused across the trail had been bridged by a span of rough logs which crossed the intersecting cañon at a height of fully three hundred feet. A scene of wilder and more impressive grandeur than the cañon presented at the point they had now reached not one of the party had ever beheld. Even a whisper went echoing and reverberating among the gloomy rocks in startling contrast to the brooding silence of the spot.

The frowning black walls, the melancholy-looking trees clinging to the almost perpendicular walls, the bottomless chasm, and the deep dusk of late afternoon, all combined to make it the most oppressive scene into which any of the boys had ever penetrated.

They had reached the bridge and the feet of the Mexican guide's horse were upon it, when from behind them there came a sudden startling sound.

The loud report of a rifle, followed by another and another, re-echoed behind them seemingly high up among the rocks.

Bang! Bang! Bang! came the explosions.

Instantly, Mr. Merrill and Bud wheeled their horses sharply and faced round toward the danger. At the same instant Coyote Pete set up a yell:

"Buncoed, by ginger!"

He pointed ahead as he dashed across the bridge in pursuit of their treacherous guide, who was galloping off up the cañon at top speed. He had taken advantage of the confusion to escape. Without an instant's thought as to what they were doing, the three boys pressed spurs to their animals and thundered across the flimsy structure after the cow-puncher. The professor's horse became unmanageable in the excitement. The creature gave one tremendous plunge and with the unhappy scientist half on and half off its back, dashed across the bridge after the others.

In the meantime, Mr. Merrill and the cow-punchers had galloped back to where the firing still kept up. They all feared that they had been led into an ambush, and that the attack was from the rear.

"That yellow-skinned varmint betrayed us, after all," ground out Bud Wilson, as they dashed back. "Those shots were meant for us, and came from Black Ramon's men."

"Yes, we were wrong to trust him," rejoined Mr. Merrill, "but now we've been led into a trap, we've got to fight out of it the best way we can."

"You bet we will, boss," was Bud Wilson's rejoinder.

The firing on the hillside had now ceased, and the little cavalcade came to a halt.

"Not a soul to be seen," exclaimed Mr. Merrill.

"Well, that's funny," commented Bud. "This is where the firing was, for sure."

"Yep, right up above there," rejoined another cowboy, Sam Ellis, pointing upward on the hillside.

"What do you make of it, boss?" was Bud's next query.

"I don't know what to think," rejoined Mr. Merrill. "Perhaps we were mistaken, and the firing we heard came from hunters up on the hillside."

"Hunters! Not much chance of that," said Bud grimly. "Hunters who made all that racket would soon scare all the game in the country away. No, boss, you'll have to guess again. By Jee-hosophat!"

Slinking through the underbrush far above them, Bud's keen eyes had discovered the furtive form of a man who by his gay sash and high-coned hat seemed to be a Mexican. To think, with Bud, was to act. His rifle jerked up to his shoulder as if automatically. As the weapon cracked sharply the man on the hillside gave a loud scream. Throwing his hands helplessly above his head, the next instant he came plunging and crashing downward through the brush.

"Got him!" gritted out Bud, grimly blowing through the barrel of his rifle to clear the smoke.

"Yip-ee!" yelled the cow-punchers at the successful shot.

Mr. Merrill looked grave.

"I didn't want any bloodshed, Bud," he said. "The boys—great heavens! where are they?"

He had wheeled suddenly and discovered that they were missing.

"Yes, and where's Pete, and where's the professor?" chimed in Bud.

Alarm showed on every countenance.

In the excitement, the absence of the members of the party who had spurred onward over the bridge had not been noticed. But now blank looks were exchanged. If they had galloped on—as there seemed to be no doubt they must have—by that time they were probably in serious straits.

"Wait till I get that varmint, and then I'll be with you," cried Bud, swinging off his pony.

The cow-puncher plunged up the hillside a few feet and picked up the Mexican, who had rolled down the steep incline to within a short distance of the trail.

"Is he dead?" asked Mr. Merrill anxiously, for the Mexican showed no sign of life.

"Not dead, but pretty near it," Bud rapidly diagnosed, ripping open the Mexican's shirt. "The bullet went right neighborly to his heart."

With surprising strength for one of his wiry build, Bud picked up and slung the wounded man over the saddle before him with a grim idea in his head that at some future time the fellow might be needed.

"Now then, boys!" cried Mr. Merrill, "those others may be in a bad pickle by this time. It may have been the purpose of this trap to get them over the bridge. It's up to us to get them out of it. I know you'll do all that lies in your power to help."

"You bet we will, boss," spoke up Ellis.

"Yip-yip-y-ee-ee!"

The cow-puncher's wild yell came from the bronzed throats with a will. The next instant the little cavalcade was off, clattering up the trail toward the bridge.

They swept rapidly round the small bluff of rock which had hidden the bridge from them while they had been investigating the mysterious shots. As the trail came full in view, a groan of disappointment burst from them.

The pass beyond the bridge was empty of life.

Of their friends there was not a trace.

A terrible feeling that the worst had happened filled every heart.

"Come on, boys, we'll get 'em if we have to go to Mexico City for 'em," yelled Bud defiantly. "Wow!"

"That's the stuff—wow!" yelled the others.

With his exultant cry still in his throat, and his arm still waving, Bud drove in his spurs. He was about to dash upon the bridge, when suddenly the structure heaved upward before his eyes and the whole world seemed to turn to red flame. A fiery wind singed his face.

There was a roar that filled the air, the sky—everything. The earth rocked and breathed hotly under the cow-pony's feet. Bud felt his broncho suddenly fall from under him and himself dropping like a stone into space. Desperately he clutched, grasped something solid, and drew himself up. Then, everything went out from his senses and the whole world grew dark.

[CHAPTER VII.]

IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY.

"What happened, Bud?"

Mr. Merrill, stanching a wound in his head with his hand, sat upright on the edge of the dark gorge across which a few moments before there had been a bridge. Now there was none. Only sullen wisps of yellowish smoke curling upward and a strong, acrid smell in the air.

Sheer below the rancher, the naked rocks shot down, bare of foothold. Deep down at the bottom rushed the river which carried water from the land company's dam down to the valley. The dam lay up the cañon to the west.

Bud Wilson was crawling about dazedly on his hands and knees. All about were plunging horses and rock-wounded men. The still stupefied Bud looked up as the rancher impatiently repeated his question.

"Dynamite!—the yellow-skinned reptiles," he growled, "and if that charge had been touched off right we should all have been at the bottom of that gorge with my poor horse."

He gazed over the ragged, explosive-riven edge, and shuddered, as far below him he sighted a dark mass lying among the brush and trees at the bottom of the gulch.

"Yes, it was dynamite beyond a doubt," agreed the rancher; "but how did we escape the dreadful fate they had prepared for us?"

Bud Wilson shrugged his shoulders.

"I reckon the feller they left to press the button got rattled and touched it off too soon," he rejoined. "They're a jumpy lot, these greasers."

"Thank Heaven that none of us is seriously hurt," said Mr. Merrill, looking about him. "I do not believe that any one has suffered more than a few cuts from flying rocks."

This proved to be the case. The escape of the party when the bridge had been blown up had indeed been miraculous.

"Why should they have delayed to set off the charge till we came back? Why not have set it off when we were all on the bridge, before we wheeled round to discover the origin of the shots on the hillside?" asked Mr. Merrill.

"Well, boss, it looks this way to me," said Bud, after a period of deep thought. "Them fellows had the trap all set and calculated that when we heard the firing we should stop and hesitate—as we did. Well, that, I take it, was the time that that charge should have been touched off, but somehow connections missed. We weren't on the bridge. That fellow with the rifle fired too quick. Then, too, them boys and Pete taking off after that treacherous varmint wasn't calculated on by them, in all probability, and what with one thing and another they missed their guess on the first charge."

"And on the second, too, by Christmas!" chimed in Ellis. "There ain't a pony missin' but the one you rode, Bud, and there ain't a man of us hurt; even that greaser you had on your saddle-bow got bucked off when your pony was blown over the edge."

"By the great horn spoon, that's right," said Bud, walking over to where the wounded Mexican lay.

"Still unconscious," he said, after a brief examination. "If only he could talk, boss," the cow-puncher added whimsically.

"That would do us no good, Bud," rejoined Mr. Merrill. "It would give us no clue to the fate of my poor boy and the others."

"Wouldn't it, boss?" echoed Bud. "Wa'al, in my opinion this saffron coyote here deserves careful keeping for future reference, for I believe he holds the key to the whole mystery."

"Heaven grant he does," breathed Mr. Merrill, his heart sinking as he thought of the possible destiny of Jack and his friends. "Without his aid I don't see what we are to do."

"Well," said Bud cheerfully, "ain't no good worryin'. We'll get 'em out of it all right, never fear, boss."

"Thanks, Bud, I hope we will," said Mr. Merrill, bravely putting his anxiety from him as best he could. "But the thing to do now is to find a safe place to camp for the night. We should not be overtaken by darkness in such a trap as this."

"I guess there's not much danger of an attack now," said Bud bitterly. "I wish there was. I'd give a new saddle for a crack at one of them greasers."

Soon afterward, with Bud riding double behind Ellis, and Mr. Merrill's saddle bearing the wounded Mexican, the sorrowful party began the journey back down the cañon. With every sense and muscle aching for action, they were compelled to await the decision of time. The clew to the attack, and the whereabouts of Black Ramon and his gang, lay in the hands of one man, and that man was unable to speak. No wonder that as they rode, the thought in Mr. Merrill's mind was to get medical attendance for their wounded foe as soon as possible, and in the meantime give him the best of care.

As Bud had said, he might be valuable for future reference.

As their ponies' hoofs hammered over the rough bridge the Border Boys' minds had burned with but one thought. They must capture the treacherous guide who, it appeared only too evidently, had led them into a trap. As their mounts flew by a dense brush mass on the rocks at the farther side of the precipitous gorge, they had glimpsed for a second a crouching figure. But such was their wish to catch up with the treacherous Jose that they paid the figure no attention. Yet had they done so, they might have prevented the destruction of the bridge. The crouching man was one of Black Ramon's followers, and in the brush was concealed the battery from which led the wires which were to blow up the bridge.

"I'd give a new lariat right now to have my fingers on that sneaking coyote's throat," gritted out Walt Phelps, as the ponies loped swiftly along.

A little ahead of the Border Boys, rode the large, angular figure of Coyote Pete, bestriding his big, raw-boned bay with the careless ease of the old plainsman. The ends of his scarlet handkerchief whipped out behind his neck, and he gnawed his long, straw-colored mustache nervously as he kept his keen, blue eyes, with a maze of little desert furrows round them, centred on the crouching figure of the Mexican ahead. The professor having by this time checked his horse and recovered his equilibrium, gazed about as eagerly as the rest.

The treacherous Jose, however, seemed to have a good mount, for even Coyote Pete's powerful bay, and the active little ponies bestrode by the boys, failed to draw up on him even after a mile of fast riding.

"That horse-stealing son of a rattlesnake has a good bit of horse flesh there," grunted the cowboy, turning in his saddle without slackening speed.

"Say," said Walt, "we've come quite a distance, Pete, and there is no sign of the others. Don't you think it would be a good idea to turn back and see what has become of them?"

"Don't know but what it might," answered Pete, reining in his horse till it was going ahead at a gentle, "single-footed" trot. He gave his mustache a perplexed tug and an apprehensive look came into his eyes.

"What's the trouble, Pete?" asked Jack.

"Why, I was just thinking that we've come too far as it is," rejoined the plainsman in a worried tone. "If any of Ramon's men are sneaking around here now they've got us in a fine trap."

He pointed down the trail. A backward view of the way they had come was cut off by a projecting promontory of rock. For anything they knew to the contrary, the trail behind them might be full of Mexicans, ready to capture them.

"We're in a bad place for sure," agreed Walt Phelps, shoving back his sombrero and scratching his red thatch. "Let's be getting back. There's no chance of catching that miserable Jose now, anyway."

"Yes, let's get back," agreed Ralph, who was beginning to feel anything but easy in his mind.

They wheeled their wiry little horses and Pete swung his big bay. As they faced about, a simultaneous exclamation of astonishment broke from each one of the party.

From behind the projection of rock there had suddenly appeared five figures. Slightly in advance of the others rode a tall man on a magnificent black horse, whom the party from the foothills, with the exception of the professor, had no difficulty in recognizing as Black Ramon himself.

With a quick exclamation, Pete reached for his revolvers, but Ramon checked him with an eloquent wave of his hand behind him. Each of his followers held a rifle, and these weapons covered the Border Boys and their older companions.

"Another move like that, Señor Pete," said Black Ramon, "and four of your party are food for the buzzards. I myself will attend to the fifth."

While Pete hesitated, the ruffian from across the border whipped out a silver-mounted pistol from his sash and held it leveled, while a somber smile flitted across his countenance.

"Yesterday it was your turn—now it is mine," he said, turning to the alarmed Ralph.

At the same instant there sounded a sullen, booming roar, and the earth beneath their feet quivered as if an earthquake had shaken it.

"What was that?" exclaimed Pete involuntarily.

"That," said Black Ramon, "was the wiping out of the last link that bound you to your friends."

"You—you've blown up the bridge!" gasped out Jack, realizing what the other's words meant.

"Yes. It will be some time, I fancy, before the gorge is passable once more. In the meantime, you are to be my guests across the border."

As he spoke, a score more of the cattle-rustlers came clattering down the trail, hidden behind the rock from which the others had appeared. They had been concealed there, as Pete now bitterly realized, while the Border Boys and the cow-puncher had blundered blindly into the Mexican's trap.

"I'll never forgive myself, Jack," he said under his breath to the rancher's son.

"Oh, pshaw, Pete, it wasn't your fault," rejoined Jack. "We'll find some way out of it."

"I dunno," grunted Pete. "We're going across the border, and there's precious little law there but what you make for yourself."

A few moments later, resistance being worse than useless, the party had been relieved of its weapons, and with ten or more cattle-rustlers riding in front, and the rest trailing behind the prisoners, the ride through the pass was resumed.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

BLACK RAMON'S MISSION.

As darkness fell they emerged from the gloomy shadows of the divide into a country not unlike that on the American side of the range. Foot-hills covered with scanty growth, and here and there a clump of scraggly cottonwoods intersected by deep gullies, and dry watercourses, were the chief features of the scenery. There was little conversation among the prisoners as they rode along, nor indeed did their position bear discussing. Pete's mind was busy with self-reproach, Jack's with trying to devise some means of escape, Walt Phelps' with what his father would imagine had become of him, and Ralph's and the professor's with real alarm.

"I am a man of considerable reading," muttered the professor gloomily, "yet our present position goes to show that all the book-learning in the world is of no use to men in our position."

"No, I guess Coyote Pete, or Jack Merrill, or Walt Phelps could get us out of this a whole lot quicker than all the classical authors that ever classicked," said Ralph disgustedly.

"I have a fine library at home in the East," said the professor suddenly, and with the air of a man in whose mind a great hope had sprung up. "Do you imagine that this Black Ramon, or whatever his name is, would consider taking that in exchange for our liberty?"

"I'm afraid not," moaned Ralph disconsolately. Yet he could not forbear a smile at the old man's simplicity.

"Library," grunted Pete, who had overheard the professor's remark; "the only kind of library he'd have any use for would be an edition de luxury of a complete issue of greenbacks, bound in calf and horse hide."

"Where can they be taking us?" wondered Jack, as hour after hour passed, and the procession still wound on along the foot of the mountains.

"I've no idea," rejoined Walt Phelps, "I've never been on this side of the range before."

"I was over here oncet," said Pete, "after some strays, but I don't recollect this part of the country."

"How far have we come?" inquired Ralph, more for the sake of saying something than anything else.

"Not more than ten miles, I guess," rejoined Jack; "at night, and among these foothills, distances are very deceptive."

"They ain't so deceptive by half as these greasers," growled Pete. "I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing this instant than pounding the stuffing out of that Jose."

"I can't think why father trusted him," exclaimed Jack.

"Why, that was natural enough," was Pete's rejoinder. "There didn't look to be a chance of his playing us false. If it hadn't been for that fusillade behind us we'd never have lost him. As it is, if only I hadn't lost my head and gone gallivanting off arter the critter, we'd have been safe now."

"Always providing that nothing has happened to father and the others," said Jack sadly.

"Yes. But cheer up, lad. Your father and Bud Wilson are two of the best plainsmen I know. They wouldn't go blundering blindfold into no trap, you can bet."

"I hope not," rejoined Jack, "but that explosion sounded ominous to me. If the bridge is gone they may have gone with it."

"I don't think so," replied Pete. "Sounds travel a long distance in a narrow-walled pass like that, and the sound of a horse going over a bridge can be heard a big ways off at any time. If they'd been on the bridge when the explosion occurred we'd have heard their hoofbeats, anyhow, before they touched off the stuff."

"Well, I'm not going to give up hope till I know," said Jack bravely, though at the moment, had he not known the uselessness of it, he could have given way entirely to his apprehensions.

Suddenly, on rising from a dark gully, they came full in view of a low white building with a tower at one end. The rising moon tipped the structure with silver and showed its every outline plainly, the black shadows sharply contrasted to its white walls and tiled roof.

"The old San Gabriel Mission!" exclaimed Pete, as his eyes fell on the venerable structure. "I thought I began to recognize the lay of the country a way back."

"You've been here before, then?" asked Ralph.

"Yep, after stray horses, as I said. I never knew, though, that Black Ramon and his gang hung out here."

"Well, they evidently do," rejoined Jack; "see, we are headed right for it."

They had begun to take a by-path which lay straight and white in front of them toward the old mission door. As they drew nearer, they could see that in the turret were hung several bells, probably part of a chime brought from Spain in the days when the mission was occupied by Holy Franciscans. It now appeared to be in half ruinous condition, however. Great cracks were in its walls, and several of the bell niches were empty. Here and there tiles had fallen from the roof, and the gaps showed black in the moonlight.

"A splendid specimen of Mission architecture," exclaimed the professor, lifting his hand in admiration, as they drew closer. "Rarely have I seen a finer, and in my younger days I spent some time exploring the Spanish remains in California."

"Well, I reckon it's going to be a splendid specimen of a jail for us," grunted Pete, with a side-long glance at the professor, who had quite forgotten his anxiety in his admiration of the old building.

Pete's words proved correct. A few minutes later the party—the prisoners carefully guarded in the center, drew up in front of the mouldering door, and Black Ramon gave three raps with a rusty knocker.

"Who's there?" inquired a voice from within, in Spanish.

"The Black Kings of The Pass," rejoined Ramon in a loud tone.

The door creaked open and a squat figure stood revealed. But the door opener was not a Mexican, but a white man, and no very favorable specimen of his race, either.

"Jim Cummings!" gasped Coyote Pete, as his eyes fell on the other. "Well, the dern renegade!"

There was no time to ask questions just then. With a few rough words the prisoners were ordered to dismount, and were ushered under close guard into what seemed to have been the main body of the mission church. It had a high-vaulted ceiling, and a few windows high up from the floor and closely barred. Otherwise, it was bare, except for some straw thrown about as if for beds.

"You will stay here to-night," said Ramon, gruffly addressing the prisoners, "and in the morning we will talk."

Without another word he turned away, and the Border Boys and their companions heard the door close with a bang. Then came a metallic clang, which told that a heavy bar had been put in place outside.

"Bottled!" said Pete laconically, and with a calm that amazed Ralph.

"And corked!" added Walt.

Jack Merrill and Walt Phelps followed Pete's lead in taking the situation calmly. As a matter of fact, it was the only thing to do, but small blame can attach to Ralph for sinking down despondently on some of the straw as he heard the bar clang as if proclaiming their doom. As for the professor, he was strolling about, poking the walls with an inquiring finger and gazing in rapt admiration at the blackened beams of the roof above them.

"Well, there's one thing to be glad over," said Jack suddenly, "they haven't tied us."

"No need to," rejoined Pete. "We couldn't get out of here in a week, and—— Hark!"

They all listened intently. Outside they could hear the steady tramp-tramp of a man pacing up and down.

"A sentry!" exclaimed Walt Phelps.

"That's what. We're too valuable to Black Ramon for him to have us get away."

There seemed to be some hidden meaning underlying the cow-puncher's words, and the boys looked at him inquiringly.

"What I mean is," said the cow-puncher, "that this varmint sees a chance to make some money out of us. He knows your father would give a pile to get you back safe and sound, and I'll bet a busted sweat-leather he's going to hold you for ransom."

"But you, Pete?"

"Wall, I reckon he'll make chile-con-carne out of me," rejoined the cow-puncher with a grin. "I'm too tough for anything else."

A careful examination of the place, made as well as they could in the moon-checkered darkness, showed that Pete's diagnosis of their prison as "a bottle" was a correct one. The walls were solid, and appeared, just judging by the depth of the window embrasures, to be several feet thick. The windows themselves were far too high up to reach, even had they not been barred. The floor, after a careful tapping, yielded no sign of being hollow in any place.

"I was hoping we might find a hollow place somewhere," said Pete, in explaining this last maneuver. "You know these old padres lived a scary kind of life, and every once in a while their Indian converts would up and backslide and attack the church mission. So as they could do a quick getaway when such contingencies came loping along, they used to make tunnels, but I guess if these fellers that built this place tunneled they did it some other part."

"What you say is correct," chimed in the professor, more as if he was in the lecture room than a prisoner across the border, in the hands of ferocious cattle-rustlers; "the padre sometimes dug these tunnels so that they covered considerable distances. Burrows of this character, a mile or even more in length have been found in California."

"Wa'al, I wish we had the tools handy and we'd bore one ourselves," said Pete; "but as we ain't, the best thing we can do is to make ourselves as comfortable as possible and go to sleep. Things won't get no better for fretting over them, and we're in a fix now where things is bound to get a lot worse before they get better."

The cow-puncher, suiting the action to the word, lay down, and in a few moments his snores proclaimed that he slept. One after the other, the rest dozed off, till only Ralph remained awake. Jack Merrill had done his best to cheer the Eastern lad up before he sought refuge in slumber, but Ralph's position weighed on his mind too keenly to permit him to sleep. While the others lay stretched out in slumber he arose and began pacing the old church. He was not a superstitious lad, but the silence of the empty vaulted place, their position, and the uncertainty of their fate, all combined to fill him with a nervous dread.

Suddenly he stopped short in his pacing to and fro. Every nerve in his body tingled and his scalp tightened with alarm at a sudden sound he had heard.

Proceeding, it seemed, from the very masonry of the edifice itself, there had come a sound, which heard as it was, in those gloomy surroundings, was as terrifying as could be imagined.

"Who is there?" shouted the boy in frightened tones.

But the sound which he had heard ceased instantly. Nor, though he listened almost till dawn crept into the sky, and sleep overcame him, was it repeated.

[CHAPTER IX.]

A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW.

"What can you compare the sound to?" asked Jack.

It was the next morning, and Ralph was relating his experiences.

"Well, it sounded like some one 'tap-tapping,' as well as I can explain it," replied Ralph.

"Whereabouts?" asked Walt, leaning forward from the interested circle.

"I don't know. It seemed to come from everywhere at once."

"But it stopped right off when you hollered?" asked Pete.

"Yes. I didn't hear another sound."

"What do you suppose it could have been, Pete?" asked Jack.

"Dunno. Mexican woodpecker, maybe," grinned the cow-puncher, "or maybe a little overdose of im-ag-in-at-ion."

"I tell you I couldn't have been mistaken," exclaimed Ralph hotly. "I heard it as clearly as I hear your voice now."

At this moment the clank of the metal bar of the door falling announced that the portal was about to be opened, and they all gazed upward expectantly as the studded oak swung back. Two figures appeared. The first was that of a Mexican carrying a big tray of steaming food and a water-cooler. The other newcomer was the renegade cowboy, whom Pete had recognized the night before.

"Well, they don't mean to starve us, anyhow," said Jack, as his eyes fell on the food.

"Hum, poisoned, like as not," put in Ralph.

"I confess that I would dare even poison, such are my pangs of hunger," spoke the professor.

Pete did not say a word, but kept his eyes fixed on the renegade cow-puncher.

"Nice business you're in, Jim Cummings," he growled. "Since when have you become a cattle-rustling, tamale-eating greaser?"

"Now, see here, Pete, don't rile me," growled the other, a short, red-faced man with bow legs and whiny voice. "What I'm doing is my own business, and I reckon I can mind it."

"Yes, some folks don't mind what they do," observed Coyote Pete grimly, "even down to associating with a bunch of cattle thieves and horse-rustlers.

"There's a real nice specimen of the human toad," he went on, turning to his companions. "That feller yonder, Jim Cummings, was once a decent white man, punching cattle and shooting up the town on pay nights, like a Christian. Now look at him——"

But Jim Cummings had turned and was running for his life. He could not stand the raking cross fire of Pete's biting sarcasm. The Mexican who had brought them their food followed him out.

"Why, we could have overpowered those fellows and escaped," said Jack. "If we could once get our ponies, we'd give these ruffians a race to the pass, and——"

"Yep, but that 'If' is a big word, sonny," said Pete grimly. "I reckon you didn't see something I did when that door opened."

"No—what?" chorused the boys.

"Why, four of the handsomest looking rascals unhung parading up and down with rifles. But let's get some of this grub down. That Black Ramon is likely to pay us a call after grub time, and if I'd see him first he'd take my appetite away."

Despite Ralph's gloomy fears of poison, they made a good breakfast, although some of the dishes were so peppery and fiery they could hardly eat them.

"If Peary could have had some of this at the North Pole," said Jack, as he hastily swallowed several gulps of water.

"Or Doc Cook," grinned Walt.

"Yes, and if we could be in Albuquerque right now," laughed Coyote Pete.

As he spoke the door opened once more, this time to give entrance to the Mexican leader himself. As if he was not inclined to take any chances in trusting himself with the Americans, Ramon de Barrios was accompanied by two other of his countrymen. He lost no time in coming to the point.

"You boy there, Stetson," he said, pointing to Ralph, "how much is your father worth?"

"I suppose about five million dollars," said Ralph wonderingly.

"Phew!" exclaimed Coyote Pete, "I didn't know there was so much money in the world."

"Silence," growled Diego, looking at him from under his black brows. "And your father loves you?" he went on to Ralph.

"Yes, of course," rejoined the Eastern boy.

"Hum! Well, if you ever want to see him again you must do as I say."

"What is that?"

"Write him a letter telling him to send a messenger with twenty thousand dollars to a place I shall designate. If he does so I will let you go free. If not—well——"

Black Ramon compressed his lips and gave Ralph a look not pleasant to see. It seemed to promise ominously for the future.

"But what about my friends?" demanded Ralph.

"The same condition applies to Merrill, only in his case, as his father is poorer, I shall be considerate and only demand ten thousand dollars."

"You can have my answer now," spoke up Jack. "It is—'No'!"

"The same goes here," chimed in Ralph slangily, but with conviction.

"What, you won't do it? Boys, you must be mad. You do not know the means I can use to enforce my demand. If you fear to cause your parents alarm, I can cause them more suffering by sending them word that you are dead."

The Mexican gave a smile of triumph as he saw a serious look cross the boys' faces. The thought of what this would mean—of the grief into which it would plunge their families, made them shiver, but neither hesitated when the cattle-rustler asked once more:

"Well, what do you say?"

"Still—no," said Jack.

"That's me!" snapped Ralph.

"In any event," demanded Jack, "suppose we did sign, what would you do with our friends?"

"That would concern me only," said the Mexican. "As for this cow-puncher here——"

"Mister Pete De Peyster is my name," spoke up Coyote Pete, caressing his yellow mustache.

"Well, De Peyster, then, I have an old score to even up with you——"

"Oh, you mean about the time I snaked you off your horse when you were going to ill-treat a pony," said Pete. "Yep, I reckon the bump you landed with must have left some impression on your greaser mind."

Black Ramon stepped forward. It looked for a second as if he was going to strike the venturesome cow-puncher, but instead he restrained himself and remarked in a calm voice, even more terrible than a raging tone would have been:

"As you are in my power to do as I like with, I will not discuss the matter with you. I will think it over. You know I am good at thinking up original punishments."

Jack shuddered at the level, cold-blooded tones of the man. Some of the most terrible tales of the border had to do with the fiendish tortures thought of by the man before them. But Pete was undismayed, at least outwardly.

"Anyhow, Ramon," he said, "you ought to get somebody to touch off your dynamite who will be on the job when wanted. That fellow you had on the battery at the bridge must have got cold feet at the critical moment, eh? If he had touched off the charge at the right time he could have blown us all to Kingdom Come. As it is, Mr. Merrill and Bud Wilson are safe, and sooner or later they'll take it out of your yellow hide, whatever you may do to us now."

Now Pete had an object in talking thus. He wanted if possible to find out what had become of the ranch party when the bridge was blown up. If he expected to learn anything, however, he was disappointed, as the Mexican was far too crafty to be led into so easy a trap.

"Oh-ho, you are trying to draw me out to learn what became of your friends," he grinned. "Well, what if I should tell you they were blown up?"

"Wa'al, personally, I'd say you were an all-fired liar!" drawled Pete.

"Before long, what you say will not matter," snarled the Mexican, "you, or the boy Walt Phelps. I owe your father a grudge," he continued, turning to the red-headed ranch boy, "and I mean to avenge myself with you."

Walter gazed back at the wretch as calmly as had Pete. He said nothing, however. He did not wish to betray by even a quaver in his voice that his feelings were in a state of tumult.

"As for you, you bony old man," said the Mexican, turning to professor Wintergreen, "I have a mind to marry you off to an old Indian squaw, and keep you 'round here as our medicine man."

"In that case I know the medicine I should prescribe for you," said the professor calmly.

"What, if you please?" asked the Mexican, with mock humility.

"Six bullets in the region of your black heart," snapped out the man of science.

"Bully! Good for you!" yelled Pete, capering about and giving the professor a slap on the back that sent the savant's spectacles flying.

"I will give you boys till to-morrow to think this over," said the Mexican, deciding, apparently, not to tamper any more with such an edged tool as the professor. "In the meantime, I have decided to separate you. Merrill, you and this cow-puncher I shall confine elsewhere; you are too dangerous to leave with the rest of them."

He gave a shrill whistle and instantly ten men appeared from the door. Under Black Ramon's directions they bound and blindfolded Pete and Jack Merrill.

"I have a place where I keep such firebrands as you two," said Ramon in his most vindictive tone, as amid exclamations of dismay from their companions the cow-puncher and the ranchman's son were led from the old chapel.

[CHAPTER X.]

IN THE BELL TOWER.

Blindfolded, and almost bereft of the power of thought by the sudden order of the chief of cattle-rustlers, Pete and his young companion were led forth by Black Ramon's men. To Jack's surprise—for he had not noticed any building near to the old mission the night they had arrived—they seemed to travel some distance before they halted. Presently he felt their guides impelling him forward over what seemed to be a threshold.

Suddenly their eye bandages were roughly removed, and the two prisoners were able to look about them. They found themselves in a small chamber lighted by one tiny window high up on a whitewashed wall. The floor was of red tiling, and gave out a solid ring beneath the feet.

"I guess you'll be safe enough in here," grinned Ramon, gazing at the substantial walls and the huge door of iron-studded oak. "If you escape from this place you'll be cleverer than the cleverest Yankees I ever heard of."

After giving their guards some brief directions to keep a close watch on the door, Black Ramon strode out of the place. The portal was immediately banged to, and the prisoners were alone.

"Well, Jack, out of the frying-pan into the fire, eh?" said Pete, looking about him with a comical expression of despair.

"It certainly looks that way," agreed Jack; "and what's worse, we're cut off from our friends. I wonder what measures Ramon will use to compel Ralph to write that letter to his father," went on Jack.

"Kind of a weak sister, that there tenderfoot, ain't he?" asked Pete with a grin.

"I guess you've never seen Ralph charging down the gridiron in the last half, when the whole game hung on his shoulders or you wouldn't say that, Pete," reproved Jack. "There isn't a boy alive who is cleaner cut, or grittier than Ralph Stetson, but he's not used to the West and I'm afraid that lemon-colored rascal may work some tricks on him."

"That's what I'm afraid of, too," chimed in Pete. "These greasers can think up some great ways to make a feller change his mind."

"If only we knew that dad and the rest were safe, I would feel easier in my mind," said Jack after a brief interval, during which neither had spoken.

"Boy," said Pete, in a tenderer tone than Jack had ever heard the rough cow-puncher use, "as I told you a while back, it's my solemn belief that Mr. Merrill and the rest are alive, and at this minute figuring out some way to get us out of this scrape. But if anything has happened to them, it's going to be the sorriest day in their lives for these Border greasers. There isn't a cow-puncher in New Mexico, or along the border from the Gulf to the Colorado River, that wouldn't take a hand in the trouble that's going to come."

This was an unusually long and an unusually earnest speech for Coyote Pete to make, and as if ashamed of his display of emotion, he at once set to work looking busily about him.

What he saw was not calculated to elevate his spirits. The room, or rather chamber, was so small that its dimensions could not have exceeded six by seven or eight feet. It was, in fact, more a cell than a room.

In the massive oak door was a small peephole, high up, through which every now and then the evil face of one of their guards would peer.

"I wonder what he thinks we are up to?" asked Pete with a quizzical grin. "Not much room in here to do anything but think, and precious little of that."

"Where are we, do you think, Pete?" asked Jack, after another interval of silence.

"Haven't any idee," rejoined Pete. "I reckon we're quite some distance from the mission, though."

"Let's take a peep out of the door," said Jack suddenly. "That fellow hasn't looked in lately; maybe he's gone to dinner, or something."

"Well, there's no harm in trying, anyhow," said Pete, going toward the portal. "I can pull myself up to the hole by my hands, and if he's there the worst that greaser can give me is a crack over the knuckles."

But as he placed his hands on the edge of the peephole Jack suddenly held up his hand.

"Hark!" he exclaimed.

From outside came a deep nasal rumble.

"Ach-eer, Ach-eer!"

"He's snoring!" exclaimed Pete.

"Off as sound as a top," supplemented Jack. "Up you go, Pete."

But the cow-puncher, after a prolonged scrutiny, was only able to report that the passage outside was too dark for him to see anything.

"We'll try the window," suggested Jack.

"How are we going to get up there?"

"You boost me on your shoulders. I can see out then."

"All right," said Pete, making "a back."

Jack nimbly mounted the cow-puncher's shoulders and shoved his face into the window. As his eyes fell on the scene outside he gave a gasp of amazement.

In the distance were the rugged outlines of the Hachetas, with the rolling foothills lying between. Beyond that rugged barrier—how far beyond Jack realized with an aching heart—lay the United States. But all this was not what caused him to gasp with surprise. It was the fact that, peering out of the window, he was looking directly down upon the tiled roof of the mission. Despite the fact that they had appeared to have been marched for a distance from it, they were still imprisoned in Black Ramon's stronghold in an upper story. In the belfry tower, in fact.

"Consarn it all," muttered the cow-puncher angrily, as Jack told him this, "I might have known they'd have adopted that old trick of blindfolding you and then walking you round in a circle. I defy any one to tell how far he's gone when those methods are used."

"Gee, I'd give a whole lot to be that fellow down below there," mused Jack, looking about him from his vantage point.

"What's he doing?" asked Pete.

"Practicing at a post with a lariat. He looks as happy as if——"

"He hadn't a sin on his greaser soul," Pete finished for him.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the Border Boy suddenly, still from his post on Pete's shoulder, "I can see Ramon going up to the lariat thrower. He's pointing up here."

The boy ducked quickly. An instant later he again looked out cautiously.

"I guess Ramon was changing the guard," he said. "I saw him point up here, and now that fellow's coming up to the tower entrance by a flight of open steps."

"Is he still carrying that lariat?" asked Pete, in a quick, eager voice.

"Yes; why?"

"Oh, never mind. I just wish I had it, that's all. It would help pass the time away. Say, get down, will you, Jack, if you've done enough gazing. You're getting to be a heavyweight."

"Well, if we stay here much longer I'll bant a few pounds," replied Jack. "I'm sure it's long after dinner time, and I'm hungry."

As if in answer to his words, the door opened and the same man he had seen practicing with the rawhide in the yard below suddenly appeared. He put some food and water before them without a word, and withdrew silently. Not before Pete's sharp eyes had noticed, however, that at his waist was fastened the rawhide rope he coveted.

"Starvation isn't part of Ramon's plan, evidently," said Jack, as he ate with an appetite unimpaired by the perils of their situation.

"He's just waiting till to-morrow to see how a day's imprisonment has affected you," said Pete grimly. "If you still refuse to write to your father, he'll begin to put the screws on."

"Poor Ralph," sighed Jack.

"Oh, what wouldn't I give for a corncob pipe full of tobacco," sighed Pete, as their meal was concluded.

"What, you mean you could smoke with all this trouble hanging over us?" exclaimed Jack.

"Why not? It would help me to think. When I'm figgering out anything I always like to have a smoke."

"Then you have a plan?"

"I didn't say so."

"Oh, Pete, tell me what it is. Do you think we can escape?"

"Now, Jack, don't bother a contemplative man," said Pete provokingly. "I ain't going ter deny that I was indulging in speculation, but what I've been thinking out is such a flimsy chance that I'm downright ashamed to talk about it."

Jack, therefore, had to be content with sitting still on the floor of the cell, while Pete knitted his brows and thought and thought and thought.

So the afternoon wore away somehow, and it grew dark.

In the meantime, Jack, from Pete's shoulder, had taken another survey through the window, if such the hole in the solid wall could be called. A desperate hope had come to him that in the darkness they could squeeze through it, and in some way reach the ground. But it was an aspiration that a short survey of the situation was destined to shatter.

A sheer drop down the walls of the tower of a hundred feet or more lay between them and the ground. The only hope of escape lay by the doorway, and the chance of that was so remote that the Border Boy did not let his thoughts dwell on it.

"I guess we don't get any supper," said Jack, as the light in the cell faded out and the place became as black as a photographer's dark room.

"Guess not," assented Pete gloomily. "I could go a visit to the chuck wagon, too. Curious how sitting in a cell stimerlates the appetite. I'd recommend it to some of them dyspetomaniacs you reads of back East."

"I should think that the disease would be preferable to the cure," said Jack.

"Reckon so," said Pete, and once more their talk languished. Two human beings, confined in a small cell, soon exhaust available topics of conversation.

Suddenly the door opened, and the man who had brought them their dinner appeared. As he came inside the cell Pete rapidly slipped to the door. As the cow-puncher had hardly dared to hope, a brief glance showed him the passage was empty.

Then things began to happen.

Backward he fell, and lay sprawling on the floor like some ungainly spider.

The Mexican, with a quick exclamation, had faced round as the cow-puncher made a dart for the portal, and leveled his pistol. Before he could utter the cry which quivered on his lips, Coyote Pete's knotty fist drove forward like a huge piston of flesh and muscle. The force of the blow caught the Mexican full in the face, almost driving his teeth down his throat. Backward he fell, and lay sprawling on the floor like some ungainly spider. The terrific concussion of the blow had rendered him temporarily unconscious.

"Quick, Jack," cried Pete, under his breath, swiftly shutting the great door.

"What are you going to do?" gasped the boy. Events had happened with such lightning-like rapidity that he had hardly had time to comprehend what had taken place, and stood staring at the limp form on the floor of the cell.

With quick, nervous fingers Pete, who had stooped over the fallen Mexican, seized the rawhide rope he carried at his waist—the one with which Jack had seen the fellow practicing.

"Now then, up on my shoulders, Jack, and take the rope with you," he ordered.

Jack didn't know what was to come, but obeyed the resourceful plainsman without a question.

"Through the window," came Pete's next command, and then Jack began to understand the other's daring plan. Without waiting for further orders from Pete, he crawled through the opening. He no sooner found himself on a ledge outside before he turned cautiously and lay on his stomach across the broad embrasure and extended both his hands within. Pete grabbed them, and bracing his feet against the wall, soon clambered up. As the cow-puncher climbed and got a grip on the sill, Jack retreated along the narrow ledge outside. Presently Pete, too, clambered through and joined him.

"What next?" asked Jack in a low voice.

"Blamed if I know," rejoined Pete cheerfully.

The two adventurers were in about as insecure a position as could be imagined. Their feet rested on a ledge of masonry not much more than six inches in width, which circled the bell tower. The ground was a hundred feet or more below them. The lariat they had with them, and which was securely fastened in Pete's belt, was not more than thirty feet at the most.

As they hesitated in the darkness, scarcely daring to breathe on their insecure perch, there came a sudden shout from within the tower.

"Wa'al, they've found out that something's up," grunted Pete, while Jack's blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins. Below them was empty space; above, the Mexican outlaws.

[CHAPTER XI.]

A DROP IN THE DARK.

"Hark!"

It was Jack who uttered the exclamation.

The shouts were growing louder. Evidently the Mexicans had kept a closer watch than he or Pete had imagined, and had quickly taken alarm at the prolonged absence of their companion.

The boy could hear them battering the oak door of the cell they had so recently occupied.

"Let 'em batter away," muttered Pete. "I shot the bolt on the inside."

To his amazement, Jack actually heard his companion chuckle. What could the cow-puncher be made of, steel or granite, or a combination of both!

And now Pete began to wriggle along the ledge, pressing with all his weight against the wall.

"Come on," he breathed to Jack, "throw all your weight inward and don't look up or down."

In mortal fear of finding his body hurtling backward into vacancy at any moment, the boy followed the intrepid cow-puncher along the narrow footpath. Perhaps it needed more pluck on his part to proceed along the insecure ledge in the pitchy blackness than it did on the part of the nervy cow-puncher. Who shall take the exact measure of courage?

At last they reached the angle of the tower, and Pete stood still. To proceed round the sharp angle, on no wider pathway than that which they trod, would be manifestly impossible. Yet go on they must. Suddenly Pete gave a cry of joy. Looking down into the darkness, he had seen, not more than ten feet beneath them, the sharp ridge of an addition to the old Mission church. If they could reach that he knew, from calculating the height of the tower, they would not be far from the ground.

Behind them the yells and shouts were growing louder.

To think, with Pete, was to act. With a muttered prayer, one of the few he had ever uttered in his rough life, the cow-puncher crouched as well as he could on the ledge. Putting over first one leg and then the other, he deliberately dropped downward, till his hands gripped the edge of the ledge on which a second before he had stood. His muscles cracked as the sudden strain came on them, but he held fast, and a second later let go. He landed to his intense joy, on a rough tiled roof, after an easy drop of not more than four feet.

"Come on," he breathed upward to Jack, who had watched the cow-puncher's daring act with horrified eyes.

"I—I can't," shivered the boy, who, plucky as he was, dreaded the idea of a drop into the dark. "You go on, Pete, and leave me."

"Not much I won't. You make that drop, or I'll give you the biggest hiding you ever had, Jack Merrill, when I get hold of you."

The cowboy had hit on just the words to bring Jack to the proper pitch to take the leap.

"You ain't scared, are you?" whispered up Pete, determined to brace the boy up in the way he knew would prove most effective.

Just as Pete had done a few moments previously, Jack, without a word, knelt for one awful second on the brink of space and then gingerly put over first one leg and then the other. Then followed the same terrible rush into blackness that Pete had experienced, and the same soul-sickening jolt and heart-leap as his fingers gripped, and he hung safe.

"Drop!" snapped Pete.

Jack's fingers obediently unclasped their desperate grip, and he shot downward to be caught in Pete's arms.

"Not so bad when you get used to it," whispered the cow-puncher. "Now then, slide down."

"Slide down—where?"

"This rope. While you were getting ready up there"—even in the dark Jack felt his cheeks flush—"while you were getting ready up there, I fastened that greaser's rope to this old water-spout. All you got to do is to slide down."

A second later Jack flashed down the side of the old church to the ground, where, almost as soon as he had landed, Coyote Pete joined him.

"What now?" asked Jack amazedly. He had never dreamed when they stood on that dizzy tower that in less than ten minutes they would be on firm ground. Nor did he forget how much of the so-far successful escape was due to Coyote Pete's skill and resourcefulness. But the hardest and most dangerous part was yet to come.

Already the whole of the old church was aglow with lights, flashing hither and thither, and outside, shout answered shout from a dozen points of the compass.

"We'll run in the direction where there is the least racket," wisely decided Pete.

"Crouch as low as you can, Jack," he ordered, as, doubled almost in half, he darted off into the darkness.

Imitating his guide as best he could, Jack followed, but as ill-luck would have it, their way led past an old well. In the pitch blackness the boy did not avoid what Pete seemed to have steered clear of by instinct. With a crash that woke the echoes, he blundered headlong into a big pile of tin buckets and pails which had been placed there that day. A bull running amuck in a tin shop could hardly have made more noise.

"My great aunt alkali, you've done it now!" growled Pete, as the terrific crash sounded close behind him.

"Oh, go on, Pete! Go on, and leave me," cried Jack miserably. "I'll only hamper you. Go on by yourself."

"I'll go with you or not at all," was Pete's firm rejoinder. "Come on, now, hurry. They're bound to have heard that, and they'll be 'round here like so many hornets in a minute."

Pete's prophecy proved correct. Hardly had the clanging, clashing echoes of the avalanche of dislodged tinware died out, before they heard Black Ramon's voice shouting:

"Over there! Over there by the well. Fire at them."

Jack did not know much Spanish, but he could comprehend this.

"Fire away," muttered Pete grimly, as they rapidly wormed their way along among the scrub. "You'll not do us any harm by shooting at the well, but you'll drill your rotten tinware full of holes."

But the Mexicans having now recovered from their first excitement, turned their thoughts to other ways of getting back the fugitives than by firing into the darkness after them. To the ears of Jack and Pete was soon borne the trample of horses, and the rattle of galloping hoofs, as Black Ramon's men spread out through the darkness looking for them.

"They're going to form a ring," he whispered, as they squirmed their way along; "that's what they're going to do. They know we are without horses or weapons, and that if they only make the ring large enough they're bound to get us."

On and on they crept, so close to the ground that the burning dust, which had a plentiful ad-mixture of alkali in it, filled their eyes and nose. Pete was more or less used to the stuff, having ridden sometimes for days at a time in it behind herds of cattle or horses, but to Jack the smarting sensation in mouth and nostrils was almost unbearable. The stuff fairly choked him.

Suddenly Pete's hand shot out and gripped Jack's arm with a viselike pressure. Jack interpreted the signal without a word.

"Stop!"

Down they both crouched in the alkali dust among the brush, hardly daring to breathe.

Long before Jack's ears had caught a sound, Pete's quick eye had detected something. He laid his ear to the ground.

"Too dry," he muttered, after holding it there an instant.

Then he drew from his pocket his knife and opened both blades. The larger he thrust into the earth and placed his ear against the smaller bit of steel.

"Just as I thought. Coming this way!" he muttered. "We'll have to lie low and trust to luck."

Presently the trampling that the cowboy's rough-and-ready telegraph had detected became distinctly audible, and against the star-spattered sky Jack saw two black figures on horseback slowly rise up from a hollow. They came into view as slowly as fairies rising to the stage from a trap-door in a theatre.

Neither Pete nor Jack dared to breathe, as the two figures appeared and paused as if undecided which way to go. Suddenly one of them began to speak.

"No sign of 'em in here, amigo. Say ombre, I tell you what—you ride off to the right, and I'll take the left trail. We've covered all the other ground, and that way we're bound to get 'em."

The Mexican grunted something and rode off in the direction the other had indicated.

"It's Jim Cummings, the dern skunk," whispered Coyote Pete to Jack, his indignation at the idea of being hunted by the renegade cowboy getting the better of his prudence.

For one terrible minute Jack thought they had been discovered. Jim Cummings, who had been riding off, stopped his pony abruptly and faced round in the saddle.

"Queer," he said to himself; "thought I heard something. Guess I'll take a look and see if the critters left any trail through hereabouts. I wouldn't trust myself alone with Coyote Pete, but I know he's got no shooting iron, and I reckon this will fetch down a dozen like him, or the kid with him."

He patted his revolver—a big forty-four—as he spoke, and dismounted. Throwing his pony's reins over his head, in plainsman's fashion, the renegade struck a match and bent down toward the ground. He was looking to see if Jack or Coyote Pete had passed that way.

What happened then came so quickly that afterward, when he tried to tell it, Jack never could get the successive incidents arranged clearly in his own mind. All that was audible was a frightened gasp from the renegade as the glare of a match fell on Coyote Pete's face. Wet with sweat, plastered with dust, and disfigured by righteous anger at the renegade, Pete's countenance was indeed one to inspire terror in the person suddenly lighting upon it.

Before the gasp had died out of Jim cummings' throat, and before he could utter the cry that somehow refused to come, Coyote Pete, with a spring like that of a maddened cougar, was on him, and bore him earthward with a mighty crash.

"Take that, you coward, you sneak, you traitor!" he snarled vindictively under his breath, as the unfortunate Jim Cummings struggled and his breath came in sharp wheezes. As he spoke, Coyote Pete, temporarily transformed by rage and scorn to a wild beast, savagely hammered Jim Cummings' head against the ground.

He was recalled to himself by Jack, who, after his first moment of startled surprise, realized that unless he interfered Cummings would in all likelihood be killed.

"Pete, Pete, are you mad?" he gasped, seizing the other's arm and staying it, as the furious cow-puncher was about to bring it crashing down into the renegade's face.

"Mad!" repeated Pete, looking up, "well, I guess so. But I'm glad you brought me to my senses, son. I'd hate to have the blood of such a varmint as this on my conscience."

He rose to his feet, still breathing heavily from his furious outburst.

"Phew! but that did me good," he said, rolling the unconscious Cummings over with a contemptuous foot. "I reckon this coyote won't go hunting his own people with a pack of yellow dogs for a long time to come."

Pete was right, it was many a day before Cummings got over his thrashing, but in the meantime the delay occasioned by Pete's outbreak came near to costing them dear.

A sudden trampling in the darkness behind them made them turn, and they saw dimly the figure of a horseman behind them. The starlight glinted on his rifle barrel as he aimed it at them and covered both the fugitives beyond hope of escape.

"Up your hands!"

The command came from the new arrival in broken, but none the less vigorous and unmistakable English.

[CHAPTER XII.]

A RIDE FOR THE HILLS.

But instead of complying with the demand, Coyote Pete did a strange thing. He waved his hands above his head and rushed straight at the man with the rifle. As he had expected, the pony the Mexican bestrode was, like most western animals, only half broken. The sight of this sudden figure leaping toward it out of the brush caused it to wheel sharply with a snort of dismay.

So unexpected was the maneuver that the Mexican, no less than his horse, was taken by surprise. His rifle almost slipped from his fingers as he tried to seize the reins and control his pony. When once more he turned, it was to find himself looking into the business-like muzzle of Jim Cummings' pistol, which Pete had quickly jerked from the unconscious man's holster.

"Now, then, amigo," ordered Pete, "get off. Pronto!"

"But, hombre——" began the Mexican.

"Get off!"

Pete accompanied this command by baring his white teeth in such terrifying fashion that the other quickly dismounted.

"Give me his lariat," ordered Pete to Jack, but never for an instant taking his eyes off the Mexican.

Jack, glad of a chance to be of some use, sprang forward. In a trice he detached the Mexican's lariat from his saddle horn and waited Pete's next order.

"Tie him, and tie him good and tight," ordered the cow-puncher. "Don't mind hurting him. These greasers have got a hide as tough as Old Scratch himself."

It did not take Jack long to bind the follower of Black Ramon hand and foot, and then, with a sarcastic apology, Pete tore off a strip of his not overclean shirt, rolled it in a ball, and shoved it into the Mexican's mouth.

"There, he is hog-tied and silenced, with neatness and dispatch," he said. "Now for Cummings, and then we're off."

Cummings was still insensible, and the operation of tying him with his own rawhide, and forcing a gag into his mouth didn't take long.

"I hate to ride without a lariat," said Pete, "but it can't be helped. And anyhow, we've got two good cayuses by as big a stroke of luck as ever a cow-puncher had. You take that plug of the greaser's, Jack. I've got a fancy to this fellow of Cummings', here. And mind, if anybody says a word to us you let me do the talking."

Soon afterward, both, on a further suggestion of Pete's, wrapped in the bound men's serapes—or cloaks,—the two adventurers set forward toward the north.

"Now we're headed for God's country," grunted Pete, as he kept his eyes fixed on the north star, which is the plainsman's as well as the sailor's night guide.

"How can you locate it without a compass?" asked Jack, as Pete informed him how he had located their direction.

"By the outside stars of the Dipper, Jack," said Pete. "The good Lord put 'em there, I reckon, so as white men situated as you and I are should have no trouble in finding the way to his country. For, you mark my words, Jack, there ain't no God's country south of the border. It all belongs to the other fellow, and they're working for him in double shifts."

The ponies which they now bestrode were fine little animals—quick as cats on their feet and evidently hard as nails, for their coats were as dry to the touch as kindling wood, despite all the excitement they had undergone.

"Feels good to have a horse between your legs again," said Pete, still in a low, cautious voice, for they were by no means out of danger as yet.

"Yes," whispered Jack, "I've heard it said that a cow-puncher without his pony is only half a man."

"I guess maybe you're right," agreed Pete, urging forward his little animal by a dig in the sides.

"Say, Pete," whispered Jack suddenly, as they rode slowly forward under the star-sprinkled heavens, "I do wish we could go back and make a strike for the freedom of the others. It seems kind of mean for us to be safe and sound here, and leaving them back in the lion's mouth, so to speak."

"Don't worry about that, Jack. By getting over on to good Yankee soil we are doing more to help them than we could in any other way. If we turned back now we might spoil everything, and as to being safe and sound—— Hark!"

Both reined in their ponies and listened intently. From far behind was borne to their ears the distant noise of shouts and cries. Standing on the elevation to which they had now attained, the sounds came through the clear night air with great distinctness.

"They're making a fine hullaballoo," commented Jack. "Do you think they've found Cummings and the other?"

"Don't know. Guess not, though. The sounds seem to be coming from more to the eastward than where we left them; but say, Jack, don't you hear anything else but hollering?"

"Why, yes, I do seem to hear a kind of queer sound; what is it?"

"The very worst sound we could get wind of, Jack—it's bloodhounds."

"Bloodhounds!" gasped Jack, who had read and heard much of the ferocity and tracking ability of the animals. "They will trace us down and tear us to pieces."

"Hum, you've bin readin' Uncle Tom's Cabin, I reckon," sniffed Pete. "No, they won't tear us to pieces, Jack, but what they will do is to round us up and then set up the almightiest yelling and screeching and baying you ever heard. They'll bring the whole hornet's nest down around our ears."

"What are we to do, Pete?" breathed Jack, completely at a loss in the face of this new peril, which seemed doubly hard to bear, coming as it did when escape had seemed certain.

"Dunno. Just ride ahead, I reckon, that's all we can do, and thank our lucky stars it ain't daylight. If only we was a spell farther into the hills, we might strike water, and that would throw them off."

"How would that confuse them?"

"Well, hounds can't track through water. It kills the scent. I'd give several head of beef critters for a sight of a creek right now."

All this time they had been riding ahead, and although it was pitchy dark they could tell that they were rising. Whether they were on a trail or not, they had no means of knowing. That the ground was rough and stony, though, they knew, for the ponies, sure-footed as they were, stumbled incessantly.

"Good thing none of Ramon's men reached out as far as this, or we'd sure be giving ourselves away every time one of these cayuses shakes a foot," grunted Pete.

"I wish it wasn't so black," whispered Jack, who was riding a little in advance. "I can't see a thing ahead. I wonder if—— Oh!"

His pony had suddenly given a wild leap backward, missed its footing, and slid down some sort of a steep bank.

"Jumping gee whilkers, what in blazes!" began Pete, when in just the same way he went sliding forward into space.

Both ponies fetched up, after stumbling several feet down a steep declivity, and the sound that their hoofs made as they did so was one of the most welcome that the fugitives could have heard.

Splash! splash!

"Water!" exclaimed Pete. "Our blind luck is just naturally holding out."

"Is it a watercourse?" inquired Jack, "or just a hole."

Pete leaned over, holding on by crooking his left foot against the cantle of his saddle.

"It's a creek, and flowing lively, too," he announced, as he held his hand in the water, "and incidentally, as the newspaper fellers say, I'm thirsty."

"So am I," agreed Jack. "Let's have a drink. Besides, we don't know how long it may be before we get another."

"You've the makings of a cow-puncher in you," approved Pete, slipping from his saddle. Side by side the two lay on the brink of the stream and drank till they could drink no more. The water was cool, though tainted with a slightly alkaline taste common to most mountain creeks in that region. Refreshed, they stood up once more and listened. The baying still came incessantly, accompanied by shouts of encouragement from the riders behind the dogs. It was getting unpleasantly near, also.

"Time for us to cut stick," grunted Pete, swinging himself into his saddle once more. Jack did the same.

"Now to fool 'em," chuckled the cow-puncher.

The ponies' noses were turned up stream, and the sure-footed little animals rapidly traversed the slippery rocks and holes of the creek bed.

"These are great little broncs," said Jack with a sigh, "but don't I wish I had Firewater. I wonder if I'll ever see him again?"

"Sure you will, boy," comforted Pete, although in his own heart he had serious doubts of it. Pete knew that a Mexican loves a good pony above all things, and that once having possession of Firewater, Ramon would let him pass out of his hands willingly, seemed unlikely.

Every now and then, as they stumbled forward in the darkness, they paused and listened. The baying had suddenly stopped, and then broke out afresh with renewed vigor. It had a puzzled note in it, too.

"They're stuck for a time," grunted Pete, "but we haven't shaken them off yet. Yip-ee! hear them dogs holler! They've found the place where we entered the water."

"Then we are out of danger?"

"Not yet, boy. We'll not be out of danger till we're over the border and among our own folks. These greasers are no fools, and in a few minutes they'll realize that we've taken to the water, and be along the bank after us."

"But if we turn out here they won't know in which direction we've gone," argued Jack. "Let's leave the creek here and turn north again."

They had been traveling due east through the night, and he waved his hand as he spoke, toward the left bank of the stream.

"Kiddie, you've got horse sense, all right," approved Pete. "I guess that's the best thing for us to do. Anyhow, we've gone as far as we want to in this direction, and it's time to head for home again."

Home—never had the word held so sweet a sound for either of the two imperiled fugitives.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

THE HERMIT OF THE CANYON.

After some difficulty they found a place in the side of the watercourse up which the ponies could scramble. The little animals were soon once more among the rough, broken ground and stiff scrub brush of the upper foothills. The way was steeper now, and even the inexperienced Jack knew that they must be approaching the mountains themselves. Presently in fact, the darker outlines of the range could be seen dimly against the night, looking at first more like a darker portion of the sky itself than a solid body reared against it.