d. The tire
swelled and grew hard.

"It won't last long, but it may hold long enough for us," said Ralph,
as he let the car down again and handed the jack to the "chaffer."

As the man took and replaced it at the back of the car, Buck Bradley
regarded him with extreme disfavor. Then he turned to Ralph.

"Say, sonny," he said, "did you say you could run a car?"

"Yes."

"This one?"

"I think so."

Bradley turned to his "chaffer."

"Here, you!" he bellowed, "it's about two miles into town. Hoof it in
thar an' when yer git ter camp tell Sam Stow to run ther show
ter-night. I'm off on important business, tell him."

As the "chaffer" shuffled off, Buck Bradley began to hum:

"I knew at dawn, when de rooster crowed,
Dere wuz gwine ter be trouble on de Gran' Trunk Ro-ad!"

"It's a good thing you got that done in jig-time, young feller," spoke
Buck, as the job and his song were finished, and they scrambled back
into the car, "fer here they come."

He pointed back up the starlit road.

Not more than a few hundred yards off, several mounted figures came
into view. At the same moment that the occupants of the car sighted
them, the pursuing insurrectos made out the automobile.

Yelling at the top of their voices, they swept down upon it.

"Let 'er out, and don't bother ter hit nuthin' but ther high places,"
Buck admonished Ralph, who now held the wheel.

CHAPTER XX.

AT THE ESMERALDA MINE.

"If only I was certain that my boy and his friends were safe, Geisler,
I wouldn't feel so much anxiety."

Mr. Merrill, an anxious look on his face, paced up and down the floor
of the office of the Esmeralda Mine. It was the morning of the day
following the dash for safety in Buck Bradley's car, and the mine owner
and his superintendent had been in anxious consultation since
breakfast. In truth, they had enough to worry them. In the specie
room of the mine was stored more than $20,000 worth of dust, the
product of the big stamp mill.

From what they had been able to ascertain, the insurrectos were
unusually active in the neighborhood. Open warning had been sent to
the American mine owners, including Mr. Merrill, to be prepared to
yield up generously and freely, or have their property destroyed. In
addition to this worry, the mine owner and his superintendent, together
with the three young "level bosses," had been practically cut off from
communication with the outside world for the past twenty-four