. To make any sudden move, however,
would be to attract attention, and this was the last thing they desired
to do, naturally.

Suddenly, and before Jack could withdraw his eager, gazing face from
its frame of brush. Coyote Pete looked up. His eyes met Jack's in a
startled, incredulous stare. But the old plainsman was far too
seasoned a veteran to allow his amazement to betray him into an
exclamation. Nor did he apprise the professor by even so much as a
look of what he had seen. The man of science was staring abstractedly
before him, at the gamblers, perhaps, as he watched the rolling dice,
working out a calculus or other abstruse problem. Such a mental
condition, at any rate, might have been assumed, from the far-away
expression of his benevolent countenance.

Without making a move, Pete rolled his eyes toward the rifles. To
Jack, this motion read as plain as print:

"_Nail them_."

This, of course, was just what the lad desired to do, but how to
accomplish it without arousing the gamblers, who, despite their
absorption in their game, every now and then cast a glance around, was
a problem.

Suddenly Pete threw himself to the ground. Apparently, he had been
seized by some terrible pain. Groaning, in what appeared to be agony,
his bound figure rolled about on the earth, while his legs, which below
his knees were free, kicked vigorously.

"Oh--oh--oh!" groaned Pete.

"What's the matter?" cried the gamblers, springing up in consternation
at this sudden seizure.

"Oh, oh! mucho malo estomago!" howled Pete.

So well was all this simulated, that even the professor came out of his
reverie and looked concerned, while the gamblers, laying down their
dice for an instant, hastened to the struggling, writhing cow-puncher's
side.

It was the moment to act.

Silently, almost as so many serpents, Jack and his comrades wriggled
out of the brush, and, in a flash, the coveted rifles were in their
possession. As Ralph seized his, however, the boy, in his eagerness,
tripped and fell with a crash against some tin cooking pots.

Like a flash, the soldiers, who had been bending over Pete, wheeled
about. But it was to look into the muzzles of their own rifles they
did so.

Too dumfounded at the sudden turn events had taken to move, the
insurrectos stood there quaking. Evidently the mestizos expected
nothing better than instant death.

"Ralph, take your knife, and cut loose Pete and the professor, quick!"

Jac