“Can ye rade what the same manes?” asked Mickey, who was gradually accumulating a wonderful faith in the woodcraft of the scout.
But the latter laughed. It would have been the height of absurdity for him to have pretended that he could make anything of the meaning of a simple fire burning at night. It was only when actual signals were made that he could tell what they were intended for.
“It’s some of the ’Paches, I s’pose. Lone Wolf is in trouble, but I don’t know as we’ve got anything to do with it. The night is getting along, and we ought to be back to camp by this time.”
Without waiting longer, he turned about and moved back into the wood, followed by his two friends.
It seemed strange to both of the latter that he could have left his mustang so far away from the place where his self-imposed duties had called him to bring to naught the cunning of his great enemy, the principal war-chief of the Apaches. But the truth was, the camps of the scout and the redskins were not so widely separated as Mickey and Fred believed. He had selected the best site possible, and took a roundabout course in going to or from it, as he had more means given him of concealing his trail. There were places where the soil was so rocky and stony that the foot left not the slightest imprint of its passage.
They had gone but a short distance from the ravine when they encountered one of the very stretches so valuable to persons in their predicament. No grass or vegetation of any kind impeded their way, and it was like walking over a hard, uncarpeted floor. Making their way across this, they struck into a wood that was denser than any they had encountered thus far. There their progress was slow, but they continued steadily forward, talking but little, and then in guarded tones. About the hour of midnight the camp of Sut Simpson was reached.