WHERE STRATEGY WON OUT.
Their coming was viewed by a dozen swarthy faces thrust out of the
schoolhouse windows. As the aeroplane drew near the building Lieut.
Sancho raised his voice above the humming of the engine.
In a loud authoritative tone he called for attention.
“If that schoolhouse is not vacated inside of five minutes,” he snapped
out, “I shall dynamite it.”
A derisive chorus of yells greeted this, although a few voices could be
heard begging the officer to have mercy.
“Hand me that ‘bomb,’ Diaz,” ordered the officer as the aeroplane came
in full view of the schoolhouse.
Seizing this opportunity, Lieut. Sancho manipulated the air craft with
one hand while he apparently examined the “bomb” with deep attention.
He took good care while doing this to handle it so that it might be
plainly seen by the Mestizos.
The aeroplane continued its flight above the schoolhouse roof, and
then, swinging round, was driven back again. As they came over for the
second time Lieut. Sancho hailed the recalcitrants once more.
“Throw your rifles and weapons out of the windows or I’ll drop the
bomb. The five minutes is almost up.”
This time there was no answer but a sullen roar. Apparently the
occupants of the schoolhouse were quarreling among each other. The
aeroplane was flown a short distance and then turned for another flight
toward the schoolhouse.
“Here, take the wheel, Diaz,” ordered Lieut. Sancho. “I’m going to let
them see that we mean business.”
With Lieut. Diaz at the wheel, his brother officer manipulated the
“bomb” in truly alarming manner. Bending low over it and striking a
match, he appeared to light its fuse. Then, holding on to a brace, he
half rose out of his seat, and as they neared the schoolhouse he raised
his arm as if poising the “bomb” before hurling it.
It was too much for the nerves of the besieged. With wild cries to
Lieut. Sancho not to kill them, they began casting their rifles and
revolvers out of the windows in a perfect hail. Lieut. Sancho appeared
to stay his hand, but was still menacing.
“Todos! Todos!” (“All! All!”)
He shouted this as they thundered close above the schoolhouse roof. As
he did so the schoolhouse door was opened and out rushed the terrified,
demoralized Mestizos, who were swiftly made prisoners by the Federals
without their offering more than a nominal resistance.
By the time the last had been captured, while the aeroplane drew close
to the scene, from the town, whence the proceedings had been watched
with interest, several citizens came running, now that all the danger
of bullets seemed to be past.
“Well, after what I’ve seen,” declared Jack, “never tell me that the
aeroplane isn’t any good in warfare. To–day it averted what might have
been a bloody fight, and, as it was, not a man was even scratched,
except in his feelings. By the way, Lieutenant, what was in that
‘bomb’?”
“A very deadly mixture,” laughed the officer in return, “a solution of
Epsom salts!”
“Here I be, the mayor of that thar berg back thar,” said an individual
with a bristly straw–colored mustache, hastening up. “What be all these
here connipations a–goin’ on out hyar?”
“Why, Mr. Mayor,” rejoined Jack, “these two gentlemen are officers of
the Mexican Federal troops detailed to aerial duty.”
“Waal, what be they doin’ this side of ther Border? I’ve a good mind
ter put ’em in ther calaboose, the dern long–horns,” declared the mayor
angrily.
“Inasmuch as they saved a lot of children and their teacher from rough
treatment by a band of rebels, I don’t think that would be very fair,”
said Jack.
“Humph!” grunted the mayor, “I was comin’ out hyar to git ther
mavericks on ther run myself, but I had an attack of indigestion.”
“I guess that was when you heard the shooting,” thought Jack to himself.
Aloud, though, he continued:
“The Mestizos were captured by as clever a ruse as can be imagined, Mr.
Mayor.”
“Eh, how’s that, young feller?”
“By a bottle of Epsom salts.”
“Say, see here, kid, it ain’t healthy ter git funny with yer elders in
these hyar parts.”
“It’s the exact truth, I assure you,” declared Jack smilingly, quite
ignoring the mayor’s frown. He went on to tell the full details of the
fight, or rather the argument, and when he had finished not one of the
assembled crowd was there that did not join in the laugh.
“An’ how did you come to be hyar, young feller?” asked the mayor at the
conclusion of Jack’s story. “You beant a greaser.”
“No, but I have found that there are a few brave and clever men on the
other side of the line, too,” declared Jack.
“Ther kid’s right,” assented one or two in the crowd.
Jack then told as much of his adventures as he thought necessary,
and at the conclusion the delighted mayor clapped him on the back so
heartily that the breath was almost driven out of his body.
“I’ll give yer all ther liberty of Go ’long,” he said, sweeping his
hand back toward his little principality.
But the two Mexican officers were obliged to refuse the mayor’s
hospitality. A short time after the Federal troops had departed with
their prisoners of war the two airmen winged their way southward to
their headquarters.
As for Jack, he had ascertained that San Mercedes was only twenty miles
or so off, so he determined to hire a horse and ride over there early
in the morning. That night he slept in a bed for the first time in many
long hours, and with his anxieties cleared away and his heart light,
his slumbers were deep and dreamless. He was awakened by the ubiquitous
mayor, who was also the hotel–keeper. Incidentally, the pretty school
teacher turned out to be his daughter. Her enthusiastic praises of Jack
the night before had made the boy blush hotly, but that was nothing to
his embarrassment a few moments later when the town band, consisting of
a cornet and a drum, headed a procession to the hotel and he had been
compelled to give a speech.
Jack felt glad on waking that all that was over, and that in a short
time he would be on his way back to his friends in the camp of the
Rangers. The town of Go ’long did not offer much in the way of a menu
beyond blackstrap and hot cakes, beans, bacon and black coffee, but
Jack made a hearty meal on these frontier delicacies, after which he
was informed that his pony was at the door.
His landlord, whose name, by the way, was Jerry Dolittle, refused to
take a cent from the boy, and told him that when the Rangers came that
way next his old friend, Captain Atkinson, could return him the pony.
The greater part of the population of Go ’long had accompanied Jack
about a mile on his way, but soon he was ambling along alone with
a straight road in front of him. Naturally his mind was busy with
speculations as to what had occurred in the camp during his long
absence from it.
“Good old Walt! Dear old Ralph! Won’t they be glad to see me!” he
mused as he rode along across the plains; “won’t I be glad to see them,
too! Gracious, what a lot we shall have to talk about! I won’t blame
them if they don’t believe half of it. I can hardly believe it myself
sometimes, and that’s a fact.”
Between San Mercedes and Go ’long the rough road led through one of
those peculiarly desolate ranges of hills common in that part of our
country. As Jack’s pony began to mount into the recesses of these
gloomy, barren hills, the lad knew that he had come a dozen miles or so
from the Go ’long hotel.
The road wound along the bottom of the steep, sandy gullies, which
were in some places streaked gorgeously with strata of various colors,
red, blue and bright orange. Above burned a sky of brilliant blue. It
would have made a splendid subject for the canvas of an impressionistic
painter.
Jack knew that somewhere within these hills he ought to meet the
daily stage that ran between San Mercedes and Go ’long. At least, such
had been the information given him before he set out from the latter
place. He was quite anxious to see it, as on his lonely ride he had
not encountered a human face. The solitary nature of the barren hills
through which he was now riding depressed him, too, with a sense of
remoteness and lonesomeness.
As Jack rode he commented to himself on the rugged character of the
scenery. The road, which would have hardly been dignified with the name
of a trail in the east, crawled along the side of the bare hills, in
some places overhanging gloomy canyons.
“This must be a dangerous place to drive a stage,” thought Jack as he
passed by a big rock and found himself traversing a bit of road which
bordered the edge of a mountain spur, with a precipice on one side and
a deep canyon on the other.
In fact, had the lad known it, that particular bit of road was reputed
to be about the worst even in that wild land. Should the horses make a
misstep on the trail, instant death to every occupant of the coach must
result.
There were few drivers, even the most reckless, that cared to go at
more than a snail’s pace over that stretch of road even with the
quietest team. True, the passage had been made on one occasion at
night, but that was for a wild and foolish bet and the authorities had
put a stop to any more such practices. So that Jack was not far out
when he mentally appraised that bit of road as being as dangerous and
nasty a track to negotiate as he had ever seen; and Jack had seen a
good deal of the wild southwest.
The boy had passed the dangerous bit of road and was jogging along in a
deep divide between two ranges, when he was startled by a sudden sound
right ahead of him.
It was unmistakably a shot.
A rifle shot, too, the boy judged. He spurred forward rapidly, not
knowing well just what to expect when he should round a curve in the
road just ahead.
It did flash into his mind that his landlord at Go ’long had spoken of
the coach being held up occasionally, but Jack had placed little stock
in the stories. In fact, he rather inclined to think that old Jerry was
telling them with the idea of getting a rise out of a Tenderfoot.
Still, there were a few mines in that part of the country and
occasionally gold was shipped through to Go ’long, which was not far
from the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
But Jack had only made a few paces forward on his quickened mount when
three other shots rang out in rapid succession.
“Now I am perfectly sure there is trouble on the trail ahead!”
exclaimed Jack to himself, urging his pony forward at a yet faster gait.
The idea of personal danger did not enter Jack’s head, although the
scene that he beheld as he swept round the curve on his galloping pony
might well have alarmed an older hand than he.
Coming toward him at a hard gallop was the Go ’long coach. Its six
horses were in a lather of perspiration, and the coach was swaying
wildly from side to side.
From the top of the coach a fusilade was being fired at three men in
pursuit of the vehicle. These latter appeared to be returning the fire
with good will.
At almost the same moment that his eye took in these details Jack
became aware that, besides the driver of the stage, there were three
other occupants on the roof.
These were Captain Atkinson of the Rangers, Ralph Stetson and Walt
Phelps.
As he perceived all this Jack drew his pony back on his haunches and
waited whatever might turn up, for it was his determination to aid his
friends.