CHAPTER XVII.
THE WHISTLE OF PASSING BULLETS.
"They seem to be gaining on us!" said Merritt uneasily. "Hadn't webetter romp ahead a little faster, boys?"
"Sure! Hit up the pace all you want!" It was neither Rob nor Andy whomade this game reply, but Tubby! This response drew Rob's heart closerto the fat chum than ever before. A fellow who could show such nervewould have the best chance in the world to become a first-class scout,when once he woke up and began to study as he should.
They proceeded to coax their horses to pick up some, and for a time thegallant animals did manage more than to hold their own with thepursuers; but when half an hour had passed even Tubby could see that thedistance separating them from that hustling lot of hard riders did notappear to be quite as great as after the spurt.
"Say, do we fight for it if we are cornered?" Andy wanted to know. Whenthe patrol leader turned to glance back at him, he saw that while theboy's face might be somewhat pale, there was a dogged look around theeyes that spoke volumes.
"Well, they say that Boy Scouts never should fight unless driven into acorner, where they have to defend themselves to save their own lives, orthe lives of others," Rob shouted back.
"That settles it, then," Andy replied. And Rob could see thatconsiderable of his anxiety must have been connected with his doubt asto whether it should be their duty as lovers of peace to give up andsurrender without striking a blow, or resist; for he even seemed tickledwith what Rob had told him.
No one asked Tubby what he thought about matters. It was enough for themto know that the fat and clumsy chum was there in his saddle still, andmanaging by some means to keep close behind them. His horse must havesuffered exceedingly, bearing all that heavy load; and it was lucky Robhad been wise enough to select an especially sturdy beast when thinkingof Tubby.
The pursuers were not all in a bunch, but scattered, according to theability of their mounts to maintain the killing pace. Undoubtedly, theywere urged on by the big cruel Mexican spurs, which, of course, everycavalryman wore on his boot heels.
This might seem to be a trifling matter; but Rob knew better. If itreally came to a running fight, as seemed likely, they would profit bythe fact that only a minority of their pursuers could fire upon them,the rest being either too far off, or else fearful lest they might hittheir comrades in advance.
Meanwhile they were approaching the big smoke that kept rising ahead,and which must mean a burning bridge on the railroad, and perhaps astalled train into the bargain.
Rob found himself wondering what sort of reception they would receiveshould they find a party of Villa's rebels holding out against theRegulars. He had already laid his plans and communicated them to hischums, so that each would know just what was expected of him in theemergency.
Already several shots had been fired by the leading horsemen, but asthey were still pretty far distant, and as it is next to impossible todo any serious business with a gun while going at such headlong speed,of course these were sent after the fugitives more as an act of bravadoand alarm, than in the hope that any bullet might find its mark.
At the same time it was not very pleasant for the scouts to hear thoseleaden messengers singing so merrily through the air over theirheads,--for all the world like so many bees or locusts, as theyafterward decided.
Every time a gun sounded, Tubby involuntarily ducked his head and triedto flatten himself out on the neck of his horse, an utterly impossiblething, on account of his build. He seemed to think that they must alwayspick him out for a target, because he offered such a fine mark.
"Guess you'd do the same, too," he called out to Andy, when he saw thegrin on the other's face as he turned in time to see one of theseperformances, "if you made a shining mark like I do! And being in therear adds to my chance of stopping one of those lead pills. Anyway, I'mgoing to do the trick right along, no matter what you think, AndyBowles!"
"And you're right about that, Tubby!" called Merritt. "Even when you liedown flat you make a better mark than most of us do sitting up!"
"Keep your breath, fellows; you may need all of it!" Rob called out justthen, and this stopped the controversy.
Rob urged his horse alongside that of the Mexican guide.
"How are we going to come out of it, Lopez?" he asked anxiously. "Willthey get at us before we make the smoke?"
The experienced eye of the other had before now accurately measured thedistances; and doubtless he was figuring matters out at the time thescout broke in with this leading question.
"If no bad luck," Lopez assured him, "we surely come to the burningbridge before the wolf pack doubles us up, young senor."
"By bad luck you mean an accident?" Rob demanded.
Lopez shrugged his shoulders and cast a swift, meaning look back at poorfat Tubby, who was belaboring his tired mount with the flat of one hand,and urging the beast on and on. Evidently the guide had been halfexpecting an accident to happen in this quarter for some time, and was,in fact, surprised that the clumsy scout had held on so long; but then,he did not know what a stubborn nature Tubby possessed.
"Si, senor, a horse might slip, and toss his rider; or it may be apassing bullet happen to go in the wrong place and do damage. Who cantell? But let us hope it will not so bad as that prove. We are doingwell; and the smoke, it is not so far away as it seems!"
All of which must have been poor satisfaction to Rob, who from thatmoment found himself enduring new agonies every time he twisted aroundto see whether Tubby still held forth.
The horses were reeking with sweat, and while Rob did not pretend to beas experienced in such matters as a cow puncher would be, still even heunderstood that this sort of thing could not be kept up much longer.
Only for the presence of that smoke and the hope that they might runupon some friendly rebels at the burning bridge, he would have made uphis mind that there was no other way for them to escape save by turningat bay and engaging in a regular fight with those persistent pursuers,who kept dogging the heels of their horses mile after mile, bent onrunning them down.
"What do you think of our chances for finding some of Villa's menahead?" Rob asked the guide several minutes later. They were stillkeeping up a furious pace and fairly holding their own, though none ofthe horses in the race could be said to be running as fast as half anhour previously.
"It is an open chance," Lopez replied with another shrug.
"But the Federals set the bridge on fire; and after doing that theywould hardly hang around, because this part of the country must beswarming with rebels, who would be drawn to the burning bridge by thesmoke. Is that the way you figure it out, Lopez?"
"You have said what was in my mind, young senor," came the reply; "andthat is why I have kept moving on all this while. Had it not been thehope of finding friends, before now they must have felt our lead."
"Then we're doing the right thing in trying to get to the bridge beforeletting them come up on us," Rob decided. And after that he bent hiswhole energy to carrying out the plan he had arranged.
He even fell back so that he could ride alongside Tubby; for Rob hadoften heard that no chain can be any stronger than its weakest link;and this must surely mean Tubby, in their case. If any accident befellthe party, the chances were as ten to one it would spring from the fatscout.
And so Rob, believing in being prepared to meet things as they comealong, even went so far as to figure out just what his course of actionmust be in case Tubby gave signs of falling off his horse, or the animaltripped in its headlong flight.
"It's only a little further, Tubby, so try your best to hold out!" hekept saying. "See, there's a spur of the hill jutting out, and therailroad comes around that. On the other side must be the Carmen River,where the bridge that is burning crosses. Just one more push and we'llbe there in great shape. You're doing fine, I want to tell you, Tubby; Inever thought you had it in you; and we're bound to get through thisride all right, believe me!"
No doubt this sort of encouraging talk did more
than a little to keepTubby from throwing up the sponge entirely; for he was close upon thepoint of complete exhaustion, and ready to own himself "all in."
"Try to think and tell me, Tubby," Rob went on earnestly, "where you'vegot those signal flags you brought all the way down here, because yousaid they might come in handy. I can use one right now, I believe."
"Reach in that pocket on the side of my bag toward you, Rob," repliedTubby in a gasping whisper. "You ought to find the lot there."
This Rob managed to do in spite of the fact that both horses weregalloping at headlong speed.
Just then they cleared the point of the hill that jutted out close tothe railroad track; and there in front of them lay the cause of the bigsmoke. The bridge was afire, just as they had believed. There was also atrain stalled on the side near them, with its engine headed towardJuarez. Doubtless this was the one of which the boys had heard, which,starting from Chihuahua, laden with refugee Mexican families wanting toseek shelter over in Texas, had been lost somewhere on the way, held upby burned bridges, and possibly by other things in the way of damagedone to the locomotive by the Federal's marauding cavalry parties.
As soon as Rob could manage to see what lay ahead, he felt cheered bythe sight; for behind the cars he discovered dozens of men with guns,who seemed to be making a barrier of the train and exchanging longdistance shots with some enemy perched upon the higher ground,undoubtedly Federals.
There seemed nothing for the scouts to do but to join their fortuneswith those men of Villa's command who were holding the Regulars at bay.So, without slackening the speed of their horses a particle, the littleparty galloped forward, Rob leading the van and wildly waving one of thesignal flags, which, being white with a small red center, could belooked upon as a flag of truce, and would surely keep the rebels fromfiring on them.
It must have astonished those fellows who were making a rampart of thestalled train to discover thus a party wearing khaki uniforms so likethose of the American soldiers across the border, coming at headlongspeed toward them, and being fired after by a pack of pursuers whom theyreadily recognized to be the regular troops of Huerta!
And since all enemies of the prevailing government must be looked on asfriends to their cause, the Constitutionalists, as the rebels liked tocall themselves, made no attempt to halt the advance of the Boy Scouts.They held their fire, waiting until the hard-pressed fugitives couldreach shelter, when explanations might be in order.
But the unseen Regulars perched among the rocks on the hillside musthave discovered that those they were engaged in fighting seemed to bereceiving unexpected reinforcements, for they turned their attention tothe oncoming riders, and once more the nerve-racking zip-zip of passingbullets gave Tubby a cold chill.