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Page 69
"Mount and get away," ordered the commander of this strangest of night
raids.
Two men, each leading a pony to which a captive was lashed, rode off in
one direction. Groups of two or three rode away in other directions,
the blackness of the night swallowing them up.
It was going to be a difficult task for pursuers to know which direction
to take in order to come up with Reade and Hazelton in time to save them
from the fate that lay just ahead of them!
For audacity and dash the raid could not have been better planned.
From camp not a shot was fired, for the watchmen had had the only
weapons and these had been seized by the invaders.
"Our foremen might telegraph to camp," thought Tom swiftly, as he felt
himself being carried away. "But I'll wager that these smart scoundrels
didn't forget to cut the wire before springing the raid."
For the first two or three minutes Harry's, slower moving mind hardly
grasped more than the fact that their enemies appeared to have won a
complete triumph.
"There isn't much doubt as to what they'll do with us," thought
Hazelton, with a slight shudder. "These rascals will move too fast for
pursuit to overtake them early. What they in intend to do with us can
be done in a very few minutes."
Neither young engineer really expected to live to see daylight. From
the first, after having incurred the anger of a certain lawless element
in Paloma, the young engineers had understood fully that threats of
lynching them had not been idly made.
"There'll be a stir, though," Tom Reade muttered to himself. "The A. G.
& N. M. officials won't let this crime go by without a determined effort
to bring the offenders to justice. Detectives will search this
community in squads, and everyone of these masked gentlemen is likely to
get his deserts."
Within the next half hour the galloping horses had covered fully five
miles. Now the leader of the crowd led the way down into a deep gully
in the sand.
"Hold up, men," ordered the leader, and the cavalcade came to a stop,
horses panting.
"Tumble the cattle off into the dirt," was the next order, and it was
obeyed, Tom and Harry rolling in the bitter alkali dust.
"Now, gentlemen, I believe I will take command," spoke one of the party
of horsemen, in his most suave voice, as he removed his mask. The
speaker, as Reade knew at once, was Jim Duff, the gambler.
"That's all right, Jim," nodded the former leader.
"Jake, ride back a few hundred yards and keep a sharp lookout,"
suggested Duff blandly. "The pursuers may come in automobiles. We'll
cut the ceremonies here short and leave nothing but lifeless bodies for
the rescue parties to find."
Stakes were driven and the horses picketed.
"Bring along our guests," suggested Jim Duff, with a touch of humor
that the occasion rendered grisly.
Thereupon Tom and Harry were once more jerked to their feet.
"Ye can walk, I reckon, and don't have be toted," observed one of the
scoundrels.
"We're wholly at your service, sir," rejoined Tom mockingly.
"And equally at your pleasure," Harry suggested dryly.
Two hundred yards further on the halted close to a pair of stunted trees
of about the same size.
"Gentlemen, you may as well remove your masks on this hot evening,"
suggested Jim Duff. The face coverings came off. Reade and Hazelton
surveyed their captors as the chance offered, being careful not to
betray too great curiosity.
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