asso.

Johnny and Archie also surrendered at discretion; but Arthur, believing
that the time had come to retrieve the reputation he had lost so
ingloriously a few days before, determined that he would not surrender
without a fight. It was a part of his contract with the robber chief,
that he should be allowed to resist as desperately as he pleased, and he
took advantage of it. He gazed at the Rancheros for a moment with
well-assumed astonishment, and then, appearing to comprehend the
situation, he shouted:

"Stick together, fellows, and fight for your liberties! Don't give up,
like a pack of cowards! Knock 'em down! Shoot 'em! Take your hand off
that bridle, you villain!"

As Arthur spoke, he dashed his spurs into the flanks of his horse, which
bounded forward so suddenly, that he jerked the bridle from the grasp of
the Ranchero who was holding him.

"Hurrah! I'm free, boys!" he shouted, clubbing his gun, and swinging it
around his head. "Follow me, and I'll show you how we used to clean out
the Indians."

Arthur's triumph was of short duration. The Ranchero, from whom he had
escaped, was at his side in an instant, and, again seizing his bridle
with one hand, he leveled a pistol full at his prisoner's head with the
other, while Pierre caught his gun from behind, and wrested it from his
grasp. At the same moment, a lasso, thrown by the Ranchero who had taken
charge of Archie, settled down over his shoulders, and was drawn tight.

Pierre and his band were obeying their instructions to the very letter,
indeed, they were altogether too zealous in their efforts to appear
"natural," and Arthur began to be suspicious that they were in sober
earnest with him, as well as with the others. He looked up into Pierre's
face, in the hope of receiving from him some friendly token--a sly wink
or a nod, which would satisfy him that he was "all right," and in no
danger of receiving bodily injury; but he saw nothing of the kind. The
chieftain's face wore a terrible scowl, and he even lifted Arthur's gun
above his head, as if he had half a mind to knock him out of his saddle.

"Quarter! quarter!" gasped Arthur, striving, with nervous fingers, to
pull the lasso from his neck, and beginning to be thoroughly alarmed. "I
surrender."

"Well, let that be your last attempt at escape," said Pierre, in a very
savage tone of voice, "or you will find, to your cost, that we are not
to be trifled with."

In the meantime, the other Rancheros,