there is no sauce like hunger, and after fred munson's experience of partial starvation, and nausea from the wild berries which he had eaten, the venison was as luscious as could be. it seemed to him that he had never tasted of anything he could compare to it.
“fred, me laddy, tell me all that has happened to you since we met—not that, aither, but since lone wolf snapped you up on his mustang, and ran away wid you. i wasn't about the city when the apaches made their call, being off on a hunt, as you will remember, so i didn't see all the sport, but i heard the same from misther simpson.”
thus invited, the boy went over the narration, already known, giving the full particulars of his adventures, from the morning he opened his eyes and found himself in the camp of the apaches in the mountains; to the hour when he slipped through from the upper earth into the cave below. mickey listened with great interest, frequently interrupting and expressing his surprise and gratitude at the good fortune which seemed to succeed bad fortune in every case.
“you sometimes read of laddies like you gettin out of the claws of these spalpeens, but you don't often see it, though you've been lucky enough to get out.”
“now, mickey, tell me how it was that you came to get on my track.”
“well, you see, i got back to new bosting shortly after the rumpus. i would have been in time enough to have had a hand in the wind-up, if it hadn't been that i got into a little circus of my own. me and a couple of apaches tried the game of cracking each other's heads, that was spun out longer than we meant, and so, as i was obsarving, when i rode into town, the fun was all over. i found misther simpson just gettin' ready to take your trail, and he axed me to do the same, and i was mighty glad to do it. i was desirous of bringing along your horse hurricane, for you to ride when we should get you, but soot would n't hear of it. he said the horse would only be a bother, and if we should lay hands onto you, either of our horses was strong enough to take you, so we left the crature behind.”
“did you have any trouble in following us?”
“not at first; a hundred red spalpeens riding over the prairie can't any more hide their trail than an irishman can save himself from cracking a head when he is invited to do so. we galloped along, without ever scarcely looking at the ground. you know i've larned something of the perarie business since we came west, and that was the kind of trail i could have follered wid both eyes shut and me hands handcuffed, and, knowing as we naaded to hurry, we put our mustangs to their best paces.”
“how was it that you didn't overtake us?”
“you had too much of a start; but when we struck the camp in the mountains—that is, where lone wolf and his spalpeens took their breakfast—we wasn't a great way behind 'em. we swung along at a good pace, soot trying to time ourselves so that we'd strike 'em 'bout dark, when he ca'c'lated there'd be a good chance to work in on 'em.”
“how was it you failed?'
“we'd worked that thing as nice as anything you ever heard tell on, if lone wolf hadn't played a trick on us. we had n't gone far on the trail among the mountains, when we found that the spalpeens had separated into two parties—three in one, and something like a hundred in the other.”
“and you did not know which had charge of me?”
“there couldn't be any sartinty about it, and the best we could do was to make a guess. soot got off his mustang and crawled round on his hands and knees, running his fingers over the ground, and looking down as careful like as me mither used to do with my head when she obsarved me scratching it more industrious than usual. he did n't say much, and arter a time he came back to where his mustang was waitin', and, leanin' agin the beast, looked up in my face, and axed me which party i thought you was in. i said the thray, of course, and that was the rason why they had gone off by themselves.”
“you were right, then, of course.”
“yes, and when i answered, soot, he just laughed kind o' soft like, and said that that was the very rason why he did not believe you was with the thray. he remarked that lone wolf was a mighty sharp old spalpeen. he knowed that soot would be coming on his trail, and he divided up his party so as to bother him. anybody would be apt to think just the same as i did—that the boy would be sent to the injun town in charge of the little party, while the others went on to hatch up some deviltry. lone wolf knowed enough to do that, and he had therefore kept the laddy with the big company, meaning that his old friend, the scout, should go on a fool's errand.
“that's the way soot rasoned, you see, and that's where he missed it altogether. he wasn't ready for both of us to take the one trail, so it was agreed that we should also divide into two parties—he going after the big company and i after the small one, he figuring out that, by so doing, he would get all the heavy work to do, and i would n't any, and there is where he missed it bad. there wasn't any way that we could fix it so that we could come together again, so the understanding was that each was to go on his own hook, and get back to new bosting the best way we could, and if there was n't any new bosting to go to, why, we was to keep on till we reached fort severn, which, you know is about fifty miles beyant.
“you understand, i was just as sartin' that i was on your trail as soot was that he was gainin' on ye; so we both worked our purtiest. i've been studyin' up this trailin' business ever since we struck this side of the mississippi, and i'd calculated that i'd larned something 'bout such things. i belave i could hang to the tracks of them three horsemen till i cotched up to 'em, and nothing could throw me off; but it was n't long before i begun to get things mixed. the trail bothered me, and at last i was stunned altogether. i begun to think that maybe soot was right, after all, and the best thing i could do was to turn round and cut for home; but i kept the thing up till i struck a trail that led up into the mountains, which i concluded was made by one of the spalpeens in toting you off on his shoulders. that looked, too, as if the ingin' settlement was somewhere not far off, and i begun to think ag'in that soot was wrong and i right. i kept the thing up till night, when i had n't diskivered the first sign, and not only that, but had lost the trail, and gone astray myself.”
“just as i did,” fred observed.
“i pushed my mustang ahead,” mickey continued, “and he seemed to climb like a goat, but there was some places where i had to get off and help him. i struck a spot yesterday where there was the best of water and grass, and the place looked so inviting that i turned him loose, intending to lave him to rist till to-day. while he was there, i thought i might as well be taking observations around there, makin' sartin' to not get out of sight of the hoss, so i shouldn't get lost from him.”
“and is he near by?”
“not more than a mile away. i was pokin” round like a thaif in a pratie-patch, when i coom onto a small paice of soft airth, where, as sure as the sun shines, i seed your footprint. i knowed it by its smallness, and by the print of them odd-shaped nails in your heel. well, you see, that just set me wild. i knowed at once that by some hook or crook you had give the spalpeens the slip, and was wandering round kind of lost like mysilf. so i started on the tracks, and followed them, till it got dark, as best i could, though they sometimes led me over the rocks and hard earth, in such a way that i could only guess at 'em. when night came, i was pretty near this spot, but i was puzzled. i could n't tell where to look further, and i was afeared of gettin' off altogether. so i contented mesilf wid shtrayin' here and there, and now and then givin' out the signal that you and me used to toot when we was off on hunts together. when this morning arriv', i struck signs agin, and at last found that your track led toward these bushes, and thinks i to myself, thinks i, you'd crawled in there to take a snooze, and i hove ahead to wake you up, but i was too ambitious for me own good, as was the case when i proposed to bridget o'flannigan, and found that she had been already married to tim mcgubbins a twelvemonth, and had a pair of twins to boast of. i own it wasn't a dignified and graceful way of coming down-stairs, but i was down before i made up my mind.”
“well, mickey, we are here, and the great thing now is to get out. can you tell any way?”
the irishman took the matter very philosophically. it would seem that any one who had dropped down from the outer world as had he, would feel a trifle nervous; but he acted as if he had kindled his camp-fire on the prairie, with the certainty that no enemy was within a hundred miles.
when he and his young friend had eaten all they needed, there was still a goodly quantity left, which he folded up with as much care in the same piece of paper as though it were a tiara of diamonds.
“we won't throw that away just yet. it's one of them things that may come into use, as me mither used to say when she laid the brickbats within aisy raich, and looked very knowingly at her old man.”
after the completion of the meal, man and boy occupied themselves for some time in gathering fuel, for it was their purpose to keep the fire going continually, so long as they remained in the cave—that is, if the thing were possible. there was an immense quantity of wood; it had probably been thrown in from above, as coal is shoveled into the mouth of a furnace, and it must have been intended for the use of parties who had been in the cave before.
when they had gathered sufficiently to last them for a good while, mickey lit his pipe, and they sat down by the fire to discuss the situation. the temperature was comfortable, there being no need of the flames to lessen the cold; but there was a certain tinge of dampness, natural to such a location, that made the fire grateful, not alone for its cheering, enlivening effect, but for its power in dissipating the slight peculiarity alluded to.
seated thus the better portion of an hour was occupied by them in talking over the past and interchanging experiences, the substance of which had already been given. they were thus engaged when mickey, who seemed to discover so much from specimens of the fuel which they had gathered, picked up another stick, which was charred at one end, and carefully scrutinized it, as though it contained an important sermon intended for his benefit.
