"Doggone!" voiced Snake, as he reached his hand to the inside pocket of his vest. "They spilled half of it!"

"What?" asked Bud, relief showing itself in his voice.

"My tobacco!" answered Snake. "I had some packed away there to keep it moist--some new kind of plug chewin' I got last week. Doggoned if they ain't put a bullet clean through it!"

"And lucky for you they did," grunted Tar Soap Mullin, who had earned this name from the kind of lather he used in shampooing himself every Sat.u.r.day night. "If that bullet hadn't happened to hit your plug it would have plugged you."

And this was evident when Snake took out the tobacco in question. The lead missile had struck the hard and pressed cake of tobacco, striking a tin tag fastened to it, and thus the force of the bullet had been neutralized, giving Snake no more than a severe shock and bruise.

"Well, it might have been worse," the cowboy grimly said, as he tucked back his shirt, and put the tobacco in another pocket. "Now we got to get busy! This is getting serious!" Bud and his chums thought he might have said it was serious from the start, as indeed it was.

"What I picked you fellows out for," went on Snake, "is to take a sort of scurry out there and see who's doin' all this shootin'." He clipped letters off his words in his haste. "We're goin' out there an' see if we can take 'em in the rear, while Yellin' Kid holds their attention in front."

"Do you reckon they're Yaquis?" asked Tar Soap.

"Might be, then ag'in might not. If they aren't I don't see why in the name of all the rattlers of Forked Rover [Transcriber's note: River?]

they're pickin' on us."

The method of procedure was simple and quickly agreed upon. Snake was to lead the boy ranchers and his half of the party, by as safe and devious a route as possible, out of the natural fort, to try and take the enemy in the rear. If they could be placed between two fires--that of Snake's party and of Yellin' Kid's--a surrender might be compelled.

"And don't take too many chances," advised Snake, as the sally forth was started. "Watch yourselves."

They all knew enough to do this.

"When do we start?" asked Bud in a low voice, as Snake seemed to be delaying for some reason.

"Soon as the Kid and his lads start firing," was the answer. "They're to hold the Indians' attention in front while we come at 'em from the flank and rear. Get ready--it may come at any moment now!"

It did, a second or two later--the signal. Amid a burst of shots from Yellin' Kid and his force, Snake led the way with his men, all of them crouching down to keep as much as possible behind the rocks.

"Don't shoot until you see something to shoot at," Snake had ordered.

"Save your lead."

Bud, Nort and d.i.c.k were together, leaping, crawling, crouching and stumbling. Suddenly d.i.c.k, who had gone a little ahead of his two chums, looked through an opening of the rocks. What he saw caused him to gasp in surprise, and as he pointed he cried:

"Del Pinzo! Del Pinzo and his crowd! It isn't the Yaquis at all! It's Del Pinzo!"

CHAPTER XII

FORWARD AGAIN

Time was when the mention of Del Pinzo's name would have brought forth a yell of anger from the cowboys of Diamond X ranch. He was an enemy at once to be feared and loathed, for he did not fight fair, and he was of the detested, half-breed Mexican type.

But now, when the cry of d.i.c.k apprised the others of the presence of this ruthless cattle rustler, thief and all-around bad man, there was no answering shout. One reason for this was that caution was necessary, so that the presence of the skirmishing party be not disclosed, and another was that the information that it was Del Pinzo, and presumably his gang who had ambushed our friends, came as a great surprise.

"Del Pinzo?" half gasped Snake Purdee as he ran to d.i.c.k's side.

"Yes, there he is! See!"

The boy rancher pointed to a figure standing near a stunted bush.

There was no doubt about it--Del Pinzo it was, and at his usual business, firing on some one, for he had a rifle raised, in the act of taking aim.

"I'll spoil one shot for him, anyhow," announced Snake.

He whipped out his .45, there was a sharp crack, and the gun of the Mexican half breed dropped to the ground, discharging as it fell, but harmlessly. And then the outlaw, with a yell of rage, gripped his right hand in his left. For Snake had fired at the man's trigger member, thus disabling him for the time.

And, as he turned, and beheld who had thus "winged" him, Del Pinzo gave another cry--as filled with surprise as had been the exclamation of d.i.c.k on beholding the Mexican renegade who, it was supposed, was safely locked up in penalty for many crimes.

"That your bunch down there?" called Del Pinzo to Snake, and he waved his uninjured hand toward the camp amid the rocks.

"You said something, Del Pinzo," grimly answered the cowboy. "What you all up to now? Be careful--I have you covered!" he warned. "And if your men want to bask in the sweet sunshine of your presence from now on, tell 'em to chuck down their guns. Also, up with your hands!"

There was a stinging menace in the tones that Del Pinzo knew well enough to obey. His hands, one dripping blood, were raised over his head, and he called something in Spanish to his followers, as yet unseen by the boy ranchers and their friends.

Instantly the scattered firing on the part of the outlaws ceased, and, catching this air of silence, Yellin' Kid gave an order that silenced his guns.

"Now, what's the game?" demanded Snake, holding the whip hand as it were. "What do you mean by firing on us?"

"I did not know it was you," declared the half breed. "We set out to look for the Yaquis--"

"The Yaquis?" interrupted Snake.

"Sure! They have risen, it is said, and I and my men are on their trail!"

This was news indeed--another surprise, in fact. That Del Pinzo was speaking the truth could scarcely be believed. In the first place this was almost an unknown accomplishment with him, and in the second place the Yaquis were of his own kind--reckless outlaws who would stop at nothing to get booty, either in cattle or money. It was more likely that Del Pinzo and his gang were seeking an opportunity to join forces with the band of up-rising Yaquis.

"Oh, you're after the Yaquis; are you!" asked Snake.

"Sure, senor Purdee!" Del Pinzo spoke fairly good English, and he could be polite when it suited him. "We saw that some one was encamped in the rocks, and I took them for the Yaquis. So we opened fire--it is with sadness that I know now it was your friends whom I shot at."

"Um! Maybe so--maybe not," grimly retorted the cowboy. "Anyhow it's us, and it seems to be you. I thought you were somewhere else," he added referring to the fact that Del Pinzo had been arrested. It was not the first time the half breed had been in the toils of the law, following cattle raids on Diamond X or other ranches.

In the previous books of this series I have related some of Del Pinzo's outrages. He was concerned in the water fight that so nearly ended disastrously for Bud and his cousins.

"Oh, I get out!" said Del Pinzo, easily, and with a shrug of his shoulders which might mean that coming forth from a jail was nothing in his life.

"So I see," observed Snake with a grin. "By hook or crook, I reckon.

Well, I don't know as we have anything against you and your bunch just at present. If you're after the Yaquis you're on the same errand as us. But, if you'll excuse me sayin' so, I'd rather travel my own road."

This was a delicate hint to which Del Pinzo was not oblivious.

"Surely, senor," he answered, grinning. "You go your way and I go mine. Only let the fighting cease. As you say--there is nothing against me--now."

"Which isn't saying that there won't be, or hasn't been," spoke Snake.

"File out your men--without guns, you understand!" he snapped. "And then you can hit your own trail. Looks like there'd been a mistake all round. We thought you the Yaquis."