"
"They look like dubs," Frank put in, "and I believe they'll run
when they hear us shooting. If you won't let me drum, you must
let me shoot."
"You got no drum!" grinned Jimmie.
"I'm afraid they would turn their guns on their prisoner if we
attached them," said Nestor. "We've just got to wait until we
can cut him out."
"I'm hungry enough to eat 'em all alive," cried Frank.
"I could get along pretty well if I had a couple of gallons of
water," said Peter.
"If them lobsters find anything to eat or drink down there," Frank
said, "we'll go down and take it away from them. Looks like they
were making for a feed."
The boys now clambered cautiously to the summit and looked down the
slope to the east. The renegade and his men were slowly making their
way toward the bottom. The prisoner was moving forward as briskly as
any of them, and the big fellow appeared to be paying special attention
to him, as he was walking by his side most of the time.
The distance to the level plain below did not seem to be great. Although
the peaks of the Sierra del Fierro range seem high when looked upon from
the level of the Rio Grande, they do not appear to be so lofty when viewed
from the plateau upon which the actual ascent begins.
The level table-lands or plateaux of Mexico lie from four to nine thousand
feet above sea level, making many distinct climates as one goes up or down.
These plateaux are girt by mountain chains. The high summits are those of
Cofre del Perote, 13,400 feet; Origava, 17,870 feet; Istaccihuatl, or the
White Woman, 16,000 feet, and the famous Popocatapetl, known as "Smoking
Mountain," which lifts its fire-scarred head 17,800 feet above the level
of the ocean.
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