Frontier Boys in Frisco Part 8

Hearing the voice of his comrade, Jim drew in his head.

"Catch a sight of the black pirate craft?" inquired the engineer.

"Dead ahead, and a smooth sea, sir," replied Jim touching his hat.

"Glad to be off the pebbles anyway, Captain," returned the engineer; "it may aid digestion, but it is doocid hard on old bones, like mine."

"I'm going upon deck with the pilot," said Jim. "I can't stay below here while that fellow is within hail."

"Natural feeling, Jim," agreed the engineer, "but you will have to have the Jehu up there slow down."

"Can't afford to lose the time," declared Jim. "I can reach the forward step and make it all right."

"Risky," said the engineer, "but that fact won't stop you."

He was correct, it did not, and the driver almost fell off his box in astonishment when he saw Jim's head at his elbow.

"Hey! what's this!" he yelled, as he clubbed his whip to strike. "Oh!

it's you is it, Mister," he changed his tone when he saw who it was. "By thunder! I thought I was to be kilt."

"I'll sit in front here, Bill," said Jim genially. "I want to keep an eye open to see that that greaser don't give us the slip."

"He's there in that hack yet," a.s.sured the driver; "he hain't had a chance to jump out yit."

"They ain't pulling ahead are they?" inquired Jim, anxiously.

"Holding 'em level going down this hill," replied the driver. "My horse is a leetle heavy for a down grade, but you will see something different when we are going up hill or on the flat."

"I believe you," said Jim heartily; "that horse of yours is a good one."

"Paid five hundred for him, he ought to be," declared his owner proudly.

Inside the hack the engineer was making himself as comfortable as possible. His feet were upon the opposite seat, the green carriage robe was wrapped snugly around him and his head was dented back into the soft cushions. He was thoroughly enjoying the chase in his own way. The lurching of the vehicle did not disturb him, and he felt a certain pleasure in the freedom from any immediate responsibility. There was an excitement, too, in not knowing where the chase would carry. It was all a strange section of the city where they now were. He could see the ghostly fronts of long lines of houses, one not distinguishably different from another, but as similar as if they had been sawn from the same block of wood. The fog palliated many a monstrosity of wooden ornament, little balcony, or carved pinnacle.

If John Berwick was quiescent on the inside of the hack, Jim was on the _qui vive_ on the outside. He had no idea of the direction in which they were going, but he was determined never to lose sight of that particular hack. At this moment they reached the bottom of a long hill. An eddy of air lifted the fog aside for an instant and Jim saw a head thrust out of the window of the hack.

"Geewillikins!" he exclaimed, wrathfully; "that isn't the greaser!"

Sure enough the head was not that belonging to the Mexican at all. It was a s.h.a.ggy bearded face that leered back at Jim, and then he shouted some direction to the driver, and with a belligerent shake of his fist at Jim, jerked his head back.

"I guess that hunchback is in there all the same," cried the driver.

"He'd better be," growled Jim.

At the motion made by the bushy whiskered man, the driver of the first carriage in this active procession, turned his team at right angles into a street running east. "Bill" followed suit making a dangerous swerve, that almost overturned his vehicle, but it righted itself against the curb, and on the pursuit went. But Jim was beginning to be worried, for the big horse was tiring rapidly, while the mustangs seemed unflagging in their energy.

"How far have we gone?" asked Jim.

"About two miles, Boss," replied the driver.

"It won't be long till dusk," said Jim, "with this fog rolling in."

"I'll get back, what they have gained on us," declared Bill with conviction, "before they have gone another mile."

Jim noticed that this new turn was taking them into an apparently better section of the city, where there were really some fine-looking residences.

"They are making a stern chase of it, Jim," called Berwick, poking his head out of the window.

"We will catch them yet, Chief," declared Jim with outward confidence.

"Good boy!" replied the engineer. "I must say I like your spirit."

"How are you putting in the time down there, John?" queried Jim.

"Taking it easy," replied Berwick; "resting up in case I have to hustle a little later on."

"Wise man!" rejoined Jim; "just as well to save your energies. There will be something doing pretty soon or I miss my guess. We should overhaul them on the next hill."

"You look kind of damp, better get under cover, Jim," urged John Berwick. Indeed Jim did have a dampish look--his eyelashes and eyebrows were beaded with the moisture.

"No, I'm going to stay on deck until we overhaul those pirates," he replied, "and it won't be long either."

However, it was somewhat longer than Jim thought. It seemed that the driver of the forward coupe was determined to make a clean getaway at this point for he laid on the whip with fierce determination.

CHAPTER XI

THE CHASE CONTINUED

After going a half a mile further, the leader in the race made another sharp turn, and a short distance ahead his goal was in sight, or it would have been had not the heavy fog prevailed. Of this, Jim was of course in nowise aware. Suddenly the hack ahead whirled and came to a stop. Two figures leaped out into the fog and started on the run.

Jim thrust a coin into the willing grasp of "Bill," and leaped to the ground closely followed from the cab by John Berwick, leaving the two drivers to themselves, and only a few yards apart. These worthies taking no further interest in the performance of their recent fares, engaged in a wordy altercation as to the rival merits of their steeds, and each had a different answer to the problem of "who won the race?" The outcome of this led to blows; as to the result, that belongs to another chronicle than mine. We are at present concerned with the race between Jim and the Mexican, with the chief and "Bushy Whiskers" as runners up.

Jim bounded after the fleeing Mexican and his comrade, with all the speed of his pent-up energy, and was overtaking him rapidly, when what looked like a high dark rampart showed indistinct through the fog a few rods ahead. Then the Mexican bent low and darted out of sight, and his st.u.r.dy companion bounding high in the air disappeared.

Jim was thrown suddenly backward; as in mad pursuit, he dashed into an almost invisible fence of wire, steel colored,--which luckily was not barbed. The engineer who was a few paces behind, stopped in the nick of time, his outstretched hand easily breaking the force of his collision.

"Hurt, Jim?" he queried.

"Naw!" replied James. "Come on, John, let's see if you can jump like his whiskers."

"I'm no rat like that greaser," replied Berwick; "I can't crawl through, I've got to jump."

He showed himself something of an acrobat by the grace and agility with which he vaulted the six foot fence, and Jim went over with more power if less grace. Now they were in a quandary for directly before them was a wood of the tall and ghostly eucalyptus, into which the two fugitives had fled.