“Inju!” approved Micky, when Jimmie was safely settled. “Now wait.”
If anybody above had noticed, nobody took time to object. What with the soldiers and scouts so eager to pass Sergeant Turpin’s count, and what with the rear guard hastening up, and what with everybody preparing weapons and clothing and re-forming for the prospective fight, there were few thoughts upon the whereabouts of two such items as wild Micky Free and his partner Jimmie Dunn. Micky was the kind who usually got a front seat.
Now they too crouched here out of sight upon the narrow shelf. Scarcely yet had the echoes of the thunderous volley died away. Listen! Shrill, distant whoops and yells of defiance, also from below! But there sounded a brisk command, above—the fast shuffle of feet and the rolling of pebbles—and down the slanting trail that cut along the sheer wall plunged, sliding and striding, the support company, Lieutenant Bourke first, Chief Big Mouth next, and their file of men, white and red mingled in a fast jumble, close pursuing, every carbine and rifle ready for business.
Micky poised, crouching tense. Just as the tail of the little procession swung past, slipping and steadying again he darted forward on the shelf. Jimmie imitated. They scuttled so fast that they either must keep going or tumble off. The shelf pinched out before it cut the trail, but Micky never paused; he leaped, and landed like a goat, on a smaller shelf, a mere piece of out-sticking rock; that gave him purchase for another leap which took him to the trail; and turning instantly he ran down.
Jimmie had no time for thought. What Micky could do, he could do—he had to! He, too, leaped; barely touched the next rock with one moccasin; sprang on, desperately, across space, brushing the wall; landed on the edge of the trail, slipped, recovered (Whew!), and gaining balance sped after Micky.
The trail descended, narrow and broken and icy in spots, at a steep angle. Anybody who lost his footing on it would be a “goner”—he’d not stop until, having bounced and rolled and hurtled, he was a fragment of shattered bone and flesh in the roaring river below. It was a regular Apache trail.
But Micky was running. The Lieutenant Bourke file were at a trot, and already half-way to the turn around the shoulder. So Jimmie ran.
Micky caught the tail of the file before it rounded the shoulder, and slackened to keep pace with it. Jimmie caught Micky just as the tail, who was John Cahill the blacksmith, was disappearing like the lash end of a dragged whip—but he did not go much farther.
The file were scattering like frightened quail, to a chorus of Apache yells, and the clatter and swish of arrows, and a rapidly barked command. Micky dived for the shelter of a jagged boulder, and Jimmie followed suit. They all had arrived.
It was a broad shelf two hundred yards long, about half-way between the bottom of the precipice and the top, and littered with boulders. On right and left, behind the boulders, were the Ross men, their carbine barrels pointing steadily at a high rock wall about in the middle of the shelf, a little way out from the face of the precipice. Behind this rock wall—which was ten feet high and built up smooth—was a large opening: the Yavapai cave!