"Not on your life!" exclaimed Merry, at once putting up his revolver.

At which she came running and panting up to him, all in a flutter of excitement.

"Oh, _Madre de Dios_! I am so much happeeness! I have de great fear when you I do see. Oh, you weel come to heem? You weel do for heem de saveeng?"

The girl was rather pretty, and she was not more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. She was tanned to a dark brown, but had white teeth, which were strangely pointed and sharp.

"Who do you mean?"

"My fadare. _Ay-de mi_! he ees hurt! De bad men shoot heem. They rob heem! He find de gold. He breeng me with heem here to de mountain, all alone. He theenk some time he be vera reech. He have de reech mine. Then de bad men come. They shoot heem. They take hees gold. He come creep back to me. What can I to do? _Ay-de mi_!"

"Your father--some bad men have shot him?" said Merry.

"_Si, si, senor_!"

"It must have been Cimarron Bill's gang," thought Merry.

The girl was greatly excited, but he continued to question her, until he understood her quite well.

"Is he far from here?" he asked.

"No, not de very far. You come to heem? Mebbe you do for heem some good.

Weel you come?"

She had her brown hands clasped and was looking most beseechingly into Frank's face.

"Of course I'll come," he said. "You shall show me the way. My horse will carry us both."

He a.s.sisted her to mount behind him, and told her to cling about his waist.

Frank continued to question Gonchita, who sometimes became almost unintelligible in her excitement and distress. They pa.s.sed through the valley and turned into a rocky gorge. Frank asked if it was much farther.

"We be almost to heem now," a.s.sured Gonchita.

Almost as the words left her lips the heads of four or five men appeared above some boulders just ahead, and as many rifles were leveled straight at Frank's heart, while a well-known, triumphant voice shouted:

"I've got you dead to rights, Merriwell! If you tries tricks you gits soaked good and plenty!"

At the same moment the girl threw her arms about Frank's body, pinning his arms to his sides, so that he could make no move to draw a weapon.

Merry knew on the instant that he had been trapped. He realized that he had been decoyed into the snare by the Mexican girl. He might have struggled and broken her hold, but he realized the folly of such an attempt.

"Be vera steel, senor!" hissed the voice of Gonchita in his ear. "Eet be bet-are."

"You have betrayed me," said Frank reproachfully. "I did not think it of you. And I was ready to do you a service."

He said no more to her.

Out from the rocks stepped Cimarron Bill.

"So we meet again, my gay young galoot," said the chief of the ruffians.

"An' I reckon you'll not slip me so easy this time. That old Injun o'

yours is food fer buzzards, an' so he won't give ye no a.s.sistance whatever."

"Old Joe----" muttered Merry, in dismay.

"Oh, we finished him!" declared Bill. "That's why you ain't seen him fer some time. Set stiddy, now, an' don't make no ruction.

"Gonchita, toss down his guns."

The Mexican girl obeyed, slipping to the ground with a laugh when she had disarmed Frank.

The ruffians now came out from the shelter of the rocks and gathered about the youth, grinning at him in a most provoking manner. He recognized several of the same fellows who had once before acted as guard over him. Red Sam was there, and nodded to him.

"You're a right slick poker-player," said the sandy rascal; "but we 'lowed a girl'd fool ye easy. Goncheeter done it, too."

Frank nodded.

"She did," he confessed. "I was taken off my guard. But you want to look out for Indians."

"Why for?"

Merry then told them of the smoke signals, whereupon they grinned at one another knowingly.

"That'll be all right," said Bill. "Them signals told us when you was comin', an' which way."

"Then you were doing the signaling?"

"Some o' the boys."

Frank was then ordered down and searched. He appeared utterly fearless.

He observed that Gonchita was watching him closely, a strange look in her eyes, her lips slightly parted, showing her milky, pointed teeth.

When the men were satisfied that no weapon remained in the possession of their captive, two or three of them drew aside to consult, while the others guarded Frank.

Cimarron Bill patted Gonchita's cheek with his hand.

"Well done, leetle gal!" he said. "You fooled him powerful slick."

She smiled into Bill's eyes, but in another moment, the chief, having turned away, she was watching Frank again.

The result of the consultation led to the placing of Merry on his own horse, and he was guarded by the armed men who escorted him along the gorge until they came to a place where two men were watching a number of waiting horses.

Then there was mounting and riding away, with Frank in the midst of his triumphant enemies. Gonchita rode with them, having a wiry little pony that seemed able to cope with any of the other horses.

Frank was not a little disgusted because he had been decoyed into the trap, but he did his best to hide his feelings.

It was some hours later that they halted to rest until the heat of the day should pa.s.s. A fire was built, and a meal prepared, Gonchita taking active part in this work.