WHERE STRATEGY WON OUT.

Their coming was viewed by a dozen swarthy faces thrust out of the schoolhouse windows. As the aeroplane drew near the building Lieut. Sancho raised his voice above the humming of the engine.

In a loud authoritative tone he called for attention.

“If that schoolhouse is not vacated inside of five minutes,” he snapped out, “I shall dynamite it.”

A derisive chorus of yells greeted this, although a few voices could be heard begging the officer to have mercy.

“Hand me that ‘bomb,’ Diaz,” ordered the officer as the aeroplane came in full view of the schoolhouse.

Seizing this opportunity, Lieut. Sancho manipulated the air craft with one hand while he apparently examined the “bomb” with deep attention. He took good care while doing this to handle it so that it might be plainly seen by the Mestizos.

The aeroplane continued its flight above the schoolhouse roof, and then, swinging round, was driven back again. As they came over for the second time Lieut. Sancho hailed the recalcitrants once more.

“Throw your rifles and weapons out of the windows or I’ll drop the bomb. The five minutes is almost up.”

This time there was no answer but a sullen roar. Apparently the occupants of the schoolhouse were quarreling among each other. The aeroplane was flown a short distance and then turned for another flight toward the schoolhouse.

“Here, take the wheel, Diaz,” ordered Lieut. Sancho. “I’m going to let them see that we mean business.”

With Lieut. Diaz at the wheel, his brother officer manipulated the “bomb” in truly alarming manner. Bending low over it and striking a match, he appeared to light its fuse. Then, holding on to a brace, he half rose out of his seat, and as they neared the schoolhouse he raised his arm as if poising the “bomb” before hurling it.

It was too much for the nerves of the besieged. With wild cries to Lieut. Sancho not to kill them, they began casting their rifles and revolvers out of the windows in a perfect hail. Lieut. Sancho appeared to stay his hand, but was still menacing.

“Todos! Todos!” (“All! All!”)

He shouted this as they thundered close above the schoolhouse roof. As he did so the schoolhouse door was opened and out rushed the terrified, demoralized Mestizos, who were swiftly made prisoners by the Federals without their offering more than a nominal resistance.

By the time the last had been captured, while the aeroplane drew close to the scene, from the town, whence the proceedings had been watched with interest, several citizens came running, now that all the danger of bullets seemed to be past.

“Well, after what I’ve seen,” declared Jack, “never tell me that the aeroplane isn’t any good in warfare. To–day it averted what might have been a bloody fight, and, as it was, not a man was even scratched, except in his feelings. By the way, Lieutenant, what was in that ‘bomb’?”

“A very deadly mixture,” laughed the officer in return, “a solution of Epsom salts!”

“Here I be, the mayor of that thar berg back thar,” said an individual with a bristly straw–colored mustache, hastening up. “What be all these here connipations a–goin’ on out hyar?”

“Why, Mr. Mayor,” rejoined Jack, “these two gentlemen are officers of the Mexican Federal troops detailed to aerial duty.”

“Waal, what be they doin’ this side of ther Border? I’ve a good mind ter put ’em in ther calaboose, the dern long–horns,” declared the mayor angrily.

“Inasmuch as they saved a lot of children and their teacher from rough treatment by a band of rebels, I don’t think that would be very fair,” said Jack.

“Humph!” grunted the mayor, “I was comin’ out hyar to git ther mavericks on ther run myself, but I had an attack of indigestion.”

“I guess that was when you heard the shooting,” thought Jack to himself.

Aloud, though, he continued:

“The Mestizos were captured by as clever a ruse as can be imagined, Mr. Mayor.”

“Eh, how’s that, young feller?”

“By a bottle of Epsom salts.”

“Say, see here, kid, it ain’t healthy ter git funny with yer elders in these hyar parts.”

“It’s the exact truth, I assure you,” declared Jack smilingly, quite ignoring the mayor’s frown. He went on to tell the full details of the fight, or rather the argument, and when he had finished not one of the assembled crowd was there that did not join in the laugh.

“An’ how did you come to be hyar, young feller?” asked the mayor at the conclusion of Jack’s story. “You beant a greaser.”

“No, but I have found that there are a few brave and clever men on the other side of the line, too,” declared Jack.

“Ther kid’s right,” assented one or two in the crowd.

Jack then told as much of his adventures as he thought necessary, and at the conclusion the delighted mayor clapped him on the back so heartily that the breath was almost driven out of his body.

“I’ll give yer all ther liberty of Go ’long,” he said, sweeping his hand back toward his little principality.

But the two Mexican officers were obliged to refuse the mayor’s hospitality. A short time after the Federal troops had departed with their prisoners of war the two airmen winged their way southward to their headquarters.

As for Jack, he had ascertained that San Mercedes was only twenty miles or so off, so he determined to hire a horse and ride over there early in the morning. That night he slept in a bed for the first time in many long hours, and with his anxieties cleared away and his heart light, his slumbers were deep and dreamless. He was awakened by the ubiquitous mayor, who was also the hotel–keeper. Incidentally, the pretty school teacher turned out to be his daughter. Her enthusiastic praises of Jack the night before had made the boy blush hotly, but that was nothing to his embarrassment a few moments later when the town band, consisting of a cornet and a drum, headed a procession to the hotel and he had been compelled to give a speech.

Jack felt glad on waking that all that was over, and that in a short time he would be on his way back to his friends in the camp of the Rangers. The town of Go ’long did not offer much in the way of a menu beyond blackstrap and hot cakes, beans, bacon and black coffee, but Jack made a hearty meal on these frontier delicacies, after which he was informed that his pony was at the door.

His landlord, whose name, by the way, was Jerry Dolittle, refused to take a cent from the boy, and told him that when the Rangers came that way next his old friend, Captain Atkinson, could return him the pony.

The greater part of the population of Go ’long had accompanied Jack about a mile on his way, but soon he was ambling along alone with a straight road in front of him. Naturally his mind was busy with speculations as to what had occurred in the camp during his long absence from it.

“Good old Walt! Dear old Ralph! Won’t they be glad to see me!” he mused as he rode along across the plains; “won’t I be glad to see them, too! Gracious, what a lot we shall have to talk about! I won’t blame them if they don’t believe half of it. I can hardly believe it myself sometimes, and that’s a fact.”

Between San Mercedes and Go ’long the rough road led through one of those peculiarly desolate ranges of hills common in that part of our country. As Jack’s pony began to mount into the recesses of these gloomy, barren hills, the lad knew that he had come a dozen miles or so from the Go ’long hotel.

The road wound along the bottom of the steep, sandy gullies, which were in some places streaked gorgeously with strata of various colors, red, blue and bright orange. Above burned a sky of brilliant blue. It would have made a splendid subject for the canvas of an impressionistic painter.

Jack knew that somewhere within these hills he ought to meet the daily stage that ran between San Mercedes and Go ’long. At least, such had been the information given him before he set out from the latter place. He was quite anxious to see it, as on his lonely ride he had not encountered a human face. The solitary nature of the barren hills through which he was now riding depressed him, too, with a sense of remoteness and lonesomeness.

As Jack rode he commented to himself on the rugged character of the scenery. The road, which would have hardly been dignified with the name of a trail in the east, crawled along the side of the bare hills, in some places overhanging gloomy canyons.

“This must be a dangerous place to drive a stage,” thought Jack as he passed by a big rock and found himself traversing a bit of road which bordered the edge of a mountain spur, with a precipice on one side and a deep canyon on the other.

In fact, had the lad known it, that particular bit of road was reputed to be about the worst even in that wild land. Should the horses make a misstep on the trail, instant death to every occupant of the coach must result.

There were few drivers, even the most reckless, that cared to go at more than a snail’s pace over that stretch of road even with the quietest team. True, the passage had been made on one occasion at night, but that was for a wild and foolish bet and the authorities had put a stop to any more such practices. So that Jack was not far out when he mentally appraised that bit of road as being as dangerous and nasty a track to negotiate as he had ever seen; and Jack had seen a good deal of the wild southwest.

The boy had passed the dangerous bit of road and was jogging along in a deep divide between two ranges, when he was startled by a sudden sound right ahead of him.

It was unmistakably a shot.

A rifle shot, too, the boy judged. He spurred forward rapidly, not knowing well just what to expect when he should round a curve in the road just ahead.

It did flash into his mind that his landlord at Go ’long had spoken of the coach being held up occasionally, but Jack had placed little stock in the stories. In fact, he rather inclined to think that old Jerry was telling them with the idea of getting a rise out of a Tenderfoot.

Still, there were a few mines in that part of the country and occasionally gold was shipped through to Go ’long, which was not far from the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

But Jack had only made a few paces forward on his quickened mount when three other shots rang out in rapid succession.

“Now I am perfectly sure there is trouble on the trail ahead!” exclaimed Jack to himself, urging his pony forward at a yet faster gait.

The idea of personal danger did not enter Jack’s head, although the scene that he beheld as he swept round the curve on his galloping pony might well have alarmed an older hand than he.

Coming toward him at a hard gallop was the Go ’long coach. Its six horses were in a lather of perspiration, and the coach was swaying wildly from side to side.

From the top of the coach a fusilade was being fired at three men in pursuit of the vehicle. These latter appeared to be returning the fire with good will.

At almost the same moment that his eye took in these details Jack became aware that, besides the driver of the stage, there were three other occupants on the roof.

These were Captain Atkinson of the Rangers, Ralph Stetson and Walt Phelps.

As he perceived all this Jack drew his pony back on his haunches and waited whatever might turn up, for it was his determination to aid his friends.