At the moment of reining up their mustangs, the fugitives were about equidistant between the two fires, and it was just as dangerous to advance as to retreat. For one second the Irishman meditated a desperate charge, in the hope of breaking through the company that first appeared in his path, and, had he been alone, or accompanied by a man, he would have done so. But, slight as was his own prospect of escape, he knew there was absolutely none for the boy in such a desperate effort, and he determined that it should not be made.  
“Can’t we make a dash straight through them?” asked Fred, reading the thought of Mickey, as he glanced from one to the other, and noted the fearfully rapid approach of the redskins.
 
“It can’t be done,” replied the Irishman. “There is only one thing left for us.”
 
“What is that?”
 
“Do as I do. Yonder is an opening that may serve us for awhile.”
 
As he spoke, he slipped off his steed, leaving him to work his own will. Fred did not hesitate a moment, for there was not a moment to spare.
 
As he sprang to the ground, he pulled the beautiful Apache blanket from the back of the mustang that had served him so well. Dragging that with him, the two hurried to the right, making for a wooded crevice between the rocks, which seemingly offered a chance for them to climb to the surface above, if, in the order of things, they should gain the opportunity to do so. Mickey O’Rooney, as a matter of course, took the lead and in a twinkling he was among the gnarled and twisted saplings, the interlacing vines, and the rolling stones and rattling gravel. As soon as he had secured a foothold, he reached out his hand to help his young friend.
 
“Never mind me. I can keep along behind you. Go as fast as you can.”
 
“Let me have the blanket,” said Mickey, drawing it from his grasp. “Now come ahead, for we have got to go it like monkeys.”
 
He turned and bent to his task with the recklessness of despair, for, even in that dreadful crisis, he thought more of the little fellow than he did of himself. If he could have been assured of his safety, he would have been ready to wheel about and meet his score or more of foes, and fight them single-handed, as Leonidas and his band did at Thermopylæ. But the fate of the two was linked together, and, sink or swim, it must be fulfilled in company.
 
The narrow, wooded ravine, in which they had taken enforced refuge, was only three or four feet in width, the bottom sloping irregularly upward, at an angle of forty five degrees. So long as this continued, so long could they maintain their laboring ascent to the top. Mickey had strong hopes that, with the advantage of the start, they might reach that point far enough in advance of their pursuers to secure some other concealment that would serve them till nightfall, when they could steal out and try their chances again.
 
The saplings growing at every inclination afforded them much assistance, as they were able to seize hold with one or both hands, and thus help themselves along. But the vines in many places were of a peculiar running nature and they frequently caught their feet and stumbled; but they were instantly up and at it again. All at once Mickey, who was scarcely an arm’s length in advance, halted so abruptly that Fred ran plump against him.
 
“Why don’t you go on?” asked the panting lad.
 
“I can’t. Here’s the end.”
 
So it was, indeed. While pressing forward with undiminished effort, the Irishman found himself suddenly confronted with a solid, perpendicular wall of rock. The narrow chasm, or fissure, terminated.
 
It was like a fugitive, his heart beating high with hope, checked in his flight by the obtrusion of the Great Chinese Wall across his path. Mickey looked upward. As he stood, he could, with outstretched arms, touch the wall on his right and left, and kick the one in front—the only open route being in the rear, which was commanded by the Apache party. As he did so, he saw, through the interstices of the interweaving, straggling branches, the clear, blue sky, with the edge of the fissure fully forty feet above his head. His first hope was that some of the saplings around him were lofty enough to permit him to use them as a ladder; but the tallest did not approach within a half dozen yards of the top. They were shut in on every hand.
 
“We can’t run any further,” said the Irishman, after a hasty glance at the situation. “We are cotched as fairly as ever was a mouse in a trap, and it now remains for us to peg away, and go under doing the best we can. Have ye your pistol?”
 
“Yes; I picked it up again, after throwing it in the face of the grizzly, but it isn’t loaded.”
 
“Then it ain’t of much account, as me mither used to say in her affectionate references to me father; but if one of the spalpeens happen to come onto ye too suddent like, ye might scare him by shoving that into his eyes. I’ve got the powder for the same, but the bullets won’t fit it, so I’ll have to do the shooting.”
 
They were at bay and the Irishman was right in his declaration that they could do nothing but fight it out as best they might. The question of further flight was settled by the trap in which they were caught.
 
They paused, expecting to hear the tramp of the Indians behind them, but, as it continued quiet, Mickey ventured upon a more critical ............