The robber spoke these words boldly enough, but he evidently did not like the looks of things.  He gazed earnestly at Archie, as if trying to determine what it was that had encouraged him to show so bold a front, and seeing that he held one hand behind him, Pierre came to the conclusion that he must, by some means, have secured possession of a revolver.

“Drop that weapon, and hold your arms above your head,” said the robber.

Archie did not move.  While he appeared to be looking steadily at the chief, he was really watching the movements of the figure in buckskin, which had all this while been working its way quickly, but noiselessly, through the bushes, and had now approached within a few feet of the Ranchero.

“Did you hear what I said?” demanded the latter, placing his hand on one of his revolvers.  “You are my prisoner.”

“Well, then, why don’t you come and take me?” asked Archie.

At this moment a slight rustling in the leaves caught the quick ear of the robber, who turned suddenly, uttered a cry of alarm, and fled down the path, closely followed by something that to Archie looked like a gray streak, so swiftly did it move.  But it was not a gray streak—­it was Dick Lewis, who, after a few of his long strides, collared the Ranchero with one hand and threw him to the ground, and with the other seized the revolver he was trying to draw, and wrested it from his grasp.  Pierre struggled desperately, but to no purpose, for the trapper handled him as easily as though he had been a child.

“Now, then, you tarnal Greaser,” exclaimed Dick, “your jig’s danced, an’ you must settle with the fiddler.  If I only had you out on the prairie, I’d larn you a few things I reckon you never heern tell on.  Come here, you keerless feller, an’ tell me if you ’member what I said to you yesterday!  Whar’s Frank?”

Before Archie had time to reply, an incident happened, which, had the trapper been a less experienced man than he was, would have turned his triumph into defeat very suddenly.  He had more than one enemy to contend with, and the first intimation he had of the fact, was a sound that Archie had heard so often since his residence in California that it had become familiar to him—­the whistling noise made by a lariat in its passage through the air.  Before Archie could look around to discover whence this new danger came, he saw the trapper stretched at full length on the ground.  For an instant his heart stood still; but it was only for an instant, for Dick was on his feet again immediately, and Archie drew a long breath of relief when he saw the lasso, which he feared had settled around his friend’s neck, glide harmlessly over his shoulder.  The trapper, from force of long habit, was always on the watch for danger, and when he heard that whistling sound in the air, he did not stop to look for his enemy, but dropped like a flash to avoid the lasso; and when he arose to his feet his long rifle was leveled at a thicket of bushes in front of him.