ck.

"I dunno," replied Pete, "you can calkerlate on one thing though and
that is that the skipper knows pretty nigh where those lads are. One of
his messengers, a one-eyed, twisted greaser, came aboard the other day,
and was gabbling in the Captain's cabin. Then the next thing I knew we
was under sail, and came kiting down to the cove."

Just then the party halted at the confines of a four strand barbed wire
fence. This was the first indication that they were entering the great
ranch property that formerly belonged to the Senor Sebastian, the
elderly man the Captain had made captive, and which was now the property
of his only son.

"Now, lads," said the leader of the expedition, "Here's a chance to make
yourself small. This yere barb is like a devil fish if it once gits a
holt of your panties--it won't let go."

"That's so, Captain," said the mate, a generally silent and saturnine
man.

"I reckon you know, mate," said the Captain. "The last time we was
through these parts, and that some considerable years ago, this same
fence got a holt of yer pants and wouldn't let go. I never heard you
talk so much and so earnestly in my life before. You want to be more
keerful this time."

The mate simply grunted by way of reply and, lying close to the ground,
he very gingerly and carefully worked his way under the wire and thus
escaped his mentioned former unpleasant detention. He then held the
lower wire up as high as he could until his chief had wiggled under.

Pete was the only one of the party who was seriously detained, for Jack
Cales had slid under as slick as an eel. But Pete's joints were old and
rusty and the venomous wire got a clutch on his coat and his pants.

"What's keeping you back?" inquired the Captain, gruffly, as Cales and
his comrade did not put in an immediate appearance.

"Pete has got caught, sir," said Jack.

"What are you doing there, you old barnacle?" inquired the Captain as he
came back to the fence.

There was a certain odd comradeship between the skipper and the old salt
who had been with him since his African days. Both were New Englanders
and had come from neighboring homesteads.

"Just resting, sir," replied the captive.

It certainly did have something of that appearance, for Pete had kept a
decisive grip on his old black pipe with his stubby teeth and was
puffing at it in apparent peace and resignation.

"Want me to git you a piller?" inquired the skipper, sarcastically.

"Thank