THE MOUNTAIN TRAIL.
Apparently there was no fight in Pizzo, for he did what he was told.
Jim made the trio go in single file and followed with his revolvers
while Ellen staggered under the weight of the heavy rifles. Jim mounted
first and took the two rifles from the girl, which he laid across his
pommel, intending to throw them into the first chasm they came to. He
made Pizzo aid the girl into her saddle.
"I'm going to ride astride," she declared. "Don't look at me, Jim.
We've got to make good time, and I can't ride fast while sitting
sidewise."
The two disarmed bandits were a problem, for if left behind they would
bring the band quickly on the heels of the fugitives. He decided to
force them to run ahead of the horses. He made Pizzo lead the fourth
horse and ride ahead; he followed, and Ellen brought up the rear.
At a hundred yards he was able to dispose of the rifles by dropping
them into a small stream, and then, keeping a sharp eye upon the men
ahead, he ordered them to move faster. He remembered the rocky defile
through which they had entered the valley, but from that point he was
at Pizzo's mercy, for they had traveled in darkness the night before.
At a distance of two miles he dismissed the disarmed soldiers. He
calculated that the main force of the bandits must be two miles from
camp in the opposite direction, and it would take the pair an hour and
a half to reach them.
There was more danger that a force might be sent back to camp to see
what detained the general, but this possibility had to be chanced.
For an hour they climbed a narrow defile, and then they began to
descend. They were making much better time than upon the previous
night, due to Ellen's ability to travel faster, and Jim was hardly able
to credit that things were going to work out so easily.
Pizzo rode with shoulders hunched and head bowed, probably boiling with
fury and humiliation and plotting as hard as he was able. Occasionally
Jim threw a word back to Ellen, but he dared not look around. She
always answered cheerfully.
Two hours passed, and they were still traveling through mountainous and
bewildering country. Suspecting that Pizzo might be leading them by a
circuitous route toward his toiling followers, Jim shouted to him to
slow up, and rode closer to him so he could threaten him frequently and
at ease.
They were descending now, and the vegetation was changing from more
temperate growths to ferns and occasional banana and bamboo thickets, a
sign they were approaching the coast country. A third hour. Ellen rode
up beside Jim, for the path had widened.
"I think we are pursued," she said. "Away up on that other mountain I
can see a long row of horsemen."
"How far back? I can't take my eyes off Pizzo."
"I think it's where we were about an hour ago."
"Faster!" he said tersely.
The bandits had grown suspicious, and sent a force back to the camp.
Finding it deserted, they had continued on until they met the two men
he had turned loose, and now--trouble. He figured they had ridden for
five hours the night before, from the point they left the automobile,
and it was still two hours off. If the pursuers were an hour behind and
the machine was still there, he and Ellen had a chance.
Pizzo was looking back. "You surrender now," he suggested. "My men soon
catch us."
"If they do, you won't be alive to see it. Ride faster!" he commanded.
He had to threaten Pizzo a dozen times, for the bandit was trying to
delay them, but they made better time. Another hour passed, and they
could not see the pursuers, who might be just around a bend or five or
ten miles back.
It was growing very hot, for the sun was directly overhead. However,
the traveling was easier now, the trail less difficult.
* * * * *
Jim was watchful lest the bandit lead them out of the only road to
safety, though there seemed to be no forks in the trail; but ten
minutes later they came to a side path, down which Pizzo turned his
horse's head.
"Wait a minute!" shouted Jim. "Halt!" He looked at the side path and
at the trail upon which they were. This trail was well marked and the
other very faint, yet still it might be the right one. However, Pizzo
would not take the proper road if he could help it, and he had turned
to the left.
"Back," Jim commanded. "Try that again, and I'll shoot you and risk
finding my way."
The look on Pizzo's face told him he had guessed correctly.
"Jim," called Ellen softly, "I saw the men behind just now. I don't
think they are two miles back. I saw them only for a moment, but there
are a lot of them."
"Gallop, you yellow dog, gallop!" Jim commanded fiercely; and Pizzo
galloped.
The trail was downhill and winding, but they followed it as fast as the
horses could be persuaded to go. Jim was in an agony. It couldn't be
possible they would be recaptured now, after coming so far.
Suddenly two men with straw hats and ragged whites, holding rifles,
appeared before them in the road a hundred feet ahead. With a shout,
Pizzo drove his horse to the right into the jungle through which they
were passing.
Jim fired at him and missed, and their guide was gone.
The riflemen were taking aim, but Jim's horse was plunging down on
them. Two shots rang out, and two more, and then Jim was upon them, gun
smoking. One of them fell--Jim couldn't miss at twenty feet--the other
ran into the bush.
Jim and Ellen galloped on, and now they heard firing behind them. He
looked back and saw several men on horseback on an elevation a quarter
of a mile back, who were firing as they rode. Too great a range now,
but the pursuers would soon be upon them. On, on, and they rode into
a clearing which Jim remembered. Upon the farther side of it was the
automobile. If it had gas--if it wasn't locked--
"Hurray, Ellen!" he shouted. "We are saved!"
He rode up to the car and jumped off his horse. Ellen almost fell
off. They climbed in. The bandit picket, who had taken to the jungle,
appeared on the opposite side of the clearing and leveled his rifle.
"Duck," Jim commanded. The bullet struck the steel side of the car with
a vicious _ping_, and so did half a dozen other bullets. But Jim had
the car started. The engine was roaring. He heard a great shouting up
the trail, which meant that Pizzo had rejoined his men; but now the car
was jolting along through the rough, camouflaged way to the highroad.
He dared not go fast--he had to be careful not to break a spring--and
the enemy was close behind.
There were many shots now. Ellen was crouching in the bottom of the
car, and he was bending as low as he dared. Suddenly the vegetation
blocked his path. He drove through it because he could do nothing else,
and it proved to be only a screen of loose branches of trees to conceal
the path from the highroad.
Out on the road at last. Bad as it was, he was traveling twenty-five
miles an hour, bumping and bouncing dangerously. For five minutes he
drove with set teeth, then he drew a long breath and looked down.
"Sit up, Ellen," he said. "It's all over. We're safe."
Ellen, however, had fainted, and he dared not stop until he had put
five or six miles between him and the pursuers.
By that time Ellen had recovered, and he lent her his right arm to help
her into the seat.
"Are we actually safe?" she murmured.
"We are, unless they have another car, and I doubt it very much. But
what the deuce is that?"
They had rounded a bend, and the road ahead was blocked with men on
horseback.
"Soldiers!" he exclaimed. "Ellen, here comes your boy friend Lopez and
his army."
"Lopez!" she said scornfully. "Don't speak of him."
"Well, we're safe, anyway."
"Thanks to you, and nobody else," she declared, gazing at him mistily.
Jim chuckled. "Ellen darling, this is Friday. There's a boat for New
York Monday. Think you can make it?"
She caught his big right arm in her two little hands and squeezed it.
"I wouldn't be surprised, dearest," she said.
THE END.