Part 2 (1/2)

It was terrible to hear her and it must have sent a s.h.i.+ver into the soul of the hardy skipper.

When she had finished, the woman moved past them and vanished in the direction of the ranch. For a full minute the line of men stood without moving a step and in absolute silence, Captain Broom with his arm upraised as he had lifted it to strike.

Then, without saying a word, he took the first forward step and the others followed him through the darkness.

”Say, Cales,” growled Pete in a low voice, ”what was it you found in that cave? My old timbers are shaking yet.”

”Keep your old jaws shut,” yelled the Captain, who had wonderfully keen hearing, when anything was spoken that concerned him.

”How do you suppose the old man heard me?” mumbled Pete to himself. He dropped back a pace or two, then whispered, ”The old man must be crazy.

He is making direct for the Sebastian ranch.”

”Do you reckon that these four boys he is looking after, are located there?” asked Jack.

”I dunno,” replied Pete, ”you can calkerlate on one thing though and that is that the skipper knows pretty nigh where those lads are. One of his messengers, a one-eyed, twisted greaser, came aboard the other day, and was gabbling in the Captain's cabin. Then the next thing I knew we was under sail, and came kiting down to the cove.”

Just then the party halted at the confines of a four strand barbed wire fence. This was the first indication that they were entering the great ranch property that formerly belonged to the Senor Sebastian, the elderly man the Captain had made captive, and which was now the property of his only son.

”Now, lads,” said the leader of the expedition, ”Here's a chance to make yourself small. This yere barb is like a devil fish if it once gits a holt of your panties--it won't let go.”

”That's so, Captain,” said the mate, a generally silent and saturnine man.

”I reckon you know, mate,” said the Captain. ”The last time we was through these parts, and that some considerable years ago, this same fence got a holt of yer pants and wouldn't let go. I never heard you talk so much and so earnestly in my life before. You want to be more keerful this time.”

The mate simply grunted by way of reply and, lying close to the ground, he very gingerly and carefully worked his way under the wire and thus escaped his mentioned former unpleasant detention. He then held the lower wire up as high as he could until his chief had wiggled under.

Pete was the only one of the party who was seriously detained, for Jack Cales had slid under as slick as an eel. But Pete's joints were old and rusty and the venomous wire got a clutch on his coat and his pants.

”What's keeping you back?” inquired the Captain, gruffly, as Cales and his comrade did not put in an immediate appearance.

”Pete has got caught, sir,” said Jack.

”What are you doing there, you old barnacle?” inquired the Captain as he came back to the fence.

There was a certain odd comrades.h.i.+p between the skipper and the old salt who had been with him since his African days. Both were New Englanders and had come from neighboring homesteads.

”Just resting, sir,” replied the captive.

It certainly did have something of that appearance, for Pete had kept a decisive grip on his old black pipe with his stubby teeth and was puffing at it in apparent peace and resignation.

”Want me to git you a piller?” inquired the skipper, sarcastically.

”Thank ye, sir,” replied Pete imperturbably.

Meanwhile the mate had been at work with deft fingers and he finally succeeded in extricating the old man and putting him upon his pins.

”Now if ye are sufficiently rested,” proposed the skipper, ”we will hike along.”

This they did. Their way now lay between two stretches of fence that enclosed a road not much traveled for there were only faint traces of wheels in the turf. It was probably not a public highway but belonged to the great ranch.