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CHAPTER IX
THE LONE RANCHO
Well, that was an odd meal, that refection of water-soaked biscuit and canned corned beef, with flood water as a beverage. Perhaps in all the adventures of the Border Boys, when in after years they came to recall them, no scene stood out quite so strikingly.
For one thing, Coyote Pete alone, of the party, possessed any sort of wardrobe. The professor was clad in his “barber pole” pajamas. Ralph boasted a shirt and Walt Phelps possessed the same with the addition of a pair of socks, which latter hardly fulfilled requirements so far as a covering for his nether limbs was concerned.
From time to time the Border Boys had to look at each other and burst out laughing. Only the professor viewed the matter in a serious light.
“Suppose we should meet some ladies,” he asked indignantly.
“Reckon thar ain’t many of ’em hereabouts,” ventured Coyote, spreading a big slice of beef on a bit of soggy bread. “The burros is ther only representatives of the gentle sex fer a good many miles, I opinion.”
The burros, relieved of their packs, which had been swept away, wagged their ears appreciatively at this, and continued browsing on the short, coarse grass which grew in patches here and there, and which the boys were delighted to see seemed also to be palatable to the horses.
Ralph and the others had already related how the terrified animals had been recaptured without difficulty early that day. In fact, a circumstance which has often been noted was their good fortune, namely, that panic-stricken horses in lonely, wild countries, will actually seek human companionship, – provided, of course, that they have already been domesticated. As for the burros, their loud “hee-haws” had resounded all night.
Ralph also explained how the idea of the mirror heliograph came to him. The lad who, as has been explained, was a bit of a dandy, was horrified to discover the abbreviated state of his wardrobe. But a search of his shirt pocket revealed his pocket-mirror with its folding brush and comb fittings. The railroad king’s son had at once set to work to make himself presentable about the head at least, and was combing his hair neatly and wondering how Jack and Pete had fared, when the sun caught the mirror and it flashed blindingly into his eyes. This gave him the idea of flashing it in all directions in the hope that the others, if within sight, would catch its glint. Then came the happy thought of telegraphing with the bit of glass by alternately covering and uncovering it. The idea had met with the warm approval of the professor and Walt Phelps, although, perhaps, even they had not been over sanguine of results.
“Well,” said Jack at length, after the events of the night and the following incidents had been discussed and re-discussed, “what are we going to do now?”
“Get clothes,” cried Ralph, without an instant’s hesitation, regarding his bare legs disparagingly.
“By all means, yes,” agreed the professor.
Coyote Pete grinned.
“Jack,” said he, “will you be so kind as ter step ter the telephone and tell the Blue Front Store to send up a few samples of men’s furnishings?”
All but the professor burst into a roar of laughter at this sally.
“At any rate,” suggested Walt Phelps, “we’re not likely to get held up.”
“Not so sure about that,” said the professor, “I have the money belt containing most of our finances around my waist. I always sleep with it there.”
“Hooray!” shouted the boys, who, up to that moment had not once thought of the important question of finances. It struck them now with sobering force.
“By George!” cried Jack, “if it hadn’t been for your foresight, professor, we might have been penniless as well as wardrobeless.”
“That’s right,” agreed Coyote Pete, “and ther chance that you’d stand of being helped out by the greasers would be about ther same as a snowflake ’ud have on a red-hot cook stove.”
“My idea is to lose no time in striking out for a town or village where we can get some clothes, even if they are only Mexican garments,” announced Jack.
“And food, too,” put in Walt Phelps, who liked to get his three meals a day, “we’ll be on starvation diet if we don’t stock up on that.”
After more discussion it was agreed to follow up the dry bed of the river, as the professor’s map showed a small village some distance up a stream which, though unnamed on the map, seemed to be the one on whose banks they now were. This decision reached, no time was lost in mounting. There was no saddling to be done, for the saddles had been swept off with most of the rest of their outfit.
“If you ever catch me camping in the dry bed of a river again you are welcome to hang me to a sour apple tree,” grumbled Walt Phelps, as he mounted.
“I reckon I’m ter blame fer it all,” volunteered Coyote Pete, “but I never thought as how that far-off storm would affect us in the plains. That must have bin a jim-dandy of a cloudburst.”
“I’d hate to have been any closer to it than we were,” laughed Jack. “If we had been, we’d have been going yet, I imagine.”
“I heard of a cloudburst once that did some good, though,” struck in Pete; “ther thing happened to a friend of mine in Californy. He wuz a miner, Jefferson Blunt by name.
“Wall, sir, Jeff had struck such all-fired bad luck up on the Stanislaus River that he’d about concluded to pull out for other regions when, all of a sudden, one night up came a storm, and in the middle of it there come the all-firedest cloudburst that Jeff had ever heard of. It picked up his cabin and floated Jeff off down the river, a-going like a blue streak. He thought every minute that he’d hear Gabriel’s trumpet and see ther golden stairs, but that little old cabin was well built and watertight, and it floated like a boat.
“It must hev been hours, Jeff says, afore he felt ther thing give a bump and stop. As soon as he dared he opened ther door and peeked out. He wuz in a part uv ther country he’d never seen. It was all cliffs and big trees and very imposing, and ther like of that, – that ‘imposing’ is Jeff’s word.
“Wall, Jeff he steps out of his sea-going shack and looks about him, and ther first thing he sees is a big streak of ore just a-glitter with gold and stuck, like a band of yaller ribbon along ther cliff face above his head.
“Jeff had bin so unlucky that first he thinks it’s jes’ fool’s gold and not the real article. But he soon convinces himself thet he’s struck it rich at last. Wall, ter make a long story short, Jeff files a claim and in a few y’ars is a rich man, and what d’ye s’pose he called ther mine?”
“‘The Cloud Burst,’ of course!” cried Jack.
“How’d yer guess it?” asked Pete. “But yer right, and thet’s ther only cloudburst I ever hearn’ of, thet brought anybody any luck.”
“Personally, if I could find a pair of trousers,” wailed the professor, “I should esteem their possession almost above even such a lucky discovery as you have related.”
“I think I’d trade it right now for a porter-house steak and trimmings, brown gravy and green corn, and – ”
“See here,” put in Ralph, with assumed indignation, “if you don’t shut up I’ll, I’ll – ”
“Go right home,” chuckled Walt teasingly; “you’d be a fine sight in that rig. I’ll bet the folks back east would have you put in the calaboose.”
But by noon the gay spirits of the boys were considerably toned down. No sign of a town had yet come in sight and they were all hot, hungry and tired. The odd procession, with the burros tagging along behind, looked disconsolate enough as it followed the windings of the river. The shallow aftermath of the flood steamed and simmered under the hot sun, sending up unpleasant odors, – yet they had to drink it or go without.
By way of cheering the party up, Coyote Pete began to sing – or rather wail – in the high-pitched voice affected by cow-punchers singing to their cattle:
“O-ho-wa-hay da-own upon the Su-wahanee River,
Fa-har, fa-har a-way – ”
But before he could begin the next line Ralph struck in with:
“There’s where our pants are floating ever;
There’s where they’re gone to stay!”
In the general roar of laughter which followed, the “grouch” which had settled down on the tired wayfarers vanished like the spring snow under a burst of sunlight.
With a shout the boys, their troubles forgotten in an outburst of that good nature that makes the whole world kin, plunged forward, their shirt tails flying.
“Yip-yip-ye-ee!”
The joyous yell filled the air. And then it broke off into a real cheer, for, on surmounting the summit of a small eminence, they saw below them, not more than a mile off, a small adobe house of unusual type, for it had two stories. It was surrounded by a grove of green willows which delighted the eye tired by the endless gray-green stretches of grease-wood savannahs.
Even the dignified professor joined in the enthusiasm, and in a minute a cavalcade was bearing down on the place at breakneck speed. As they neared it in a thunder of hoofs and a cloud of yellow dust, a door opened and the figure of a gaunt Mexican, with long, shaggy, black hair hanging straight and lank to his shoulders, stepped out. His next move halted the leaders of the party abruptly.
He jerked a long-barreled rifle to his shoulder and pointed it threateningly.
“Mira rurales!” he yelled to some one within the house.
“No rurales! Americanos!” cried Coyote Pete.
The effect was magical. The man’s startled air changed, and with a sheepish smile he stepped forward as Jack and Ralph, who were in advance, drew rein.
“What did he mean by rurales, I wonder?” asked Ralph of Jack in a low tone as the others loped up.
“Why, rurales are a species of police. Rangers, they are called sometimes. They are wild chaps, mostly recruited from the ranks of brigands and highwaymen. The government pays them a high figure to be good and keep law and order.”
“But this man seemed to fear them.”
“Maybe he has reason to. But we can’t be particular. At any rate, we are a strong enough party to look after our own hands. But see, here comes his wife. I guess, after all, he is nothing more unlawful than a cattle rancher in a small way, who perhaps, once-in-a-while takes an unbranded calf or two from his neighbor’s estates.”
The woman who joined the man, who by this time had set down the rifle, was a stout, slatternly-looking creature in a greasy cotton wrapper. She shot out a few rapid words in a low voice to the other, who replied in equally low tones. So far as Jack, who was closest, could judge, the woman seemed to be protesting against something, and the man stilling her objections.
Coyote Pete as spokesman now advanced, and in Spanish asked if they could obtain lodging and refreshment for themselves and their stock.
CHAPTER X
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.”
