k gave the order without averting his eyes from the three scared
insurrectos.

While he and Walt kept the fellows covered, Ralph hastened to Pete's
side, and in a few seconds the cow-puncher and the professor were free,
although almost too stiff to move. The professor was, moreover, lame.
With a groan, he sank back on a rock, unable, for the time being, to
move.

Pete, however, gave himself a vigorous shake, and instantly made a dart
for the saddle of one of the horses. He returned in a jiffy with two
lariats, with which he proceeded to "hog-tie" the Mexicans with
neatness and despatch, as he himself would have expressed it.

This done, he turned to Jack.

"Thank the Lord, you're safe, boy," he breathed, and for a minute Jack
saw something bright glisten in the rugged fellow's eyes. But the next
instant he was the same old Pete.

"Waal," he said, looking about him, "I reckon the next move is to stop
these gents frum any vocal exercise, and then we skedaddle."

"That's the program, Pete," assented Jack, hastening to the professor's
side. The old man was almost overcome.

"My boys! My boys!" he kept repeating. "I never thought to see you
again."

"Nor we you, for a while, professor," said Jack hastily, while Pete,
not over-gently, stuffed the Mexicans' mouths full of gags made from
their own shirts.

"But, my boy, you will have to leave me again," went on the man of
science dejectedly, "my ankle pains me so that I cannot move."

"But you can ride, can't you, sir?" asked Ralph.

"Yes! yes! I can do that. But where are your horses?"

"Right thar," said Pete, coming up. He waved his hand in an eloquent
gesture at the animals standing at the edge of the little clearing,
"take yer pick, gents. Thet little sorrel jes' about suits me."

So saying, the cow-puncher picked out a wiry, active looking little
beast, and selected four others for his companions. The professor was
aided into the saddle somehow, and, once up, sat clinging to the horn
desperately.

"They'll never take me alive, boys," he assured them.

"That's the stuff, sir," cried Pete lustily; "you'll make a
broncho-busting plainsman yet. Now, then, are we all ready?"

"All ready here," sung out Jack, who, like the others, was already in
his borrowed saddle.

"All right, then. We're off, as the fellow says."

Pete dug his heels into his active little mount's sides, and the cayuse
sprang forward in a way that showed Pete he was bestrid