“The spalpeens will be listening,” whispered Mickey, as they crept out, “and so ye naadn’t indulge in any whistling, or hurrahing, or dancing jigs on the way to our destination.”
Fred appreciated their common peril too well to allow any betrayal through his remissness. Favored by the darkness, they crept carefully along over the rocks and boulders, and through the vines and vegetation, until they were so close that the man halted.
“Do ye mind and kaap as still as a dead man, for we’re so close now that it won’t do to go any closer till we know what the spalpeens are doing.”
The two occupied this position for some time, during which nothing caught their ears to betray the presence of men or animals. Feeling the great value of time, Mickey was on the point of creeping forth, when he became aware that there was somebody moving near him. The sound was very slight, but the proof was all the more positive on that account; for it is only by such means that the professional scout judges of the proceedings of a foe near him.
His first dread was that the individual was in the rear, having entered the fissure while they were at the opposite end, and then allowed them to pass by him. But when the faint rustling caught his ear again there could be no doubt that it was in front of him.
“One of the spalpeens—and maybe Lone Wolf himself—coming in to larn about our health,” was his conclusion, though the situation was too critical to allow him to communicate with the lad behind him.
Reaching his hand back, he touched his arm, as a warning for the most perfect silence.
The boulder against which he was partly resting was no more quiet and motionless than Fred, who had nerved himself to meet the worst or best fortune. A few minutes more listening satisfied Mickey that the redskin was not a dozen feet in front, and that a particularly large boulder, which was partly revealed by some stray moonlight that made its way through the limbs and branches, was sheltering the scout. Not only that, but he became convinced that the Indian was moving around the left side of the rock, hugging it and keeping so close to the ground that the faintest shadowy resemblance of a human figure could not be detected.
It was at this juncture that the Irishman determined upon a performance perfectly characteristic and amusing in its originality. Carefully drawing his knife from his pocket, he managed to cut a switch, some five or six feet in length, the end of which was slightly split. He next took one of his matches, and struck it against the rock, holding and nursing the flame so far down behind it that not the slightest sign of it could be seen from the outside. Before the match had cleared itself of the brimstone, Mickey secured the other end of the stick in his hand. His next proceeding was to raise this stick, move it around in front, and then suddenly extend it at arms length. This brought the burning match into the dense shadow alongside the rock, and directly over the head of the amazed scout. The Hibernian character of the act was, that while it revealed to him his man, it also, although in a less degree, betrayed the location of Mickey himself, whose delighted astonishment may be imagined, when, instead of discerning a crouching, painted Apache, he recognized the familiar figure of Sut Simpson, the scout.
“What in thunder are ye driving at?” growled the no less astonished Sut, as the flame was almost brought against his face. “Do yer take me for a kag of powder, and do ye want to touch me off?”