"Get it, please," said Ralph, pulling off one of his gloves. The boy rapidly slashed it with his pocket-knife, while the others watched him interestedly. In the meantime, the chauffeur had tremblingly "jacked up" the car. Binding his handkerchief about the puncture, and placing the leather from his glove about that, Ralph rapidly wound some strips of raw-hide from Pete's pockets about the bandage. This done he proceeded to blow up the tire. To his great joy the extemporized "plug" held. The tire swelled and grew hard. "It won't last long, but it may hold long enough for us," said Ralph, as he let the car down again and handed the jack to the "chaffer." As the man took and replaced it at the back of the car, Buck Bradley regarded him with extreme disfavor. Then he turned to Ralph. "Say, sonny," he said, "did you say you could run a car?" "Yes." "This one?" "I think so." Bradley turned to his "chaffer." "Here, you!" he bellowed, "it's about two miles into town. Hoof it in thar an' when yer git ter camp tell Sam Stow to run ther show ter-night. I'm off on important business, tell him." As the "chaffer" shuffled off, Buck Bradley began to hum: "I knew at dawn, when de rooster crowed, Dere wuz gwine ter be trouble on de Gran' Trunk Ro-ad!" "It's a good thing you got that done in jig-time, young feller," spoke Buck, as the job and his song were finished, and they scrambled back into the car, "fer here they come." He pointed back up the starlit road. Not more than a few hundred yards off, several mounted figures came into view. At the same moment that the occupants of the car sighted them, the pursuing insurrectos made out the automobile. Yelling at the top of their voices, they swept down upon it. "Let 'er out, and don't bother ter hit nuthin' but ther high places," Buck admonished Ralph, who now held the wheel. CHAPTER XX. AT THE ESMERALDA MINE. "If only I was certain that my boy and his friends were safe, Geisler, I wouldn't feel so much anxiety." Mr. Merrill, an anxious look on his face, paced up and down the floor of the office of the Esmeralda Mine. It was the morning of the day following the dash for safety in Buck Bradley's car, and the mine owner and his superintendent had been in anxious consultation since breakfast. In truth, they had enough to worry them. In the specie room of the mine was stored more than $20,000 worth of dust, the product of the big stamp mill. From what they had been able to ascertain, the insurrectos were unusually active in the neighborhood. Open warning had been sent to the American mine owners, including Mr. Merrill, to be prepared to yield up generously and freely, or have their property destroyed. In addition to this worry, the mine owner and his superintendent, together with the three young "level bosses," had been practically cut off from communication with the outside world for the past twenty-four hours.