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CHAPTER IX.
A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW

"What can you compare the sound to?" asked Jack.

It was the next morning, and Ralph was relating his experiences.

"Well, it sounded like some one 'tap-tapping,' as well as I can explain it," replied Ralph.

"Whereabouts?" asked Walt, leaning forward from the interested circle.

"I don't know. It seemed to come from everywhere at once."

"But it stopped right off when you hollered?" asked Pete.

"Yes. I didn't hear another sound."

"What do you suppose it could have been, Pete?" asked Jack.

"Dunno. Mexican woodpecker, maybe," grinned the cow-puncher, "or maybe a little overdose of im-ag-in-at-ion."

"I tell you I couldn't have been mistaken," exclaimed Ralph hotly. "I heard it as clearly as I hear your voice now."

At this moment the clank of the metal bar of the door falling announced that the portal was about to be opened, and they all gazed upward expectantly as the studded oak swung back. Two figures appeared. The first was that of a Mexican carrying a big tray of steaming food and a water-cooler. The other newcomer was the renegade cowboy, whom Pete had recognized the night before.

"Well, they don't mean to starve us, anyhow," said Jack, as his eyes fell on the food.

"Hum, poisoned, like as not," put in Ralph.

"I confess that I would dare even poison, such are my pangs of hunger," spoke the professor.

Pete did not say a word, but kept his eyes fixed on the renegade cow-puncher.

"Nice business you're in, Jim Cummings," he growled. "Since when have you become a cattle-rustling, tamale-eating greaser?"

"Now, see here, Pete, don't rile me," growled the other, a short, red-faced man with bow legs and whiny voice. "What I'm doing is my own business, and I reckon I can mind it."

"Yes, some folks don't mind what they do," observed Coyote Pete grimly, "even down to associating with a bunch of cattle thieves and horse-rustlers.

"There's a real nice specimen of the human toad," he went on, turning to his companions. "That feller yonder, Jim Cummings, was once a decent white man, punching cattle and shooting up the town on pay nights, like a Christian. Now look at him – "

But Jim Cummings had turned and was running for his life. He could not stand the raking cross fire of Pete's biting sarcasm. The Mexican who had brought them their food followed him out.

"Why, we could have overpowered those fellows and escaped," said Jack. "If we could once get our ponies, we'd give these ruffians a race to the pass, and – "

"Yep, but that 'If' is a big word, sonny," said Pete grimly. "I reckon you didn't see something I did when that door opened."

"No – what?" chorused the boys.

"Why, four of the handsomest looking rascals unhung parading up and down with rifles. But let's get some of this grub down. That Black Ramon is likely to pay us a call after grub time, and if I'd see him first he'd take my appetite away."

Despite Ralph's gloomy fears of poison, they made a good breakfast, although some of the dishes were so peppery and fiery they could hardly eat them.

"If Peary could have had some of this at the North Pole," said Jack, as he hastily swallowed several gulps of water.

"Or Doc Cook," grinned Walt.

"Yes, and if we could be in Albuquerque right now," laughed Coyote Pete.

As he spoke the door opened once more, this time to give entrance to the Mexican leader himself. As if he was not inclined to take any chances in trusting himself with the Americans, Ramon de Barrios was accompanied by two other of his countrymen. He lost no time in coming to the point.

"You boy there, Stetson," he said, pointing to Ralph, "how much is your father worth?"

"I suppose about five million dollars," said Ralph wonderingly.

"Phew!" exclaimed Coyote Pete, "I didn't know there was so much money in the world."

"Silence," growled Diego, looking at him from under his black brows. "And your father loves you?" he went on to Ralph.

"Yes, of course," rejoined the Eastern boy.

"Hum! Well, if you ever want to see him again you must do as I say."

"What is that?"

"Write him a letter telling him to send a messenger with twenty thousand dollars to a place I shall designate. If he does so I will let you go free. If not – well – "

Black Ramon compressed his lips and gave Ralph a look not pleasant to see. It seemed to promise ominously for the future.

"But what about my friends?" demanded Ralph.

"The same condition applies to Merrill, only in his case, as his father is poorer, I shall be considerate and only demand ten thousand dollars."

"You can have my answer now," spoke up Jack. "It is – 'No'!"

"The same goes here," chimed in Ralph slangily, but with conviction.

"What, you won't do it? Boys, you must be mad. You do not know the means I can use to enforce my demand. If you fear to cause your parents alarm, I can cause them more suffering by sending them word that you are dead."

The Mexican gave a smile of triumph as he saw a serious look cross the boys' faces. The thought of what this would mean – of the grief into which it would plunge their families, made them shiver, but neither hesitated when the cattle-rustler asked once more:

"Well, what do you say?"

"Still – no," said Jack.

"That's me!" snapped Ralph.

"In any event," demanded Jack, "suppose we did sign, what would you do with our friends?"

"That would concern me only," said the Mexican. "As for this cow-puncher here – "

"Mister Pete De Peyster is my name," spoke up Coyote Pete, caressing his yellow mustache.

"Well, De Peyster, then, I have an old score to even up with you – "

"Oh, you mean about the time I snaked you off your horse when you were going to ill-treat a pony," said Pete. "Yep, I reckon the bump you landed with must have left some impression on your greaser mind."

Black Ramon stepped forward. It looked for a second as if he was going to strike the venturesome cow-puncher, but instead he restrained himself and remarked in a calm voice, even more terrible than a raging tone would have been:

"As you are in my power to do as I like with, I will not discuss the matter with you. I will think it over. You know I am good at thinking up original punishments."

Jack shuddered at the level, cold-blooded tones of the man. Some of the most terrible tales of the border had to do with the fiendish tortures thought of by the man before them. But Pete was undismayed, at least outwardly.

"Anyhow, Ramon," he said, "you ought to get somebody to touch off your dynamite who will be on the job when wanted. That fellow you had on the battery at the bridge must have got cold feet at the critical moment, eh? If he had touched off the charge at the right time he could have blown us all to Kingdom Come. As it is, Mr. Merrill and Bud Wilson are safe, and sooner or later they'll take it out of your yellow hide, whatever you may do to us now."

Now Pete had an object in talking thus. He wanted if possible to find out what had become of the ranch party when the bridge was blown up. If he expected to learn anything, however, he was disappointed, as the Mexican was far too crafty to be led into so easy a trap.

"Oh-ho, you are trying to draw me out to learn what became of your friends," he grinned. "Well, what if I should tell you they were blown up?"

"Wa'al, personally, I'd say you were an all-fired liar!" drawled Pete.

"Before long, what you say will not matter," snarled the Mexican, "you, or the boy Walt Phelps. I owe your father a grudge," he continued, turning to the red-headed ranch boy, "and I mean to avenge myself with you."

Walter gazed back at the wretch as calmly as had Pete. He said nothing, however. He did not wish to betray by even a quaver in his voice that his feelings were in a state of tumult.

"As for you, you bony old man," said the Mexican, turning to professor Wintergreen, "I have a mind to marry you off to an old Indian squaw, and keep you 'round here as our medicine man."

"In that case I know the medicine I should prescribe for you," said the professor calmly.

"What, if you please?" asked the Mexican, with mock humility.

"Six bullets in the region of your black heart," snapped out the man of science.

"Bully! Good for you!" yelled Pete, capering about and giving the professor a slap on the back that sent the savant's spectacles flying.

"I will give you boys till to-morrow to think this over," said the Mexican, deciding, apparently, not to tamper any more with such an edged tool as the professor. "In the meantime, I have decided to separate you. Merrill, you and this cow-puncher I shall confine elsewhere; you are too dangerous to leave with the rest of them."

He gave a shrill whistle and instantly ten men appeared from the door. Under Black Ramon's directions they bound and blindfolded Pete and Jack Merrill.

"I have a place where I keep such firebrands as you two," said Ramon in his most vindictive tone, as amid exclamations of dismay from their companions the cow-puncher and the ranchman's son were led from the old chapel.

CHAPTER X.
IN THE BELL TOWER

Blindfolded, and almost bereft of the power of thought by the sudden order of the chief of cattle-rustlers, Pete and his young companion were led forth by Black Ramon's men. To Jack's surprise – for he had not noticed any building near to the old mission the night they had arrived – they seemed to travel some distance before they halted. Presently he felt their guides impelling him forward over what seemed to be a threshold.

Suddenly their eye bandages were roughly removed, and the two prisoners were able to look about them. They found themselves in a small chamber lighted by one tiny window high up on a whitewashed wall. The floor was of red tiling, and gave out a solid ring beneath the feet.

"I guess you'll be safe enough in here," grinned Ramon, gazing at the substantial walls and the huge door of iron-studded oak. "If you escape from this place you'll be cleverer than the cleverest Yankees I ever heard of."

After giving their guards some brief directions to keep a close watch on the door, Black Ramon strode out of the place. The portal was immediately banged to, and the prisoners were alone.

"Well, Jack, out of the frying-pan into the fire, eh?" said Pete, looking about him with a comical expression of despair.

"It certainly looks that way," agreed Jack; "and what's worse, we're cut off from our friends. I wonder what measures Ramon will use to compel Ralph to write that letter to his father," went on Jack.

"Kind of a weak sister, that there tenderfoot, ain't he?" asked Pete with a grin.

"I guess you've never seen Ralph charging down the gridiron in the last half, when the whole game hung on his shoulders or you wouldn't say that, Pete," reproved Jack. "There isn't a boy alive who is cleaner cut, or grittier than Ralph Stetson, but he's not used to the West and I'm afraid that lemon-colored rascal may work some tricks on him."

"That's what I'm afraid of, too," chimed in Pete. "These greasers can think up some great ways to make a feller change his mind."

"If only we knew that dad and the rest were safe, I would feel easier in my mind," said Jack after a brief interval, during which neither had spoken.

"Boy," said Pete, in a tenderer tone than Jack had ever heard the rough cow-puncher use, "as I told you a while back, it's my solemn belief that Mr. Merrill and the rest are alive, and at this minute figuring out some way to get us out of this scrape. But if anything has happened to them, it's going to be the sorriest day in their lives for these Border greasers. There isn't a cow-puncher in New Mexico, or along the border from the Gulf to the Colorado River, that wouldn't take a hand in the trouble that's going to come."

This was an unusually long and an unusually earnest speech for Coyote Pete to make, and as if ashamed of his display of emotion, he at once set to work looking busily about him.

What he saw was not calculated to elevate his spirits. The room, or rather chamber, was so small that its dimensions could not have exceeded six by seven or eight feet. It was, in fact, more a cell than a room.

In the massive oak door was a small peephole, high up, through which every now and then the evil face of one of their guards would peer.

"I wonder what he thinks we are up to?" asked Pete with a quizzical grin. "Not much room in here to do anything but think, and precious little of that."

"Where are we, do you think, Pete?" asked Jack, after another interval of silence.

"Haven't any idee," rejoined Pete. "I reckon we're quite some distance from the mission, though."

"Let's take a peep out of the door," said Jack suddenly. "That fellow hasn't looked in lately; maybe he's gone to dinner, or something."

"Well, there's no harm in trying, anyhow," said Pete, going toward the portal. "I can pull myself up to the hole by my hands, and if he's there the worst that greaser can give me is a crack over the knuckles."

But as he placed his hands on the edge of the peephole Jack suddenly held up his hand.

"Hark!" he exclaimed.

From outside came a deep nasal rumble.

"Ach-eer, Ach-eer!"

"He's snoring!" exclaimed Pete.

"Off as sound as a top," supplemented Jack. "Up you go, Pete."

But the cow-puncher, after a prolonged scrutiny, was only able to report that the passage outside was too dark for him to see anything.

"We'll try the window," suggested Jack.

"How are we going to get up there?"

"You boost me on your shoulders. I can see out then."

"All right," said Pete, making "a back."

Jack nimbly mounted the cow-puncher's shoulders and shoved his face into the window. As his eyes fell on the scene outside he gave a gasp of amazement.

In the distance were the rugged outlines of the Hachetas, with the rolling foothills lying between. Beyond that rugged barrier – how far beyond Jack realized with an aching heart – lay the United States. But all this was not what caused him to gasp with surprise. It was the fact that, peering out of the window, he was looking directly down upon the tiled roof of the mission. Despite the fact that they had appeared to have been marched for a distance from it, they were still imprisoned in Black Ramon's stronghold in an upper story. In the belfry tower, in fact.

"Consarn it all," muttered the cow-puncher angrily, as Jack told him this, "I might have known they'd have adopted that old trick of blindfolding you and then walking you round in a circle. I defy any one to tell how far he's gone when those methods are used."

"Gee, I'd give a whole lot to be that fellow down below there," mused Jack, looking about him from his vantage point.

"What's he doing?" asked Pete.

"Practicing at a post with a lariat. He looks as happy as if – "

"He hadn't a sin on his greaser soul," Pete finished for him.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the Border Boy suddenly, still from his post on Pete's shoulder, "I can see Ramon going up to the lariat thrower. He's pointing up here."

The boy ducked quickly. An instant later he again looked out cautiously.

"I guess Ramon was changing the guard," he said. "I saw him point up here, and now that fellow's coming up to the tower entrance by a flight of open steps."

"Is he still carrying that lariat?" asked Pete, in a quick, eager voice.

"Yes; why?"

"Oh, never mind. I just wish I had it, that's all. It would help pass the time away. Say, get down, will you, Jack, if you've done enough gazing. You're getting to be a heavyweight."

"Well, if we stay here much longer I'll bant a few pounds," replied Jack. "I'm sure it's long after dinner time, and I'm hungry."

As if in answer to his words, the door opened and the same man he had seen practicing with the rawhide in the yard below suddenly appeared. He put some food and water before them without a word, and withdrew silently. Not before Pete's sharp eyes had noticed, however, that at his waist was fastened the rawhide rope he coveted.

"Starvation isn't part of Ramon's plan, evidently," said Jack, as he ate with an appetite unimpaired by the perils of their situation.

"He's just waiting till to-morrow to see how a day's imprisonment has affected you," said Pete grimly. "If you still refuse to write to your father, he'll begin to put the screws on."

"Poor Ralph," sighed Jack.

"Oh, what wouldn't I give for a corncob pipe full of tobacco," sighed Pete, as their meal was concluded.

"What, you mean you could smoke with all this trouble hanging over us?" exclaimed Jack.

"Why not? It would help me to think. When I'm figgering out anything I always like to have a smoke."

"Then you have a plan?"

"I didn't say so."

"Oh, Pete, tell me what it is. Do you think we can escape?"

"Now, Jack, don't bother a contemplative man," said Pete provokingly. "I ain't going ter deny that I was indulging in speculation, but what I've been thinking out is such a flimsy chance that I'm downright ashamed to talk about it."

Jack, therefore, had to be content with sitting still on the floor of the cell, while Pete knitted his brows and thought and thought and thought.

So the afternoon wore away somehow, and it grew dark.

In the meantime, Jack, from Pete's shoulder, had taken another survey through the window, if such the hole in the solid wall could be called. A desperate hope had come to him that in the darkness they could squeeze through it, and in some way reach the ground. But it was an aspiration that a short survey of the situation was destined to shatter.

A sheer drop down the walls of the tower of a hundred feet or more lay between them and the ground. The only hope of escape lay by the doorway, and the chance of that was so remote that the Border Boy did not let his thoughts dwell on it.

"I guess we don't get any supper," said Jack, as the light in the cell faded out and the place became as black as a photographer's dark room.

"Guess not," assented Pete gloomily. "I could go a visit to the chuck wagon, too. Curious how sitting in a cell stimerlates the appetite. I'd recommend it to some of them dyspetomaniacs you reads of back East."

"I should think that the disease would be preferable to the cure," said Jack.

"Reckon so," said Pete, and once more their talk languished. Two human beings, confined in a small cell, soon exhaust available topics of conversation.

Suddenly the door opened, and the man who had brought them their dinner appeared. As he came inside the cell Pete rapidly slipped to the door. As the cow-puncher had hardly dared to hope, a brief glance showed him the passage was empty.

Then things began to happen.

The Mexican, with a quick exclamation, had faced round as the cow-puncher made a dart for the portal, and leveled his pistol. Before he could utter the cry which quivered on his lips, Coyote Pete's knotty fist drove forward like a huge piston of flesh and muscle. The force of the blow caught the Mexican full in the face, almost driving his teeth down his throat. Backward he fell, and lay sprawling on the floor like some ungainly spider. The terrific concussion of the blow had rendered him temporarily unconscious.

"Quick, Jack," cried Pete, under his breath, swiftly shutting the great door.

"What are you going to do?" gasped the boy. Events had happened with such lightning-like rapidity that he had hardly had time to comprehend what had taken place, and stood staring at the limp form on the floor of the cell.

With quick, nervous fingers Pete, who had stooped over the fallen Mexican, seized the rawhide rope he carried at his waist – the one with which Jack had seen the fellow practicing.

"Now then, up on my shoulders, Jack, and take the rope with you," he ordered.

Jack didn't know what was to come, but obeyed the resourceful plainsman without a question.

"Through the window," came Pete's next command, and then Jack began to understand the other's daring plan. Without waiting for further orders from Pete, he crawled through the opening. He no sooner found himself on a ledge outside before he turned cautiously and lay on his stomach across the broad embrasure and extended both his hands within. Pete grabbed them, and bracing his feet against the wall, soon clambered up. As the cow-puncher climbed and got a grip on the sill, Jack retreated along the narrow ledge outside. Presently Pete, too, clambered through and joined him.

"What next?" asked Jack in a low voice.

"Blamed if I know," rejoined Pete cheerfully.

The two adventurers were in about as insecure a position as could be imagined. Their feet rested on a ledge of masonry not much more than six inches in width, which circled the bell tower. The ground was a hundred feet or more below them. The lariat they had with them, and which was securely fastened in Pete's belt, was not more than thirty feet at the most.

As they hesitated in the darkness, scarcely daring to breathe on their insecure perch, there came a sudden shout from within the tower.

"Wa'al, they've found out that something's up," grunted Pete, while Jack's blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins. Below them was empty space; above, the Mexican outlaws.