CHAPTER VII.
IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY.
"What happened, Bud?"
Mr. Merrill, stanching a wound in his head with his hand, sat uprighton the edge of the dark gorge across which a few moments before therehad been a bridge. Now there was none. Only sullen wisps of yellowishsmoke 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 theland company's dam down to the valley. The dam lay up the ca?on to thewest.
Bud Wilson was crawling about dazedly on his hands and knees. All aboutwere plunging horses and rock-wounded men. The still stupefied Budlooked up as the rancher impatiently repeated his question.
"_Dynamite!_--the yellow-skinned reptiles," he growled, "and if thatcharge had been touched off right we should all have been at the bottomof that gorge with my poor horse."
He gazed over the ragged, explosive-riven edge, and shuddered, as farbelow him he sighted a dark mass lying among the brush and trees at thebottom of the gulch.
"Yes, it was dynamite beyond a doubt," agreed the rancher; "but how didwe 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 andtouched it off too soon," he rejoined. "They're a jumpy lot, thesegreasers."
"Thank Heaven that none of us is seriously hurt," said Mr. Merrill,looking about him. "I do not believe that any one has suffered morethan a few cuts from flying rocks."
This proved to be the case. The escape of the party when the bridge hadbeen 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 wewheeled 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 deepthought. "Them fellows had the trap all set and calculated that when weheard the firing we should stop and hesitate--as we did. Well, that, Itake it, was the time that that charge should have been touched off,but somehow connections missed. We weren't on the bridge. That fellowwith the rifle fired too quick. Then, too, them boys and Pete takingoff after that treacherous varmint wasn't calculated on by them, inall probability, and what with one thing and another they missed theirguess on the first charge."
"And on the second, too, by Christmas!" chimed in Ellis. "There ain'ta pony missin' but the one you rode, Bud, and there ain't a man of ushurt; even that greaser you had on your saddle-bow got bucked off whenyour pony was blown over the edge."
"By the great horn spoon, that's right," said Bud, walking over towhere the wounded Mexican lay.
"Still unconscious," he said, after a brief examination. "If only hecould talk, boss," the cow-puncher added whimsically.
"That would do us no good, Bud," rejoined Mr. Merrill. "It would giveus no clue to the fate of my poor boy and the others."
"Wouldn't it, boss?" echoed Bud. "Wa'al, in my opinion this saffroncoyote here deserves careful keeping for future reference, for Ibelieve he holds the key to the whole mystery."
"Heaven grant he does," breathed Mr. Merrill, his heart sinking as hethought of the possible destiny of Jack and his friends. "Without hisaid I don't see what we are to do."
"Well," said Bud cheerfully, "ain't no good worryin'. We'll get 'em outof it all right, never fear, boss."
"Thanks, Bud, I hope we will," said Mr. Merrill, bravely putting hisanxiety from him as best he could. "But the thing to do now is to finda safe place to camp for the night. We should not be overtaken bydarkness 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 themgreasers."
Soon afterward, with Bud riding double behind Ellis, and Mr. Merrill'ssaddle bearing the wounded Mexican, the sorrowful party began thejourney back down the ca?on. With every sense and muscle aching foraction, they were compelled to await the decision of time. The clewto the attack, and the whereabouts of Black Ramon and his gang, layin the hands of one man, and that man was unable to speak. No wonderthat as they rode, the thought in Mr. Merrill's mind was to get medicalattendance for their wounded foe as soon as possible, and in themeantime 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 BorderBoys' minds had burned with but one thought. They must capture thetreacherous guide who, it appeared only too evidently, had led theminto a trap. As their mounts flew by a dense brush mass on the rocksat the farther side of the precipitous gorge, they had glimpsed for asecond a crouching figure. But such was their wish to catch up with thetreacherous Jose that they paid the figure no attention. Yet had theydone so, they might have prevented the destruction of the bridge. Thecrouching man was one of Black Ramon's followers, and in the brush wasconcealed the battery from which led the wires which were to blow upthe bridge.
"I'd give a new lariat right now to have my fingers on that sneakingcoyote's throat," gritted out Walt Phelps, as the ponies loped swiftlyalong.
A little ahead of the Border Boys, rode the large, angular figure ofCoyote Pete, bestriding his big, raw-boned bay with the careless easeof the old plainsman. The ends of his scarlet handkerchief whippedout behind his neck, and he gnawed his long, straw-colored mustachenervously as he kept his keen, blue eyes, with a maze of little desertfurrows round them, centred on the crouching figure of the Mexicanahead. The professor having by this time checked his horse andrecovered his equilibrium, gazed about as eagerly as the rest.
The treacherous Jose, however, seemed to have a good mount, for evenCoyote Pete's powerful bay, and the active little ponies bestrode bythe 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 fleshthere," grunted the cowboy, turning in his saddle without slackeningspeed.
"Say," said Walt, "we've come quite a distance, Pete, and there is nosign of the others. Don't you think it would be a good idea to turnback and see what has become of them?"
"Don't know but what it might," answered Pete, reining in his horsetill it was going ahead at a gentle, "single-footed" trot. He gave hismustache 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," rejoinedthe plainsman in a worried tone. "If any of Ramon's men are sneakingaround here now they've got us in a fine trap."
He pointed down the trail. A backward view of the way they had come wascut off by a projecting promontory of rock. For anything they knew tothe contrary, the trail behind them might be full of Mexicans, ready tocapture them.
"We're in a bad place for sure," agreed Walt Phelps, shoving back hissombrero and scratching his red thatch. "Let's be getting back. There'sno chance of catching that miserable Jose now, anyway."
"Yes, let's get back," agreed Ralph, who was beginning to feel anythingbut easy in his mind.
They wheeled their wiry little horses and Pete swung his big bay. Asthey faced about, a simultaneous exclamation of astonishment broke fromeach one of the party.
From behind the projection of rock there had suddenly appeared fivefigures. Slightly in advance of the others rode a tall man on amagnificent black horse, whom the party from the foothills, with theexception of the professor, had no difficulty in recognizing as BlackRamon himself.
With a quick exclamation, Pete reached for his revolvers, but Ramonchecked him with an eloquent wave of his hand behind him. Each of hisfollowers held a rifle, and these weapons covered the Border Boys andtheir older companions.
"Another move like that, Se?or Pete," said Black Ramon, "and four ofyour party are food for the
buzzards. I myself will attend to thefifth."
While Pete hesitated, the ruffian from across the border whipped out asilver-mounted pistol from his sash and held it leveled, while a sombersmile flitted across his countenance.
"Yesterday it was your turn--now it is mine," he said, turning to thealarmed Ralph.
At the same instant there sounded a sullen, booming roar, and the earthbeneath 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 thatbound you to your friends."
"You--you've blown up the bridge!" gasped out Jack, realizing what theother's words meant.
"Yes. It will be some time, I fancy, before the gorge is passable oncemore. In the meantime, you are to be my guests _across the border_."
As he spoke, a score more of the cattle-rustlers came clattering downthe trail, hidden behind the rock from which the others had appeared.They had been concealed there, as Pete now bitterly realized, whilethe Border Boys and the cow-puncher had blundered blindly into theMexican's trap.
"I'll never forgive myself, Jack," he said under his breath to therancher's son.
"Oh, pshaw, Pete, it wasn't your fault," rejoined Jack. "We'll findsome way out of it."
"I dunno," grunted Pete. "We're going across the border, and there'sprecious little law there but what you make for yourself."
A few moments later, resistance being worse than useless, the partyhad been relieved of its weapons, and with ten or more cattle-rustlersriding in front, and the rest trailing behind the prisoners, the ridethrough the pass was resumed.
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