The Broncho Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers Part 10

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE.

The soft purling of water was the first sound which greeted Billie's ear when he was again able to collect his thoughts. He was lying upon his back and looking up into darkness. He tried to move, but was unable to do so, and so closed his eyes and tried to think what had happened.

As his mind became clearer, he remembered his fall; and, as he became more and more normal, and could move his hands about, he realized that he was lying in the bottom of a boat and that the purling of the water was caused by the rapid movement of the boat through the water.

"I wonder what makes it so dark?" he thought. "It was dinnertime the last I remember, and I don't feel as though I had been asleep very long."

All at once the noise of the water ceased, and a moment later he heard the boat grate upon the sand. A man sprang over him and beached the boat, and Billie could feel it being pulled up onto the sh.o.r.e. Then a light appeared, and in another minute a man with a lighted torch in his hand came and peered into the boat.

"_Buenos noches_," Billie exclaimed, after the man had been gazing silently into his face for several seconds. "_Que hora es?_"

He thought it must be quite right to say "good evening" because it was dark, but he asked the time to make sure.

The man made no reply, but turned and walked hastily away.

"That's funny," said Billie. "I think I'll follow him."

He attempted to arise, but a strange feeling in his head and in the pit of his stomach caused him to forego the attempt.

"I must be hungry," he thought. "That's what I get for going without my dinner. But I've been hungry before and never felt this way."

Somehow or other he didn't seem able to figure it out, and so he closed his eyes and lay perfectly quiet, with a sense of going to sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, the whole scene had changed. He was lying on some sort of a coa.r.s.e bed and by the light that came in through a small grated window in the ceiling, he could see that he was in a good-sized room, the walls of which appeared to be solid stone.

There were several pieces of furniture in the room, consisting of chairs, a table and a chest of drawers. On the walls were a couple of old-fas.h.i.+oned gun-racks, but no guns. The general impression it gave was not pleasant, and reminded him of some of the old Scotch prisons he had read about in the works of Sir Walter Scott.

"I wonder where I am," was the first thought that came to his mind. "I'm out of the boat, that's certain, but how did I get here?"

Again he attempted to arise, and this time found that he was stronger and able to sit up.

He made a careful inspection of the room, and discovered that there was only one door, directly facing the bed, and no windows save the one in the ceiling. Then he happened to think of his revolver, and felt for it.

It was gone, but his holster and belt, filled with cartridges, still remained about his waist.

"I'm in a jolly nice fix," he muttered to himself, and, for want of anything better to do, he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, still wondering what had happened.

A few minutes later he heard the door open, footsteps approach his bed, and a hand was laid upon his head.

Billie looked up through half-closed eyelids, and was surprised to see bending over him a strange-looking individual, who reminded him strongly of the Zuni medicine man, only that his face was more refined.

"What do you think of him, Santiago?" asked a voice in English, whose owner Billie could not see, but which sounded somewhat familiar.

"I do not think he is badly hurt. I think he will be all right soon."

"_Bueno!_ Then I will leave him in your care; but see to it that he does not escape. Our safety may depend upon keeping him prisoner."

"That's nice, pleasant information," thought Billie as he heard the speaker withdraw. "To be kept a prisoner, am I? Well, we'll see about it."

He uttered a faint groan and threw his hands over his head as though in pain.

"I'll not get well as fast as they expect," was his mental resolve.

"I'll make them think I'm too sick to get away until the right time comes."

Again Billie felt a hand upon his head and again he observed the man beside him with half closed eyes.

When the man spoke again his voice was as soft as a woman's.

"Where do you feel badly?" he asked.

Then for the first time it occurred to Billie to wonder how he happened to be addressed in English.

"It must be a friend," he thought. So he replied in a voice that sounded most strange to him: "In my head. It seems too big for the rest of me."

"No wonder," said his companion-whether nurse or jailer, Billie was trying to determine. "You struck right on top of it when you fell off the rock."

It was the first time that Billie had thought of the rock; but at the word, the happenings of all that had gone before came back to him.

"Now I remember," he thought. "I must have fallen right in the middle of that bunch and they have brought me here-wherever this is. That must have been Don Rafael who was in here; but why are they all talking English?"

It was a bigger problem than he felt like answering, so he just lay quiet as he felt a cooling lotion applied to his head and a pleasant but very pungent odor filled the room.

"I think I'll go to sleep if you don't mind," he finally said and he closed his eyes.

It did not seem to Billie that he had slept more than fifteen minutes when he again opened his eyes, but as he learned afterwards he must have slept nearly twenty-four hours. The strange man still stood beside him, holding in his hand a dish of steaming soup, while at the foot of the bed stood Don Rafael.

For just a moment Billie did not recognize either of them, but was brought to himself by hearing Don Rafael say:

"I am very sorry you met with such a serious accident. I suppose you must have been hunting and lost your foothold. I have sent word to your friends and am sure they will come for you as soon as you are able to be moved."

He spoke with such an air of truthfulness, that if Billie had not been absolutely certain that he was a bad man, he would have believed him.

However, he said nothing, and after a minute Don Rafael continued:

"You must not think I have any animosity against you for what you did in helping Pedro to escape me. That is a matter of Mexican politics of which you young Americans know nothing. The Americans are all my friends. Now you must eat your dinner. I will come and see you again."

The word dinner sounded pretty good to Billie and so he felt justified in saying "thank you," and sitting up in his bed took the soup from Santiago's hand as Don Rafael left the room.

"You are much better," said Santiago, as Billie ate his soup as only a hungry boy can.

"Yes, I think so; but I don't feel exactly right yet."

"You will in a little while. Do you want some more?" as Billie emptied the dish and handed it back.

"I usually eat something besides soup," declared Billie. "Have you anything else?"

"Oh, yes," and Santiago took from a tray which he had placed on the table a dish of black beans.