All this was grist for Mickey and Fred. The long silence and inaction—so far as these two were concerned—of the Apaches convinced the fugitives that some important interruption was going on, and that it could not fail to operate in the most direct way in their favor. It was well into the afternoon when the collision occurred between them and the Apaches, and enough time had already passed to bring the night quite close at hand. An hour or so more, and darkness would be upon them.
“I don’t belave the spalpeens have found put just the precise spot where we’ve stowed away,” said Mickey, in his cautious undertone, to his companion, “for I’ve no evidence that such is the case.”
“They may take it into their heads to come into the fissure again, and then where are we?”
“Right here, every time. We couldn’t get a better spot, unless it might be at the mouth.”
“Don’t you think we had better go there?” asked the lad, who could not feel the assurance of his friend.
“I see nothing to be gained by the same, as Tim O’Loony said when some one told him that honesty was the best policy. If we start to return there, they’ll find out where we are, and begin to roll stones on us. I don’t want to go along, dodging rocks as big as a house, wid an occasional rifle-shot thrown in, by way of variety.”
“Don’t you fear they will creep in and try to surprise us?”
“Not before dark, and then we can shift our position.”
“Do you believe there is any hope at all for us in the way of getting out?”
The Irishman was careful not to arouse too strong hopes in the breast of the lad, and he tried to be guarded in his reply:
“An hour ago I would have sworn if there war a half-dozen of us in here, there was no show of our getting away wid our top-knots, for the raison that there is but one hole through which we could sneak, and there’s twenty of ’em sitting round there, and watching for us; but I faal that there is some ground for hope.”
“What reason for your saying there is hope? Isn’t it just as hard to get out the front without being seen?”
“It might be just now; but there’s no telling what them ither spalpeens mane to do arter the sun goes down. S’pose they get Lone Wolf and his men in such a big fight that they’d have their hands full, what’s to hinder our sneaking out the back-door during the rumpus, hunting up our mustangs, or somebody else’s, and resooming our journey to New Boston, which these spalpeens were so impertinent as to interrupt a short time since?”
Fred Munson felt that this was about as rose-colored a view as could be taken, and indeed a great deal rosier than the situation warranted—at least, in his opinion.
“Mickey, if that isn’t counting chickens before they’re hatched, I don’t know what is! While you’re supposing things, suppose these Indians don’t do all that, where’s going to come our chance of creeping out without their knowing it?”
Mickey scratched his head in his puzzled way, and replied:
“I’m sorry to obsarve that ye persist in axing knotty questions, as I reproved me landlord for doing in the ould country, when he found me digging praities in his patch. There’s a good many ways in which we may get a chance to craap out, and I’m bound to say there be a good many more by which we can’t; but the good Lord has been so good to us, that I can’t help belaving He won’t let us drop jist yet, though He may think that the best thing for us both will be to let the varmints come in and scalp us.”
There was a good deal of hope in the Irishman, and a certain contagion marked it, which Fred Munson felt, but he could not entertain as much of it as did his older and more experienced friend. Still, he was ready to make any attempt which offered the least chance of flight. He was hungry and thirsty, and there was no way of supplying the wants, and he dreaded the night of suffering to be succeeded by the still more tormenting day.
It was very warm in the ravine, where not a stir of air could reach them. If they suffered themselves to be cooped up there through the night, they would be certain to continue there during the following day, for it was not to be expected by the wildest enthusiast that any way of escape presented itself under the broad sunlight. The following night must find them more weakened in every respect; for the chewing of leaves, while it might afford temporary relief, could not be expected to amount to much in a run of twenty-four hours. Clearly, if anything at all was to be done or attempted, it should not be deferred beyond the evening, which was now so close at hand.
But the objection again came up that whatever Mickey and Fred decided on, hinged upon the action of parties with whom they had nothing to do, and with whom, as a matter of course, it was impossible to communicate. If the Kiowas, as they were suspected to be, should choose to draw off and have nothing further to do with the business, the situation of the fugitives must become as despairing and hopeless as in the first case.
&nbs............