CHAPTER XIV.
TRAVELS WITH A MULE.
"Well, was I right?"
"Oh, say, don't rub it in, Jack. Of course you were. I was a fool tohave gone to sleep, but----"
"Never mind reproaching yourself now, Pete," said Jack soberly. "Thething to do is to get out of here as quick as possible."
"Yes, we've no time to lose," said Pete, a serious look coming over hisordinarily cheerful countenance.
Jack caught a more serious meaning underlying the words than theyseemed to hold in themselves.
"I should say so," he rejoined. "We've got to catch that old ruffianand give him the thrashing of his life. The idea of shutting us inhere. I thought he was crazy, and now I know it."
"Not so crazy as you think, Jack," replied Pete gravely. "I'm afraidhe's got more sense than we gave him credit for, and that right now weare in more serious danger than at any time since we escaped."
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind now. I don't want to scare you to death without there beingany necessity for it. What I want to impress on you is that there is notime to lose."
"Of course, I appreciate that," rejoined Jack, not quite making outwhat Pete meant, but thinking it wiser to abstain from asking questionsat the moment, "but how are we to get out?"
"Dunno right now," said Pete, scratching his head abstractedly.
"I have it," cried Jack suddenly. "We'll burn the door down."
"What about matches?"
"There are still some embers on the hearth there, and a pile of brushbeside it. I'm sure we can do it."
"Well, let's get to work, then," said Pete, who seemed strangely ill atease.
A goodly pile of brush was soon piled against the rough door andignited by means of taking an ember from the fire and blowing onit till it burst into flame. Up roared the flames, the timber firecrackling against the stone roof and filling the hut with a chokingsmoke. Luckily, most of this escaped by the window, or they might haverun a good chance of being suffocated.
"Say, it'll take a year to burn through the door at this rate," chokedout Jack, after fifteen minutes or so of this.
"It would if we were going to burn through it, but we ain't," chuckledPete. "Let the fire burn down now--or, better still, there's some waterin that jar; just throw it over the blaze."
This being done, the fire soon died out, and then Pete, wresting oneof the heavy loose stones from the hearth, battered with all his mightagainst the charred wood. It took a long time, but at last a chink ofdaylight appeared.
"Hooray!" shouted Jack, as they attacked it with a piece of iron foundnear the cooking-hearth. Soon quite a hole appeared, and Pete, reachingthrough, encountered a heavy wooden bar leaned against the door fromthe outside, placed to hold it firmly closed. It was the work of but afew seconds to dislodge this and emerge into the open air.
Their work, however, had taken so much time that it was dusk whenthey stepped out of the door. Without a word, Pete, as if he had gonesuddenly mad, darted off toward the old hermit's stable. He emerged ina second with an angry cry on his lips.
"Just as I thought," he exclaimed, "they're gone!"
"Gone!"
"Yes, the ponies and our rifles."
"Great Scott, what will we do?"
"Get away from here as soon as possible. If I don't miss my guess, thatleathery-skinned old squeedink has recognized those ponies and startedback to Black Ramon with them."
"Good gracious, that means----"
"That we'll have the whole boiling of them round us if we don'tskeedaddle out of here pretty jerky. We lost a lot of valuable timegetting that door down."
"But we've no ponies; how are we to travel on foot and keep ahead ofthem?"
"Well, there's that old one-and-a-half-eared mule out there. I reckonwe won't be busting no code of ethics by borrering her. I'll get asaddle on her, and you just fill your pockets with whatever you canfind in the way of grub, then we'll start."
In a few minutes all was ready, and the old mule, with a ragged saddleon her angular back, stood waiting with a drooping head. Pete swunghimself into the saddle, and Jack, being lighter, leaped up behind,holding on to the cantle.
"All right, conductor. Ring the bell and we'll start this heretrolley," grinned Pete, digging his feet into the old mule's ribs. Shestarted off at a gait surprising in such a disreputable-looking animal.
"Well, we've got a start they never calculated on us getting," gruntedPete as they loped along. "If only our luck holds to the end, we'llbeat them out yet."
The old mule plunged upward along the ca?on, clambering over the roughground with remarkable agility. One of the first things that Petehad taken care to do was to leave the trail in a rocky spot, where notelltale hoofmarks would show, and his course was now along the bottomof the gorge, where a small watercourse trickled.
"Well, we won't want for water, anyhow," he observed, with somesatisfaction.
It grew dark rapidly, and nightfall found them in a wild part of thegorge with the main crests of the range reared forbiddingly above them.So far there had been no sign of pursuit, and both fugitives werebeginning to hope that they had got clear away, when from far down theca?on they heard cries and shouts, and, looking back, saw a brightglare of light.
"Well, there they are," grinned Pete, "in a fine way of taking, Iguess, over the fire."
"The fire," echoed the boy, puzzled; "is that what the glare is?"
"Yep," snorted Pete, "I reckoned we'd have to pay that old scallawagout some way, so I just scattered a few hot embers about his hut beforewe vamoosed. I reckon by the looks of things they're catching up.Guess he's sorry he left us now."
"Pete, you're incorrigible," exclaimed Jack, not knowing whether tolaugh or be angry at the cow-puncher's wanton act. True, it was wrongto burn down the old hermit's hut, but still the lone dweller of theca?on had betrayed their trust by an act of base treachery.
"I guess the books are about balanced," said Jack to himself.
Aloud he asked:
"Do you think they'll come on after us to-night, Pete?"
"Reckon not," rejoined the cow-puncher; "if they do, 'twon't do them nogood. We've killed out the trail in this watercourse, and even if theyhave the dogs they couldn't pick us up. Wisht we had a couple of goodrifles. We could lay up there on the hillside as snug as you please andpick 'em out as we chose."
It soon became manifest that they could not travel much farther thatnight. Not only was the old mule giving signs of fatigue, but it was sodark that, as Pete said, they "ran a chance of breaking their necksany minute." They were now high on the eastern slope of the ca?on, anda tumble down its steep sides might have had disastrous results. Theytherefore decided to camp where they were.
Making camp was a simple matter with their scant paraphernalia. Theold saddle had a coil of rope attached to its horn, and this cord wasmade fast to the old mule's neck. Neither of the campers was thirsty,so after eating some of the provisions Jack had hastily stuffed in hispocket, and which consisted mostly of a pasty, sticky corn paste, Petemade their bed.
Rolled in the ragged saddle blanket, with the saddle for pillow, andthe stars above them, the wanderers slept as peacefully as if in theirbeds at home, although their couch was a rocky one. Before turning in,Pete took the precaution of wrapping the old mule's rope around hiswrist, so that in the event of a surprise during the night she wouldgive the alarm by tugging on it.
"Isn't she liable to start off home without ceremony?" asked Jack as heobserved this.
"Not she," rejoined Pete wisely; "she's too tired to move a step."
All of which goes to show, as we shall see later, that it takes a wisecow-puncher to know a mule.
It was about midnight that Jack was awakened by a most unearthly yell.He sprang to his feet, with every nerve in his body tingling, and thefirst thing he observed was that Pete was missing. The cause of absencewas not long in doubt. A sudden fit of homesickness had seized the oldone-eared mule in the night, and she had started withou
t delay for thehermit's hut, dragging with her the luckless Pete. The cow-puncher'syells filled the ca?on.
Small wonder was it that he cried out in anguish, for the side of thehill down which the old mule was loping was as steep as the side ofa house, and plentifully bestrewn with rocks, inter-grown with roughscraggly brush. Jack was fully dressed, just as he had lain down,and he leaped off into the darkness in the direction in which Pete'shideous yells and the clattering of the old mule's hoofs proclaimedthem to be. But before he reached them, the abrupt descent of themountain by Pete had ceased. The old mule had been halted in midcareerby the rope becoming entangled in a small, low-growing pi?on, and shehad been checked as effectively as if a hand had been laid on the rope.
"Here, for goodness sake, get me cut loose from this she fiendincarnate," begged Pete, as he heard Jack coming toward him.
"Well, do make less noise, then," said Jack, who could hardly keep fromlaughing at Pete's doleful tones.
"Noise," groaned Pete, "it's a wonder I'm not making theall-sorrowfulest caterwauling you ever heard. If there's a sound bit ofskin on my poor carcass, I'll give you a five-dollar gold piece for it,and no restrictions as to size, either. Ouch!"
He gave a painful exclamation as he rose to his feet.
"Consarn that mule," he grumbled, "I'm going to get me a good thickclub, and her and me will argue this thing out. Look at that, will you,for pure cussedness."
No wonder the bruised and battered Pete was indignant. The runawaymule stood only a few paces from them, unconcernedly cropping some sortof prickly bush, which no animal but a mule would have had the courageto tackle.
"Mule's ain't human, as I've often observed," grunted Pete, in intensedisgust; "they're a mixture of combustibles, hide and devilment, with adash of red fire thrown in."
"Well, why did you tie the rope round your wrist, then?" asked Jack,untangling the tether, and starting to lead the mule back.
"Don't ask me any questions," roared Pete, rubbing himselfaffectionately, "or if you do, ask me why I was ever a consarned,peskyfied, locoed idjut enough to cross that bridge."
A sudden disturbance in the brush below them caused them to start andlisten intently.
The noise sounded like several animals of some sort making a kind ofstampede through the brush.
"The Mexicans!" was the first thought that flashed through Jack's mind.But the next instant he knew it was impossible that it could be they.
"Those are no Mexicans, boy," whispered Pete.
"What was it, then?"
"Hold on, thar, or I'll shoot," unwisely yelled Pete. Unwisely, becausethey, neither of them, had a weapon.
In reply a bullet sang past his ear, fired, judging by the momentaryflash, from the direction of the trampling animals.
"Waal, what do you know about that?" grunted Pete amazedly. "Thisvalley must be full of enemies of our'n."
"Better not do any more shouting," warned Jack.
"No, I reckon not. Wow! I heard the bees sing that time, all right."
"What do you suppose it could have been? Not Mexicans, certainly."
"Nope. At least I don't think so. Maybe Injuns."
"Indians!"
"Yes, every once in a while they stampede off the reservation and roamaround promiscuous. But anyhow, whatever it was, or whoever it is,he's more scairt of us than we are of him. Hark!"
There was a mighty clattering of dislodged stones and rustling of brushcoming out of the darkness, and diminishing in loudness every minute.
"Git thar, Fox! You ornery son of a side-winding rattler!" they heardan angry voice grunt under its breath, from the direction of theretreat.
"A white man, by Jee-hos-o-phat!" exclaimed Pete, his face lighting up."Now what in thunder is he doing up here?"