CHAPTER V
CAUGHT IN A TRAP

But Ramon was not dead, – far from it, in fact. As Jack bent above him he reached back, and with a swift, cat-like motion, whipped out a knife and, balancing it on his palm for the fraction of a second, sent it whistling past the lad’s ear.

Before he could rise the boy was upon him, and for a space of several minutes they struggled on the uneven ground, the exhausted horse looking disinterestedly on. Had it not been for its recent punishment it is likely that the brute might have interfered, for some of the oft told tales along the border concerned the black’s love for its master. But as it was, it made no move, not even when Jack, holding Ramon pinned to the ground with one hand, with the other jerked loose the lasso from the saddle, by its hanging end, and rapidly proceeded to bind the Mexican fast.

“Adios, Ramon!” cried the boy, as, his task completed, he turned away.

Had the black horse not been so completely worn out it is likely that Jack might have commandeered him. But as it was, he deemed it wisest not to bother with him.

And so he slipped away, leaving the exhausted horse and helpless master side by side.

After traveling some distance Jack began to realize that his woodcraft was seriously at fault somewhere. He had intended to make a detour which would bring him around the outlaw’s camp and enable him to reach their own bivouac unobserved.

Instead of this, as he now began to dread, he had apparently headed altogether in the wrong direction, for the country into which he emerged after traversing the fern-brake and scrub-coppice, was of a kind distinctly foreign to anything they had as yet encountered in Mexico.

Almost bare of vegetation, it was riven and split as if by volcanic action. The earth was of a reddish color, as if it had been seared by elemental fires, and the beetling cliffs rose threateningly on either side.

“What a gloomy place,” thought Jack, “it reminds me of that valley in which Sinbad the Sailor found the snakes and the diamonds. Wonder if there are any diamonds here? Tell you what, though, I’d give a whole handful of the gems right now for a good square meal.”

The thought of the appetizing breakfast which had been preparing when he left camp made Jack hungrier than ever, a fact which he had not had time heretofore to realize in the rapid march of events which had occurred since his departure.

The Border Boy looked about him carefully. He realized that if not actually lost, he was in grave danger of being so. The thought quickened his faculties and he set about gauging his position in real earnest. Having, by the aid of the sun, calculated the direction in which the Border Boys’ camp ought to lie, Jack struck out for it. His way led him across a corner of The Baked Land, as he had mentally christened the dreary valley.

He was hastening forward when, suddenly, as he stepped into what seemed a patch of ferns and high grass, the solid ground seemed to vanish from under his feet.

Straight down shot the Border Boy, clutching desperately, as he fell, at projecting rocks and bits of growth; but none of these remained firm in his grasp.

For twenty feet or more the boy fell, and then suddenly his drop was arrested by a heap of dried vegetation at the bottom of the pit or crevasse into which his hurrying feet had led him.

So well had the deceitful growth on the edges of this gulf hidden it, that it was small wonder that Jack, in his haste, had not perceived it. It was dark with a gloomy, damp sort of dusk in the bottom of the crevasse, only a dim, greenish light filtering in from the top.

The reaction from his hopes of a few minutes before almost unnerved the lad for the nonce, but presently he marshalled his faculties and set himself to the task of ascertaining exactly what had happened to him, and what means of escape presented itself.

At a single glance he could see that there was no hope of getting out of the subterranean trap by means of climbing up the walls. Although they were rough and might have afforded a foothold, they overhung the floor of the pit at such an angle that even a fly would have found it difficult to maintain a foothold on them.

Yet rescue himself he must, or face death in that gloomy place. Without any definite idea in his mind, Jack struck off along the bottom of the abyss, which was overgrown with a short, coarse sort of grass of a pallid green color.

As he moved along his progress was suddenly arrested. His foot had encountered something that wriggled and squirmed horribly under his sole. It was a sickening sensation, this, of feeling that squirmy mass under his foot.

Jack stepped hastily back. As he did so something brown and mottled slid off through the grass, hissing angrily. As it went there came a dry sort of sound, like the rattling of peas in a bladder. At the same time a nauseating musky odor filled the air.

“This place may be alive with rattlers!” thought Jack, glancing nervously about him.

As he spoke he thought that from a dark corner at the further end of the rocky pit he could hear a sort of scuffling and rustling, unpleasantly suggestive of intertwined masses of scaly bodies writhing and contorting in snaky knots. At any rate, he decided to explore the rift no further in that direction. Instead, he turned back and sitting down on a projecting bit of rock, – after first carefully reviewing the surroundings, – Jack set himself to some hard thinking.

If only he had possessed a rifle or a revolver, – or even a knife, – his situation would have been different. By firing the weapons he might have attracted attention to his dilemma, and with the knife it might have been feasible to cut steps in the walls at some other part of the crevasse.

Then, too, there is something in the mere feel of the good wood and steel of a rifle that gives a fellow confidence and courage. It seems like a friend or at least a protector. But poor Jack had none of this comfort He was trapped in the bowels of the earth with only his bare hands to aid him out of his difficulties.

As it was unthinkable to dream of exploring the pit further in the direction in which he felt sure lay the den of snakes, Jack finally decided on striking off the other way. That he went carefully, you may be sure. He did not want again to experience that wriggly, crawly feeling under his foot.

The crevasse seemed to be of considerable length. In fact, he estimated that he had walked some half mile or more before he reached what seemed to be its confines. It ended abruptly in a steep wall of rock, and with its termination Jack’s hopes of escape vanished also. Fairly unnerved, the boy sank down on a heap of dried fern and buried his face in his hands.

Was he to be buried alive in this horrible place?

Then he fell to shouting. He yelled and hulloed till his throat was dry and sore, and his lips cracked. He knew that he ran considerable risk of attracting the attention of the outlaws, but in his present predicament he didn’t much care what happened so long as he got out of the terrible place. But all his shouting came to naught, and after an interval of waiting Jack realized that it had all been in vain.

What was he to do next? Nothing but to wait for rescue or – But Jack would not allow himself to complete the sentence.

“While there is life there is hope,” he murmured to himself, and involuntarily recalled the night when he had stood upon the tower of the old mission, a hundred feet above the ground, and deemed that his end had come. Yet he had escaped from that dilemma, and more impossible things had happened than that he should get out of his present scrape alive.

All at once, while he sat thus meditating, the boy spied, not far above his head and only a short distance away, a dangling vine some two inches in circumference, and seemingly tough and fibrous.

“It ought to bear my weight,” thought Jack, “and if only it will, I’ll get out of this hideous place yet.”

He began making brave efforts to reach the trailing tendon. Time and again, with hands that were cut and bleeding from the rough surface of the rock, he was compelled to desist in his efforts, but at last, mustering his waning strength, he made a mighty leap. His fingers closed on the vine and he drew himself upward. But as the boy’s full weight came upon the green trailer it snapped abruptly, and Jack was thrown violently to the ground.

He fell with such force that he was stunned and helpless. Clasping the broken bit of treacherous vine in his hands, the Border Boy lay on the floor of the crevasse, senseless.

CHAPTER VI
AN EXCITING QUEST

In the meantime, the keenest anxiety prevailed in the camp. After awaiting breakfast for a long time, it was at last eaten and the tin dishes scoured, without there being any sign of the missing boy.

“We must organize a search at once,” declared the professor. “Following on the top of that warning last night, it begins to look ominous.”

“Maybe he has lost himself, and will find his way back before long,” suggested Ralph hopefully.

Coyote Pete gloomily shook his head.

“Jack Merrill ain’t that kind,” he said; “I tell yer, I don’t like the looks of it.”

“Why not fire guns so that if he is in the vicinity he can hear them?” was Walt Phelps’ suggestion.

“Yep, and bring the whole hornets’ nest down on our ears, provided they are anywhar near,” grunted Coyote Pete. “No younker, we will have to think up a better way than that.”

“Would not the search party I suggested be the best plan?” put in the professor.

“Reckon it would,” agreed Coyote Pete; “what you kain’t find, look fur, – as the flea said to ther monkey.”

But nobody laughed, as they usually did, at Pete’s quaintly phrased observations. There was too much anxiety felt by them all over Jack’s unexplained absence.

“Shall we take the horses?” inquired Walt.

“Sartin, sure,” was the cow-puncher’s rejoinder, “don’t want ter leave ’em here for that letter writer and his pals to gobble up.”

So the stock was saddled and the pack burros loaded and “diamond hitched,” and the mournful and anxious little party got under way. It so chanced that their way led them to the little hill where Jack had stopped on the stolen horse and listened for sounds of the pursuit. Coyote’s sharp eyes at once spied the tracks, but naturally he could make nothing of them.

Suddenly Ralph Stetson, who had ridden a little in advance, gave a startled cry.

“Come here, all!” he shouted.

“What’s up now?” grunted Coyote Pete, spurring forward, followed by the others.

“Why, here’s a horse, – a dead horse, shot through the head, lying here,” was the unexpected reply.

“Well, Mr. Coyote, what do you make of it?” asked the professor, after Pete had carefully surveyed the ground in the vicinity.

“Dunno what ter make uv it yit,” snorted Pete. “Looks like ther’s something back of this, as the cat said when she looked in the mirror, and – wow!”

“What is it?” they chorused as they pressed about the spot where Coyote was pointing downward, an unusual expression of excitement on his ordinarily unemotional features.

“See that?” he demanded.

“Yes, I see several footsteps,” said the professor, “but what have they – ”

“Ter do with it? Everything. Them’s Jack Merrill’s footmarks or I lose my guess. And see here, this little wavy line, – a lariat’s dragged here. Oh, the varmints!”

“How do you construe all this?” asked the professor.

“Easy enuff. Them rascals, whoever they be, hev roped Jack, hog-tied him and dragged him off.”

“O-oh!”

The exclamation, half a groan, burst from all their throats. Examining the ground further, it seemed likely that Coyote’s construction of the case was a correct one. All of which goes to show how very far wrong a theory can go.

“Let’s hurry after them, whoever they are, and put up a fight,” cried Ralph.

“Yes, we must rescue Jack,” echoed Walt Phelps.

“Now, hold your broncs, youngsters,” warned Coyote, “in the fust place we dunno how many of them there be, and in the second we dunno jus’ whar they air. Am I right?”

“Indeed, yes,” said the professor. “Boys, you should not be so impetuous. Julius Caesar, when he – ”

“Dunno the gent,” struck in Pete, “but my advice is to kind of hunt around this vicinity and maybe we’ll find some more clews. Go easy, now, boys, and make as little noise as possible.”

A few moments later the ashes of the camp fire near which Jack had so suddenly alighted were found, but of the outlaws no trace remained. As a matter of fact, Ramon’s shouts had attracted them, and as soon as they had rescued him the camp had been abandoned in a hurry. It did not suit Ramon just then to try conclusions with the Border Boys.

“Wall, here’s whar they camped,” muttered Coyote Pete, “we certainly had some close neighbors last night.”

The boys examined the camp site with interest, while the professor and Coyote Pete conversed earnestly apart. At the conclusion of their confab, Coyote Pete spoke.

“It’s up to us to go forward, boys,” he said. “Ain’t no use lingering ’bout these diggin’s.”

“But mayn’t the bad men have turned back down the canyon?” asked Ralph.

Coyote shook his head.

“Think agin, son,” he admonished, “the floor of the gulch is too narrow for ’em to hev got by us without our knowing it.”

“That’s so,” said Walt, while Ralph colored up a bit. He didn’t like to be looked upon as a tenderfoot.

It was some time later that they reached the volcanic-looking stretch of country into the pitfalls of which Jack had fallen.

“Ugh! What a dreary place!” stammered Walt, a bit apprehensively.

Somehow they all felt the oppressive gloom in the same way. It depressed and made them silent. When they spoke at all it was in hushed tones, like folks use in church or a big museum. This is the effect of most awe-inspiring scenery, be it beautiful and grand, or merely gloomy and threatening.

“In past ages volcanic energy was at work here,” said the professor, gazing about with interest; “the formation of yonder cliffs tells an interesting story to the scientist. I wish my geological hammer was not in the packs, and I could get some specimens of the rocks. They would be excessively interesting.”

“Not half so interesting ter me as a peek at Jack Merrill,” grunted Pete. “I wish your science was capable of finding that lad for us, professor.”

“Indeed, I wish so, too,” sighed the professor, “but that is outside the realm of science. She can tell you of the past but is silent as to the future.”

“I wonder if there are any volcanoes ’round about here now?” asked Ralph, looking about rather apprehensively.

“No, indeed, the fires are long extinct,” declared the professor, “this valley was formed at a remote period when no doubt hot water geysers and fires spouted through the earth’s crust. But that will never occur again. In fact – ”

“Look! Look there!” shouted Walt, suddenly pointing off to one side of the valley.

“By Jee-hos-o-phat – smoke!” yelled Pete, fairly startled out of his usual composure.

“A volcano!” cried Walt “Hadn’t we better be getting away from here?”

“This is most extraordinary,” exclaimed the man of science, “there is every evidence here that the internal fires have been long extinct and yet, as if to confound us, smoke comes pouring from that fissure yonder.”

“Wall, my vote is that we git right out of hyar quick,” declared Pete, “volcanoes and Peter de Peyster never did agree.”

But the professor, filled with scientific ardor, was already spurring his bony animal across the scarred and arid plain toward the smoke.

The others, watching him, saw him approach the fissure carefully and dismount. The next instant he uttered a yell that startled them all.

“Hez ther fireworks started?” asked Coyote anxiously.

The professor was waving his bony arms around like one of those wooden figures that you see on barns. He was evidently in a state of great excitement.

“What’s that he’s shouting?” asked Walt. “Hark!”

“Boys! boys! I’ve found him – Jack!”

This was the cry that galvanized them all into action. Without seeking for explanations, in fact, without a word, they spurred toward the professor’s side. They found him peering down into the fissure, the edge of which was concealed by grass and ferns. Craning their necks, they, too, could spy a figure in the depths of the crevasse.

“Jack! Jack, old boy! Are you all right?” they cried anxiously.

“Bright and fair!” came up the cheery answer, “but almost dead. I thought you’d never come. Got anything to eat?”

“Anything your little heart desires,” Walt assured him.

In the meantime Pete had been busy getting a lariat in trim to lower to the beleaguered boy. Presently it was ready, and after much hauling and struggling, they got their companion once more to the surface. Jack reeled for an instant as he gained the brink, but Ralph’s arms caught him. The next minute he had recovered his self-possession, however, and after eating ravenously of such provisions as could be got together hastily, he related the story of the strange things that had happened to him since leaving camp that morning.

“If I hadn’t thought of those matches in my pocket and of igniting a fire of that dried grass, I doubt if I’d have been here now,” he concluded.

“I think you are right,” said the professor gravely, “I am glad that that fire at least was not extinct.”