CHAPTER X.
IN THE BELL TOWER.
Blindfolded, and almost bereft of the power of thought by the suddenorder of the chief of cattle-rustlers, Pete and his young companionwere led forth by Black Ramon's men. To Jack's surprise--for he hadnot noticed any building near to the old mission the night they hadarrived--they seemed to travel some distance before they halted.Presently he felt their guides impelling him forward over what seemedto be a threshold.
Suddenly their eye bandages were roughly removed, and the two prisonerswere able to look about them. They found themselves in a small chamberlighted by one tiny window high up on a whitewashed wall. The floor wasof red tiling, and gave out a solid ring beneath the feet.
"I guess you'll be safe enough in here," grinned Ramon, gazing at thesubstantial walls and the huge door of iron-studded oak. "If you escapefrom this place you'll be cleverer than the cleverest Yankees I everheard of."
After giving their guards some brief directions to keep a close watchon the door, Black Ramon strode out of the place. The portal wasimmediately 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'recut off from our friends. I wonder what measures Ramon will use tocompel Ralph to write that letter to his father," went on Jack.
"Kind of a weak sister, that there tenderfoot, ain't he?" asked Petewith a grin.
"I guess you've never seen Ralph charging down the gridiron in the lasthalf, when the whole game hung on his shoulders or you wouldn't saythat, Pete," reproved Jack. "There isn't a boy alive who is cleanercut, or grittier than Ralph Stetson, but he's not used to the West andI'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 canthink 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 easierin my mind," said Jack after a brief interval, during which neither hadspoken.
"Boy," said Pete, in a tenderer tone than Jack had ever heard the roughcow-puncher use, "as I told you a while back, it's my solemn beliefthat Mr. Merrill and the rest are alive, and at this minute figuringout some way to get us out of this scrape. But if anything has happenedto them, it's going to be the sorriest day in their lives for theseBorder greasers. There isn't a cow-puncher in New Mexico, or along theborder from the Gulf to the Colorado River, that wouldn't take a handin the trouble that's going to come."
This was an unusually long and an unusually earnest speech for CoyotePete to make, and as if ashamed of his display of emotion, he at onceset 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 haveexceeded six by seven or eight feet. It was, in fact, more a cell thana room.
In the massive oak door was a small peephole, high up, through whichevery 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 quizzicalgrin. "Not much room in here to do anything but think, and preciouslittle of that."
"Where are we, do you think, Pete?" asked Jack, after another intervalof silence.
"Haven't any idee," rejoined Pete. "I reckon we're quite some distancefrom the mission, though."
"Let's take a peep out of the door," said Jack suddenly. "That fellowhasn't looked in lately; maybe he's gone to dinner, or something."
"Well, there's no harm in trying, anyhow," said Pete, going toward theportal. "I can pull myself up to the hole by my hands, and if he'sthere 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 suddenlyheld 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 toreport 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 faceinto the window. As his eyes fell on the scene outside he gave a gaspof amazement.
In the distance were the rugged outlines of the Hachetas, with therolling foothills lying between. Beyond that rugged barrier--how farbeyond Jack realized with an aching heart--lay the United States. Butall this was not what caused him to gasp with surprise. It was the factthat, peering out of the window, he was looking directly down upon thetiled roof of the mission. Despite the fact that they had appeared tohave been marched for a distance from it, they were still imprisonedin Black Ramon's stronghold in an upper story. In the belfry tower, infact.
"Consarn it all," muttered the cow-puncher angrily, as Jack toldhim this, "I might have known they'd have adopted that old trick ofblindfolding you and then walking you round in a circle. I defy any oneto 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," musedJack, 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 onPete's shoulder, "I can see Ramon going up to the lariat thrower. He'spointing 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 uphere, and now that fellow's coming up to the tower entrance by a flightof 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 passthe time away. Say, get down, will you, Jack, if you've done enoughgazing. You're getting to be a heavyweight."
"Well, if we stay here much longer I'll bant a few pounds," repliedJack. "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 hadseen practicing with the rawhide in the yard below suddenly appeared.He put some food and water before them without a word, and withdrewsilently. Not before Pete's sharp eyes had noticed, however, that athis waist was fastened the rawhide rope he coveted.
"Starvation isn't part of Ramon's plan, evidently," said Jack, as heate with an appetite unimpaired by the perils of their situation.
"He's just waiting till to-morrow to see how a day's imprisonment hasaffected you," said Pete grimly. "If you still refuse to write to yourfather, 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," sighedPete, 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 Ialways 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 whatI've been thinking out is such a flimsy chance that I'm downrightashamed to talk about it."
Jack, therefore, had to be content with sitting still on the floor ofthe cell, while Pete knitted his brows and thought and thought andthought.
&
nbsp; So the afternoon wore away somehow, and it grew dark.
In the meantime, Jack, from Pete's shoulder, had taken another surveythrough 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 couldsqueeze through it, and in some way reach the ground. But it was anaspiration 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 morelay between them and the ground. The only hope of escape lay by thedoorway, and the chance of that was so remote that the Border Boy didnot let his thoughts dwell on it.
"I guess we don't get any supper," said Jack, as the light in the cellfaded 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 chuckwagon, too. Curious how sitting in a cell stimerlates the appetite. I'drecommend it to some of them dyspetomaniacs you reads of back East."
"I should think that the disease would be preferable to the cure," saidJack.
"Reckon so," said Pete, and once more their talk languished. Two humanbeings, confined in a small cell, soon exhaust available topics ofconversation.
Suddenly the door opened, and the man who had brought them their dinnerappeared. 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 himthe passage was empty.
Then things began to happen.
Backward he fell, and lay sprawling on the floor likesome ungainly spider.]
The Mexican, with a quick exclamation, had faced round as thecow-puncher made a dart for the portal, and leveled his pistol. Beforehe could utter the cry which quivered on his lips, Coyote Pete's knottyfist drove forward like a huge piston of flesh and muscle. The force ofthe blow caught the Mexican full in the face, almost driving his teethdown his throat. Backward he fell, and lay sprawling on the floor likesome ungainly spider. The terrific concussion of the blow had renderedhim temporarily unconscious.
"Quick, Jack," cried Pete, under his breath, swiftly shutting the greatdoor.
"What are you going to do?" gasped the boy. Events had happened withsuch lightning-like rapidity that he had hardly had time to comprehendwhat had taken place, and stood staring at the limp form on the floorof the cell.
With quick, nervous fingers Pete, who had stooped over the fallenMexican, seized the rawhide rope he carried at his waist--the one withwhich Jack had seen the fellow practicing.
"Now then, up on my shoulders, Jack, and take the rope with you," heordered.
Jack didn't know what was to come, but obeyed the resourceful plainsmanwithout a question.
"Through the window," came Pete's next command, and then Jack began tounderstand the other's daring plan. Without waiting for further ordersfrom Pete, he crawled through the opening. He no sooner found himselfon a ledge outside before he turned cautiously and lay on his stomachacross the broad embrasure and extended both his hands within. Petegrabbed them, and bracing his feet against the wall, soon clambered up.As the cow-puncher climbed and got a grip on the sill, Jack retreatedalong the narrow ledge outside. Presently Pete, too, clambered throughand 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 beimagined. Their feet rested on a ledge of masonry not much more thansix inches in width, which circled the bell tower. The ground was ahundred feet or more below them. The lariat they had with them, andwhich was securely fastened in Pete's belt, was not more than thirtyfeet at the most.
As they hesitated in the darkness, scarcely daring to breathe on theirinsecure perch, there came a sudden shout from within the tower.
"Wa'al, they've found out that something's up," grunted Pete, whileJack's blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins. Below them was emptyspace; above, the Mexican outlaws.