Through the Mountains.
The moon was high in the sky, and it was near midnight. O’Rooney, who had taken upon himself the task of guiding the mustang, continued him on up the ridge, directly toward the spot where Fred had lain so long watching the action of the Apaches gathered around the opening of the cave.
The mustang walked along quite obediently, seeming to feel the load no more than if it was only one half as great. But those animals are like their native masters—cunning and treacherous, ready to take advantage of their riders whenever it happens to come in their way.
“Which is the raison I cautions ye to be riddy for a fall,” said Mickey, after referring to some of the peculiarities of these steeds of the Southwest. “The minute he gits it into his head that we ain’t paying attention, he’ll rear up on his fore-feet, and walk along that way for half a mile. Not having any saddle, we’ll have to slide over his neck, unless I can brace me feet agin his ears, and ride along standing straight up.”
The constant expectation of being flung over the head of a horse is not the most comforting sensation that one can have, and the lad clung fast to his friend in front, determined not to go, unless in his company. Upon reaching the top of the ridge, the horse was reined up for a few minutes, as Mickey, like the mariner at sea, was desirous of taking an observation, so as to prevent himself going astray.
“Can you remember how you were placed?” asked the lad, after he had spent several minutes in the survey; “that is, do you know which way to go for the horse you left eating grass?”
“I was a little puzzled at first, as me father obsarved to the school-teacher when he said I had been a good boy, but I see how it is now. It must have been that I got a little turned round when I was down in the basemint of these mountains, but I see how it is now. Right yonder,” he added, pointing toward the Northwest, “is where I left my hoss, and there is where I hope I’ll find him again.”
“Is the road so that we can ride the mustang all the way there, or must we walk?”
“I remember I come right along some kind of a path, made by animals, after leaving the beast. I s’pose it’s the route taken by the crathurs in going to the water, for there’s a splendid spring right there, and the path that I was just tilling you ’bout leads straight to it.”