“Help! help!” he shouted, in stentorian tones, discharging another barrel of his revolver, to arouse his companions.  “Pierre, your birds have flown!”

“Run now, fellows!” whispered Frank, and, suiting the action to the word, he jumped up, and took to his heels.

CHAPTER XVII.

The struggle on the cliff.

As we have before remarked, the place in which the Rancheros had made their camp was a natural recess in the mountains.  It was surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, the tops of which seemed to pierce the clouds, and whose sides were so steep that a goat could scarcely have found footing thereon.  In front of the glade was the gorge, the sight of which had so terrified Arthur Vane, and which was so deep that the roar of the mountain torrent, that ran through it, could be but faintly heard by one standing on the cliffs above.

There were three ways to get out of the glade:  one was by the narrow ledge of rocks by which the Rancheros and their captives had entered it in the morning; another was by a path on the opposite side of the glade, which also ran along the very brink of the precipice; the third was by climbing up the cliffs to the dizzy heights above.  These avenues of escape were all more or less dangerous, and one unaccustomed to traveling in the mountains would have been at a loss to decide which to take.  Indeed, a very timid boy would have preferred to remain a prisoner among the Rancheros, as long as he was sure of kind treatment and plenty to eat, rather than risk any of them.  If he took either of the paths that ran along the chasm, he would require the skill of a rope-dancer to cross it in safety; for they were both narrow and slippery, and a single misstep in the darkness would launch him into eternity.  If he tried to scale the mountains, which, in some places, overhung the glade, he would be in equal danger; for he might, at any moment, lose his balance, and come tumbling back again.

Frank and his two friends had thought of all these things during the day, and they knew just what perils they were likely to encounter; but they were not formidable enough to turn them from their purpose.  While they were crawling cautiously through the grass, they had been allowed ample time to make up their minds what they would do, if their flight should be discovered before they got out of the glade; and, consequently, when the yells of the sentinel, and the reports of his pistol, told them that the pursuit was about to begin, they did not hesitate, but proceeded at once to carry out the plans they had formed.  Archie, the moment he jumped to his feet, darted toward the cliffs, while Frank and Johnny ran for the ledge by which they had entered the pass in the morning; and, by the time the Rancheros were fairly awake, their prisoners had disappeared as completely as though they had never been in the glade at all.