The Border Boys with the Mexican Rangers

He refrained from mentioning his mistrustful feeling to the others, however, as, after all, the Mexicans might be honest enough folks even if his impressions were otherwise.

After a wash-up in a small creek which flowed at the back of the place, the adventurers were quite ready to sit down to a smoking meal of frijoles (beans fried with red peppers) and eggs cooked in the Mexican style. Some thin red wine was served with the meal, but as none of the party had any use for alcoholic beverages in any form, they were content to wash it down with water from the great stone olla, – or water cooler which hung under the broad eaves of the veranda.

Jack had an uneasy sense that they were being scrutinized as they ate, by some unseen pair of eyes, and once looking up quickly he caught, or thought he did, a glimpse of the woman’s print gown slipping from a shuttered window. Jack was not a boy to make a mountain out of a mole hill, though, and concluded that, in all probability, the woman, if she had been looking at them, had been merely curious at the advent of so many strangers.

The rest of the afternoon, for it was late when they concluded their meal, was passed in chatting and lounging about under the trees. Nobody felt inclined for more strenuous occupations. The professor, however, having obtained some old canvas, succeeded in fashioning a rough pair of trousers. They were short and shapeless, and his legs stuck out oddly from them like the drumsticks of a fowl, but they were better than nothing, he thought. As for the boys, they had bought some baggy garments of the Mexican type from the lone rancher, which would have to last them till they reached the nearest town. This, they were informed, was Santa Anita, and was not more than ten miles distant.

An early start being determined on, they sought their beds soon after supper, which consisted of the same fare as the other meal with the addition of some greasy pancakes. Jack ate some of these, not caring for a second dose of the peppery beans and a short time after felt, as he expressed it to himself, “as if a cannon ball were in his midst.”

Perhaps this accounts for his wakefulness, for he found it impossible to sleep after they had all turned in, in one large room, – or, rather, garret, – which formed the second floor. The others flung themselves on the straw, which served for beds, with the lassitude of complete exhaustion, but Jack lay awake, with the pancakes on his chest like a leaden weight. At length he fell into an uneasy slumber, from which he awakened a short time later with a start and a queer feeling that something in which they were vitally interested was going forward.

His first vague feelings rapidly crystallized into more definite shape as, from the yard outside, he could now distinctly hear the trampling of horses’ hoofs. There seemed to be several of them, to judge by the noise.

Moonlight was streaming into the garret through an unglazed opening in the adobe wall, and holding his watch in the rays, Jack saw that it was half an hour after midnight.

“Queer time to receive visitors,” he thought to himself.

At the same time he was conscious of an overwhelming curiosity to ascertain who and what the midnight arrivals could be. The boy had noticed a door in the wall of the garret when they first entered it that evening, and from his previous inspection of the exterior of the house he had formed an idea that it opened upon the top landing of an outside stairway. They had been conducted to the garret, however, by a ladder leading from the room below.

As well as he could judge, the noise came from the opposite side of the house to that on which the door was situated, so there did not seem to be much chance of detection in slipping out of the door, down the outside stairway and, from some point of vantage, seeing what all the racket might portend. There was one possible difficulty in the way, and that was that the door might be locked. But it proved to be unlatched, and Jack, swinging it open, after he had partially dressed, found himself, as he had surmised he would, on a landing or platform at the top of an outside flight of stairs.

In his bare feet, for he had not paused to put on shoes, he slipped as noiselessly as possible down the stairway and presently found himself in the yard. The moonlight cast black and white patterns of the overhanging willows on the ground, but a brief inspection convinced Jack that there was no human being astir but himself on that side of the house.

As he reached the ground he could distinctly hear the voice of the slatternly woman crying out: —

“Hush!” to the new arrivals.

The voices which had been loud at first were instantly lowered, and he could hear the riders, whoever they were, addressing quieting remarks to their horses.

“Well, I’m going to see what all this means, if it’s the last thing I do,” said Jack to himself, and suiting the action to the word he glided rapidly along in the shadow of the wall till he reached the corner of the house. There was a low outbuilding there, which might at one time have been used as a pigstye. This was just what Jack wanted. He placed both hands on the top bar of the little enclosure outside the pen-like erection, and the next instant had vaulted lightly over and was inside the little shack. The boards of which it was composed were interspersed by wide cracks, and applying his eye to one of these the Border Boy commanded a fine view of the moonlit yard at the end of the house.

As he had expected, it was full of riders, one of whom was mounted on an animal which somehow seemed familiar to the boy. He with difficulty suppressed a cry of astonishment, as the next instant the rider emerged into the moonlight, and Jack saw that he was none other than Black Ramon. The others, he now recognized as men he had seen in the camp on that adventurous morning following the delivery of the warning letter.

But Jack had not much time to meditate on all this, for he suddenly became aware that Ramon was riding behind the cantle of his saddle, and that lying across the saddle itself was a human figure. A second later the boy made out that it was the senseless form of a woman that the outlaw chief was carrying before him.

Hardly had he made this discovery before the woman and the man of the lone ranch came forward and lifted the inanimate form from the back of the black horse of the Border scourge. As they did so a mantilla of elaborate workmanship which covered her face, fell from it, disclosing her marble-like features, as pale as death. Jack then saw that she was young and very beautiful. As the girl was lifted by the lone rancheros, her consciousness returned, and opening her eyes she began to pour out a flood of Spanish. Jack, like most boys bred along the border, had a working knowledge of the language, and it didn’t take him long to gather that she was promising rich rewards, estates, anything to her captors if they would release her and restore her to her parents.

But Ramon’s rejoinder was a hoarse laugh. He informed the girl that he meant to exact a heavy ransom from her father for her freedom, and that if it were not forthcoming he would make her his own wife.

An astonishing change came over the girl at these words. From a pleading, terror-stricken maiden, she became a fine figure of scorn. Drawing herself up proudly, she exclaimed with blazing eyes: —

“I would die before such a thing happened. My father will find you out and punish you like the wicked men you are.”

“Colonel Don Alverado will never find Black Ramon or see his daughter again if a hundred thousand pesos are not forthcoming before the end of the week,” was the rejoinder.

In speaking these last words Ramon had unconsciously raised his voice, and the rancheros, with faces full of alarm, stepped forward.

“Hush! for heaven’s sake not so loud!” the woman exclaimed, “there are several Gringoes in the house!”

Ramon’s face grew black.

“Gringoes!” he snarled, “what do you mean by admitting the Yankee pigs when I have paid you well for the use of your house?”

“But they are here only for the night and are sound asleep,” protested the male ranchero. “Depend on it, they will not interfere. They are pressing on toward Santa Anita to-morrow at dawn.”

“And then, too, they have a belt full of money, Senor Ramon,” whined the woman, “there is no reason why your excellent self should not have it. We had that idea in our head when we consented to let them stop here.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason you suddenly became willing to let us stop,” thought Jack in his hiding place.

But Ramon was now leaning forward with a sudden expression of keen interest.

“These Gringoes, old woman,” he asked, “tell me, are they three boys, a tough-looking, long-legged man with a yellow moustache, and a spectacled old man?”

“Si, senor,” was the rejoinder.

“Santa Maria,” exclaimed Ramon, “here is good fortune. It is those Border Boys and their companions delivered into our hands for the plucking. You did well to let them stop here, senora. They are all asleep, you say?”

“Si. It is but a few minutes ago that my man crept up the ladder and peered into the garret in which they are sleeping. They are all snoring like the Yankee pigs they are.”

“Bueno. We will attend to them shortly,” was the rejoinder; “but now to dispose of the girl. Have you a room in which we can confine her?”

“Yes, in the small room at the other end of the house. It was formerly used as a wine room and is without windows, except a small one at the top for ventilation. It has a strong door, too, for when we grew vines and made wine, thieves used to visit us, ill fortune light upon them.”

“That’s a queer sort of morality,” thought Jack, “for if I ever saw or heard of a precious band of rascals, these are surely they. That poor senorita! We must devise some way of aiding her to escape, but what can we do? I guess I’ll sneak back now while they are busy elsewhere and wake up the others, for if I’m not mistaken we are going to have a tough fight on our hands before very many minutes.”

As Jack cautiously slipped back by the way he had come, he saw the senorita being led away into the house, proudly disdaining to parley further with her captors.

“There’s a girl in a thousand,” thought Jack to himself, “no hysterics or uproar about her. We’ve just got to help her out of the clutches of those ruffians.”

CHAPTER XI

TRAPPED!

Cautiously awakening his companions one by one, Jack told them of his adventures while in the pig pen.

“The scoundrels!” exclaimed the professor, “we must act at once.”

“Now hold your horses,” drawled Coyote Pete in the easy tone he always adopted when danger was near, “it ain’t our move yet. If I ain’t very much mistaken we’ll have all the action we want in a very short time, too. As a first step I’d suggest we bar that door yonder, – the one that Jack sneaked out of – I see it’s got a good big latch on the inside. In that way we’ll head off an attack frum thar, an’ we’ll only have the trap door from below to look after.”

The heavy bar being noiselessly placed in its hasps, Pete outlined his further plans.

“They’ll figger we are asleep,” he said, “but it ain’t likely they’ll jump us till they’ve sent someone up to make sure. It’s our play then ter git back on the straw and all snore as natural as possible.”

“What then?” asked Walt Phelps in rather an alarmed tone. “We’ve only got one rifle.”

“That’s so, consarn it,” grunted Pete, “wall, we’ll hev ter do ther best we can an’ – hush, hyar comes the advance guard now!”

In the room below they could hear cautious footsteps. Evidently Ramon had lost no time in hatching out his plans.