The Border Boys on the Trail

"Same here," rejoined Ralph, pressing up alongside of him.

The two boys urged their ponies to an easy lope. As for some miles to come there was no necessity for them to travel with the main body of the men, they kept it up till they were some distance ahead. Mr. Merrill had decided that there was no danger to be apprehended till the mountains were actually reached, and his consent had been gained before the boys loped off alone.

Suddenly another rider spurred into view, coming from the opposite direction to the boys and the Merrill party.

"Walt Phelps!" cried Jack with a glad shout.

The other returned the greeting and soon learned the news from Agua Caliente.

Soon the three boys were riding forward together. Walter Phelps, it appeared, had heard rumors that the rustlers had been abroad in the night, and had risen early and saddled for a ride to the Merrill ranch. He was much concerned when he learned of the rancher's loss, and volunteered to join the party.

To this Mr. Merrill entered no objection, and the three boys rode side by side all the morning. The noonday camp was made in a small arroyo immediately below a frowning spur of the Hachetas. The foothills had been growing more and more rugged as the advance was made, and now the party might fairly be said to be in the mountains themselves. By skirting two more spurs they would be in Grizzly Pass in less than an hour. The character of the scenery was gloomy and grand in the extreme. The rugged and mysterious mountains, clothed darkly, almost to their summits, with scrub-oak, fir and piñon trees, seemed to Ralph to promise all kinds of adventure.

The noonday meal was a hasty one. As soon as it was dispatched the party pressed on without pausing for further rest. The road now grew so rough that the trail of the stolen horses, which had at first been plain and clear, could no longer be seen. The Mexican guide, closely guarded by Bud Wilson and a cowboy named Coyote Pete, rode in front. Close behind came Mr. Merrill, the three boys and the professor, and in their rear followed the half-dozen cowboys who formed the remainder of the expedition.

"Are we getting near the place now, Jose?" asked Mr. Merrill, addressing their guide by the name he had given, about the middle of the afternoon.

"Si, señor," rejoined the guide, who soon after directed the cavalcade toward the mouth of the pass through which he said the stolen horses had been driven.

If the mountains had been gloomy and sinister to the view while riding along the base of them, the northern entrance to Grizzly Pass itself threw a damper over the spirit of even Coyote Pete, who had hitherto larked about and displayed a great fund of high spirits. The dark wall of the cañon rose perpendicularly to a height of more than a hundred feet on the right side of the rough trail. At the other hand was a deep and dark abyss at the bottom of which a hidden river roared. Beyond the formidable pit reared another frowning rampart of sheer rock. Deep down could be heard the murmuring of water.

"That's the overflow from the big dam," explained Walter Phelps, pointing over into the sonorous depths.

"The dam is up in this direction, then?" inquired Ralph.

"Yes, it is located in a small cañon, off to the right of the pass. I'll show you the place when we reach it."

For some time they rode on without a word. The deep gloom and oppressive silence was not encouraging to conversation. The sound of a stone dislodged by a pony's hoof in that dismal place caused several of the party to give a nervous start more than once.

Suddenly the right-hand wall of the cañon opened out – as they rounded a sharp promontory of rock – and another deep chasm cut abruptly into Grizzly Pass almost at right angles. The deep rift which this caused across the trail had been bridged by a span of rough logs which crossed the intersecting cañon at a height of fully three hundred feet. A scene of wilder and more impressive grandeur than the cañon presented at the point they had now reached not one of the party had ever beheld. Even a whisper went echoing and reverberating among the gloomy rocks in startling contrast to the brooding silence of the spot.

The frowning black walls, the melancholy-looking trees clinging to the almost perpendicular walls, the bottomless chasm, and the deep dusk of late afternoon, all combined to make it the most oppressive scene into which any of the boys had ever penetrated.

They had reached the bridge and the feet of the Mexican guide's horse were upon it, when from behind them there came a sudden startling sound.

The loud report of a rifle, followed by another and another, re-echoed behind them seemingly high up among the rocks.

Bang! Bang! Bang! came the explosions.

Instantly, Mr. Merrill and Bud wheeled their horses sharply and faced round toward the danger. At the same instant Coyote Pete set up a yell:

"Buncoed, by ginger!"

He pointed ahead as he dashed across the bridge in pursuit of their treacherous guide, who was galloping off up the cañon at top speed. He had taken advantage of the confusion to escape. Without an instant's thought as to what they were doing, the three boys pressed spurs to their animals and thundered across the flimsy structure after the cow-puncher. The professor's horse became unmanageable in the excitement. The creature gave one tremendous plunge and with the unhappy scientist half on and half off its back, dashed across the bridge after the others.

In the meantime, Mr. Merrill and the cow-punchers had galloped back to where the firing still kept up. They all feared that they had been led into an ambush, and that the attack was from the rear.

"That yellow-skinned varmint betrayed us, after all," ground out Bud Wilson, as they dashed back. "Those shots were meant for us, and came from Black Ramon's men."

"Yes, we were wrong to trust him," rejoined Mr. Merrill, "but now we've been led into a trap, we've got to fight out of it the best way we can."

"You bet we will, boss," was Bud Wilson's rejoinder.

The firing on the hillside had now ceased, and the little cavalcade came to a halt.

"Not a soul to be seen," exclaimed Mr. Merrill.

"Well, that's funny," commented Bud. "This is where the firing was, for sure."

"Yep, right up above there," rejoined another cowboy, Sam Ellis, pointing upward on the hillside.

"What do you make of it, boss?" was Bud's next query.

"I don't know what to think," rejoined Mr. Merrill. "Perhaps we were mistaken, and the firing we heard came from hunters up on the hillside."

"Hunters! Not much chance of that," said Bud grimly. "Hunters who made all that racket would soon scare all the game in the country away. No, boss, you'll have to guess again. By Jee-hosophat!"

Slinking through the underbrush far above them, Bud's keen eyes had discovered the furtive form of a man who by his gay sash and high-coned hat seemed to be a Mexican. To think, with Bud, was to act. His rifle jerked up to his shoulder as if automatically. As the weapon cracked sharply the man on the hillside gave a loud scream. Throwing his hands helplessly above his head, the next instant he came plunging and crashing downward through the brush.

"Got him!" gritted out Bud, grimly blowing through the barrel of his rifle to clear the smoke.

"Yip-ee!" yelled the cow-punchers at the successful shot.

Mr. Merrill looked grave.

"I didn't want any bloodshed, Bud," he said. "The boys – great heavens! where are they?"

He had wheeled suddenly and discovered that they were missing.

"Yes, and where's Pete, and where's the professor?" chimed in Bud.

Alarm showed on every countenance.

In the excitement, the absence of the members of the party who had spurred onward over the bridge had not been noticed. But now blank looks were exchanged. If they had galloped on – as there seemed to be no doubt they must have – by that time they were probably in serious straits.

"Wait till I get that varmint, and then I'll be with you," cried Bud, swinging off his pony.

The cow-puncher plunged up the hillside a few feet and picked up the Mexican, who had rolled down the steep incline to within a short distance of the trail.

"Is he dead?" asked Mr. Merrill anxiously, for the Mexican showed no sign of life.

"Not dead, but pretty near it," Bud rapidly diagnosed, ripping open the Mexican's shirt. "The bullet went right neighborly to his heart."

With surprising strength for one of his wiry build, Bud picked up and slung the wounded man over the saddle before him with a grim idea in his head that at some future time the fellow might be needed.

"Now then, boys!" cried Mr. Merrill, "those others may be in a bad pickle by this time. It may have been the purpose of this trap to get them over the bridge. It's up to us to get them out of it. I know you'll do all that lies in your power to help."

"You bet we will, boss," spoke up Ellis.

"Yip-yip-y-ee-ee!"

The cow-puncher's wild yell came from the bronzed throats with a will. The next instant the little cavalcade was off, clattering up the trail toward the bridge.

They swept rapidly round the small bluff of rock which had hidden the bridge from them while they had been investigating the mysterious shots. As the trail came full in view, a groan of disappointment burst from them.

The pass beyond the bridge was empty of life.

Of their friends there was not a trace.

A terrible feeling that the worst had happened filled every heart.

"Come on, boys, we'll get 'em if we have to go to Mexico City for 'em," yelled Bud defiantly. "Wow!"

"That's the stuff – wow!" yelled the others.

With his exultant cry still in his throat, and his arm still waving, Bud drove in his spurs. He was about to dash upon the bridge, when suddenly the structure heaved upward before his eyes and the whole world seemed to turn to red flame. A fiery wind singed his face.

There was a roar that filled the air, the sky – everything. The earth rocked and breathed hotly under the cow-pony's feet. Bud felt his broncho suddenly fall from under him and himself dropping like a stone into space. Desperately he clutched, grasped something solid, and drew himself up. Then, everything went out from his senses and the whole world grew dark.

CHAPTER VII.

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.

CHAPTER VIII.

BLACK RAMON'S MISSION

As darkness fell they emerged from the gloomy shadows of the divide into a country not unlike that on the American side of the range. Foot-hills covered with scanty growth, and here and there a clump of scraggly cottonwoods intersected by deep gullies, and dry watercourses, were the chief features of the scenery. There was little conversation among the prisoners as they rode along, nor indeed did their position bear discussing. Pete's mind was busy with self-reproach, Jack's with trying to devise some means of escape, Walt Phelps' with what his father would imagine had become of him, and Ralph's and the professor's with real alarm.

"I am a man of considerable reading," muttered the professor gloomily, "yet our present position goes to show that all the book-learning in the world is of no use to men in our position."

"No, I guess Coyote Pete, or Jack Merrill, or Walt Phelps could get us out of this a whole lot quicker than all the classical authors that ever classicked," said Ralph disgustedly.

"I have a fine library at home in the East," said the professor suddenly, and with the air of a man in whose mind a great hope had sprung up. "Do you imagine that this Black Ramon, or whatever his name is, would consider taking that in exchange for our liberty?"

"I'm afraid not," moaned Ralph disconsolately. Yet he could not forbear a smile at the old man's simplicity.

"Library," grunted Pete, who had overheard the professor's remark; "the only kind of library he'd have any use for would be an edition de luxury of a complete issue of greenbacks, bound in calf and horse hide."

"Where can they be taking us?" wondered Jack, as hour after hour passed, and the procession still wound on along the foot of the mountains.

"I've no idea," rejoined Walt Phelps, "I've never been on this side of the range before."

"I was over here oncet," said Pete, "after some strays, but I don't recollect this part of the country."

"How far have we come?" inquired Ralph, more for the sake of saying something than anything else.

"Not more than ten miles, I guess," rejoined Jack; "at night, and among these foothills, distances are very deceptive."

"They ain't so deceptive by half as these greasers," growled Pete. "I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing this instant than pounding the stuffing out of that Jose."

"I can't think why father trusted him," exclaimed Jack.

"Why, that was natural enough," was Pete's rejoinder. "There didn't look to be a chance of his playing us false. If it hadn't been for that fusillade behind us we'd never have lost him. As it is, if only I hadn't lost my head and gone gallivanting off arter the critter, we'd have been safe now."

"Always providing that nothing has happened to father and the others," said Jack sadly.

"Yes. But cheer up, lad. Your father and Bud Wilson are two of the best plainsmen I know. They wouldn't go blundering blindfold into no trap, you can bet."

"I hope not," rejoined Jack, "but that explosion sounded ominous to me. If the bridge is gone they may have gone with it."

"I don't think so," replied Pete. "Sounds travel a long distance in a narrow-walled pass like that, and the sound of a horse going over a bridge can be heard a big ways off at any time. If they'd been on the bridge when the explosion occurred we'd have heard their hoofbeats, anyhow, before they touched off the stuff."

"Well, I'm not going to give up hope till I know," said Jack bravely, though at the moment, had he not known the uselessness of it, he could have given way entirely to his apprehensions.

Suddenly, on rising from a dark gully, they came full in view of a low white building with a tower at one end. The rising moon tipped the structure with silver and showed its every outline plainly, the black shadows sharply contrasted to its white walls and tiled roof.

"The old San Gabriel Mission!" exclaimed Pete, as his eyes fell on the venerable structure. "I thought I began to recognize the lay of the country a way back."

"You've been here before, then?" asked Ralph.