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.