In the event of their falling once more into the hands of Ramon, Jack could not repress a shudder as he thought of what the probable fate would be. Ugly stories had from time to time floated across the border concerning the manner in which Ramon, in his cattle-rustling days, dealt with his prisoners,--stories of torture and suffering that made one shudder even to listen to. If the apparent leader of the insurrectionist gun-runners had cause for animosity against the boys before, it was surely redoubled now. Not only had they accidentally penetrated the secret of the Haunted Mesa, but they had toppled the former leader of the cattle-rustlers ignominiously into the water, an insult which Jack knew the man's nature too well to suppose he would easily either forgive or forget. In such gloomy reflections was he occupied when a sudden shout from the others roused him from his reverie, and, looking up, he saw that the tunnel through which the river flowed was growing higher, broader, and lighter. The darkness had now been exchanged for a sort of semi-gloom, in which the almost black rock gleamed wetly where the hurrying current of the stream had washed its base. "We're near the end!" shouted Walt to the others. Jack nodded. Suddenly his eye fell on Ramon's revolver, which lay at the bottom of the boat as it had fallen when he toppled overboard. One cartridge had been discharged, leaving but four good shells in the chamber, but in an emergency those four, the lad knew, would be better than no weapons at all. He regarded this as distinctly a piece of good luck--this finding of the pistol. He examined it and found that it was a heavy weapon of forty-four caliber. Hardly had he had time to observe all this before the boat, without the slightest warning, shot out into daylight, very much as a railroad train emerges from a tunnel. A swift glance at their surroundings showed Jack that they had floated into a sort of natural basin amid some wild, bare-looking hills. The banks of this basin were clothed with a sort of wild oat and interspersed with a small blue wild flower. Here and there were clumps of chapparal. But what pleased the lad most was the fact that, although not far from them a rude hut stood upon the bank, there was so far no sign of human occupancy of the place. Seizing the steering oar, Jack ran the boat up alongside a spot where the bank shelved gently down to the water's edge, and ran her, nose up, on the sand. "Hoo----" began Ralph jubilantly, his spirits carrying him away, but Jack's hand was over his mouth in a second. "The less noise we make the better," he breathed, stepping out of the boat on tiptoe and signing to the others to do the same. With scarcely a sound, they landed and stood at length on the grassy carpet sloping down to the sandy beach. So far not a sound had proceeded from the hut Jack turned to his companions with a cautious gesture.