"Horrors! Indian captives!" cried the gentleman, aghast. CHAPTER II A BAD BUSINESS. Captives? Far from it--save to their own reckless disregard of life and limb, and all for a bit of hitherto untested fun. Shrieking with laughter at the success of their experiment, they rolled and floundered on the ground, till the laughter changed to cries of pain as their restless writhings to and fro drove their self-inflicted bonds deeper into the flesh. By some dexterity they got upon their feet, at last, and one implored: "Oh! you Pedro! or you, man! Cut us loose, can't you? Don't you see we can't do it ourselves?" Mr. Hale adjusted his eyeglasses and looked rather helplessly toward the shepherd; but that phlegmatic person was working away on his wonderful basket as stolidly as if there was none beside himself upon the mesa. "Oh! you hateful old Pedro! Cut us free, I tell you! Ain't I your master? You'd do it mighty quick for 'Lady Jess.'" The frightened little fellow, whose fun had now ebbed into a terrible fear of an indefinite bondage, began to whimper, and Mr. Hale to act. A few sharp slashings of the horsehair thongs and the captives were free to express their delight in a series of somersaults, which were only arrested by sight of Prince in the distance, holding up his injured foot and seeking for some pasture amid the dry herbage. "Hello! That horse is new. Is he yours, mister? What's the matter with him? Humph! I guess you're new, too, aren't you? I never saw you in our valley before. Where's your ranch?" The questioner was a blue-eyed, fair-haired little chap whose close resemblance to Jessica proclaimed him her brother; but he was younger, sturdier, and less courteous than she. Yet his prolonged stare at the stranger had less of rudeness than surprise in it, and Mr. Hale laughed at the frank inspection. "You look rather 'new' yourself, my man. About eight years, aren't you?" "How'd you guess?" "Lads of my own." "Where?" "Several thousand miles away, over the Atlantic coast." "Why didn't you fetch 'em?" "Couldn't afford it." "Oh! couldn't you? H-m-m." Then he turned his attention to Pedro, with the remark: "Why aren't you sick, like 'Tonio said? Making my sister come way up here for nothing. Don't you dare do that again, I tell you. You're just as well as ever, and I smell coffee. Come on, Luis!"