AFTER MIDNIGHT.
To their astonishment, the man seemed to hesitate. They had judged from
the poverty-stricken look of his place and belongings that he would
jump at the chance to make some money easily. But it seemed that this
was not the case.
While the fellow still hesitated, glancing covertly at the newcomers,
the professor did a foolish thing. He exhibited his money belt and
tapping it made it give forth the suggestive jingle of coins. Coyote
Pete’s expression grew angry for a moment, but he checked his chagrin
at the professor’s foolish move.
But the exhibition of the party’s financial solidity seemed to have
decided the ill-favored Mexican and his wife, for after some more
parley, which somehow appeared to Jack to be merely for form’s sake,
they agreed to shelter the party and their stock at two dollars each,
Mexican, which is equivalent to one dollar of our money.
“Cheap enough,” said Jack, as ten minutes later they turned their stock
loose in the corral and watched them attack with wholesome appetites
the hay stack in the center of the enclosure.
“May be dear enough before we get through,” thought Coyote Pete to
himself.
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.”