TRAPPED!

Cautiously awakening his companions one by one, Jack told them of his adventures while in the pig pen.

“The scoundrels!” exclaimed the professor, “we must act at once.”

“Now hold your horses,” drawled Coyote Pete in the easy tone he always adopted when danger was near, “it ain’t our move yet. If I ain’t very much mistaken we’ll have all the action we want in a very short time, too. As a first step I’d suggest we bar that door yonder,—the one that Jack sneaked out of—I see it’s got a good big latch on the inside. In that way we’ll head off an attack frum thar, an’ we’ll only have the trap door from below to look after.”

The heavy bar being noiselessly placed in its hasps, Pete outlined his further plans.

“They’ll figger we are asleep,” he said, “but it ain’t likely they’ll jump us till they’ve sent someone up to make sure. It’s our play then ter git back on the straw and all snore as natural as possible.”

“What then?” asked Walt Phelps in rather an alarmed tone. “We’ve only got one rifle.”

“That’s so, consarn it,” grunted Pete, “wall, we’ll hev ter do ther best we can an’—hush, hyar comes the advance guard now!”

In the room below they could hear cautious footsteps. Evidently Ramon had lost no time in hatching out his plans.

“Lie down, everybody, and sham sleep as hard as yer can,” ordered Pete in a low, tense whisper, “our lives may depend on it.”

The order was obeyed none too soon, for before many seconds had passed they could hear the creaking of the ladder as someone mounted it. Presently, from one half-closed eye, Jack perceived a head poked upward through the trap in the floor. By the light which streamed up from below he saw that it was the cranium of the red-headed man whom he was pretty sure was the author of the warning message which had been carried into their camp.

The man stood still as a statue for perhaps five minutes. During the tense moments Jack’s heart beat as if it would break through his ribs. It was not fear, but intense excitement that thrilled him. The moment was at hand when they would be engaged in a desperate game against terrible odds. What would be the result?

Having apparently satisfied himself that they all slept soundly, the scout of the outlaws descended once more, the ladder creaking under his weight.

“It’s goin’ ter come in a few minutes, now,” whispered Pete, rousing himself, “gimme the rifle, Walt. How many cartridges is in it?”

“Five,” was the disheartening reply.

“An’ we ain’t got another one between us,” moaned Pete. “Wall, it can’t be helped, as the hawk said to ther chicken when he carried her of, leavin’ her numerous family behind. Now, I’m going ter git right by this here opening and the first head that pokes through it gits a crack. We’ll save the cartridges for an emergency.”

“An emergency!” exclaimed Ralph, thinking that if ever there was an emergency the present situation had already arrived at that stage.

They could now hear whispers below, and worse still, the ominous click and slide of repeating rifles being got in readiness for use.

“There’s some old furniture piled in that corner,” exclaimed Jack suddenly, “couldn’t we use it to block the trap with?”

“A good idea when the worst of it comes,” assented Pete, “but we’ve got ter keep ther trap open so as to disable as many as possible before we have to come to close quarters.”

The next ten minutes,—for though it seemed like the same number of hours, it was not in reality any more,—was the most painful period the boys ever recalled having put in. From the room below came furtive sounds, but they were so soft and infrequent that it looked as if the main body must have withdrawn further to discuss the attack.

“Say, let’s rush them. I can’t stand this any longer.”

It was Ralph who spoke, but Coyote laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Easy, lad, easy,” he admonished in a low breath, almost in the lad’s ear, “it won’t be long before they start tuning up for the performance, and it ain’t goin’ ter be a funeral march for us neither.”

As he spoke, Pete “clubbed” their solitary rifle, holding it by the barrel. At the same instant a door beneath quietly opened and closed, and the next minute the ladder creaked as a foot was placed upon it.

“Up with you, Miguel,” they heard Ramon whisper, “here’s the knife. Remember the money belt is on the old man. Jose, you follow him closely, and Migullo, you come after. That is all it is safe to trust on the ladder at one time. I myself will come later.”

“The cowardly greaser,” breathed Coyote, with one of his increasingly frequent lapses into plain English, “I guess he’ll feel less like climbing than ever when he sees what’s going to happen to the first arrival. It’s a good thing for us they can’t come but one at a time. In that way they’ll have no chance of rushing us.”

As he finished speaking the boys felt the peculiar thrill that comes before the enactment of some exciting deed. A black head poked itself cautiously through the trap and as it did so Coyote raised his rifle stock, swung it, and brought it down with crushing force on the head of the intruding wretch. He fell backward with a crash, and landed in a heap in the room below. Under ordinary circumstances, not one of the Border Boys would have stood for such drastic measures. But they knew that now it was their life or the Mexican’s. Nevertheless they felt relieved as they heard the fellow stagger to his feet and begin cursing in picturesque Mexican.

“Diablo! The fiend himself is in those Gringoes,” he raved, “I think they have broken every bone in my body.”

“More fool you, for not being more cautious,” growled Ramon, and then, raising his voice, he shouted up in English:

“It will be of no use to you to resist. I have a superior force and if you injure another of my men when I do get you it will go hard with you. Surrender and give me the money and no harm will come to you with the exception of Jack Merrill. I mean to deal with him as I choose.”

“When you get him, you dog,” shouted Coyote Pete, “which won’t be yet or for a long time to come,—ah! you would, would you!”

As he spoke, the cow-puncher had projected his head thoughtlessly over the edge of the trap door. A bullet aimed to kill, which, however, whizzed harmlessly by his ear, was the result. The missile sang through the air and buried itself in one of the rafters.

“We’ll give you all you want of that directly,” hailed Coyote Pete, essaying what is sometimes called “a bluff,” “we have plenty of rifles and ammunition, and we can use them, too, so bring on your next man.”

“You shall smart for this, you Gringo pig,” cried Ramon from below. Evidently the complete failure of his first attack and Coyote’s bantering tone had driven him beside himself with fury.

“Oh, I’m a smart fellow, anyhow,” chuckled Coyote Pete, “come on. One cigar for every head I crack. That’s the way they do it at the county fair with the Jolly Nigger Dodger, and I don’t know as you greasers have anything on him.”

“Rush up and bring them down out of that!” screamed Ramon furiously. But the sharp lesson they had just had seemed to hold the Mexicans in check. Evidently the Gringoes above were not to be trifled with. Ramon strode up and down the room stamping and raging and biting his nails. Altogether he was in a fit of black Latin rage which is not so very different from the tantrums we occasionally find in our own nurseries.

“Why not come up yourself, Ramon?” was Coyote’s next thrust. “If your head is burning with such blazing thoughts it must need ventilating.”

But the Mexican, wisely enough perhaps, did not reply. Instead, he called down the men from the ladder, seeing, in spite of his rage, that it was useless to waste his followers in that fashion.

“We’d better bottle up the trap door now,” said Pete, as the voices below became more inaudible. “Get that old furniture, boys, and we’ll make things snug.”

“Here’s an old table top that might fit over the hole,” said Jack, bringing the article in question, “it’ll just fit too, and it’s solid mahogany.”

“Just the thing, boy. Now quickly bring all the stuff you can to pile on it.”

“Say, there’s a pile of big stones over here where the chimney goes through,” reported Ralph presently, “how would those do for weights?”

“Fine. Bring them right along. Your Uncle Dudley will pile them.”

One would have said from the cow-puncher’s boisterous spirits that he was in perfect security instead of a situation the danger of which he, perhaps, more fully realized than any of his companions, comparatively inexperienced as they were.

One by one the lads carried the big stones over and they were piled on the table top.

“That will do,” said Coyote at length, “they’ll never get that up unless they use dynamite.”

“What do you suppose they’ll do now?” wondered Jack as, the work over, they sat down about the newly covered hole.

“Try rushing that back door, most likely. Suppose you take a peek out of the window. It gives a view of the steps and it’s too small for the varmint ter git through.”

The small aperture, mentioned before, was quite high up in the wall, but, hoisted up by Ralph and Walt, Jack was able to rest his elbows on the sill and peer out. He did so cautiously, which was just as well, for, as the astute cow-puncher had surmised, the next attack must come from the back door. So much was evidenced by a view of the steps which were covered with dark forms advancing stealthily.

“We’ll give ’em another surprise party,” announced Pete when he had heard his young lieutenant’s report. “Jack, take the rifle while I guard the trap. There’s a chance they may try to rush the two places at once. Aim through the keyhole, and when you think it time to, let ’em have it. Don’t be scared of hurting them. Remember it’s our lives or theirs.”

Feeling a bit squeamish, but far too good a soldier to attempt to disobey orders, or even question them, Jack did as he was directed. Placing the muzzle of the rifle to the keyhole he waited with beating heart the first signal that their enemies had ascended the stairway and were actually on the balcony outside the door.

He had not long to wait. Presently there came a scuffling, scratching sound without, as the Mexicans fumbled about the door, evidently feeling for a latch of some sort. With a hasty prayer that he might not inflict a mortal wound, Jack awaited the right moment, as he judged it, and fired.

There was instantly a loud yell of pain from without.

“Good for you, boy,” grunted old Pete grimly “you brung him down.”