d stump the two other lads had, more or less successfully, been
trying to rope.

His right hand shot out, palm up, his cousins noticed, and the rope
went twisting and turning through the air, lengthening out like a long,
thin snake, and almost hissing like one. Instinctively, as though
roping a steer, Bud prepared himself for the pull that always followed.

Sock, the intelligent pony, braced his feet to hold back as soon as he
sensed that Bud had thrown the rope. For Sock had been taught that he
must always do this when a steer was being roped, and though he could
distinguish between a stump and an animal, Bud's action seemed to call
for co-operation on Sock's part.

The coils of the lariat whirled through the air, and, just as they were
about to settle over the stump, there was a sudden movement in a
leaf-filled hole beside the remains of what had once been a big tree.

Up out of this burrow, or hole, where he had been lying asleep among
dried leaves and grass that concealed him from the boys, rose a human
figure. He was so close to the stump and he rose up in such a manner
leaning slightly over, as if dazed from too sudden awakening from a
sound slumber, that he received the noose of Bud's rope fairly about
his shoulders!

So suddenly did the man appear, popping out of the hole beside the
stump like a Jack in the Box, that Sock was startled, and pranced back,
exactly as he would have done in order to drag a refractory steer off
its feet. And this was just what took place with the man.

The noose tightened about his middle and he was dragged over the flat
top of the stump, yelling and shouting in protest.

Nort and Dick did not know what to think--whether it was an accident,
or a bit of play arranged for their benefit by their cousin. But a
look at Bud's face was enough to convince them that he was as much
surprised as were they.

There was a series of shrill yells of protest from the roped
man--shrill language which Nort and Dick recognized as Mexican-Spanish,
and then, as Bud stopped his pony, and the rope loosened, the man stood
up. He scowled at the boys--a menacing figure of a Greaser, dirty and
unkempt.

"Del Pinzo!" gasped Bud, as he recognized the fellow. "Del Pinzo! I
didn't know you were near that stump!"

The man's answer was a deeper scowl, and his hand went toward the
holster at his hip--a holster that Nort and Dick noted with relief was
empty. For Del Pinzo's gun had fallen out as he