"For the love of tripe! How did you do it?" asked Tom.

"Bless my peck of oats!" gasped Mr. Damon. "It's a good thing we had
Rad along!"

"All mules am alike," said the colored man with a grin. "An dish
yeah one ain't much different from mah Boomerang. I guess he's a
sorter cousin."

"Come on!" yelled San Pedro. "No time to lose. Make for the rocks!"

Tom, Ned and Mr. Damon sprinted then, and there was need to, for the
foremost of the galloping horses was not a hundred feet away. Then
came Eradicate, leading the mule that had at last consented to
hurry. The natives, with San Pedro, were already at the rocks,
waiting for the white hunters with the deadly electric rifles.

"If they stampede our mules we'll be in a pickle!" murmured Ned.

"I guess those ropes will hold unless they bite them through,"
remarked Tom.

"Yes, they sure hold," cried San Pedro, and indeed one had to shout
now to be heard above the thundering of the horses. Now the tethered
mules were lost to sight in the multitude of the other steeds all
about them.

"Come on, Ned!" yelled Tom, as he sighted his rifle. "Pump it into
them! We must turn them, or they may come over this way, and if they
do it will be all up with us."